The Three Thorns by Michael Gibney

rabbits. The rabbit hunter then helped Benjamin to his feet with a mighty tug.
    The man was large but quite short for an adult.
    “I don’t travel with adults,” snapped Tommy after he threw the bag back at the man’s feet.
    “Neither do I,” the man replied, smiling back. “My name is O’Malley. I am a hunter of these fields and I have a permit, so you know…and you are?” he asked, eyeing both boys.
    “Oh…my name is Benjamin, Benjamin B-Brannon, Mr. O’Malley.”
    “O’Malley! What kind of a name is that for a hunter?” whispered Tommy to Benjamin, who was trying desperately to ignore his friend’s rudeness.
    The countryman leaned in toward Tommy. “And what do they call you then, boy?” O’Malley asked with a mischievous grin.
    Tommy looked up at the sturdy man and jerked when he heard another howl from the woods behind him. “T-Tommy’s the name, Tommy Joel.”
    The large man took another step forward bending down slightly to look young Tommy in his fear-filled green eye.
    “Indeed…do you have your permit, Thomas?” he whispered.
    The boy could only muster a silent ‘no’ in reply, whilst shaking his head. O’Malley took another glance into the woods behind them and picked his bag of dead animals from the frosty grass.
    “The look on yer face. I’m just joking with ya, lad,” he chuckled, as he began to walk away from the pair.
    The two boys stood in the frost watching the stranger walk down the other side of the dark hill toward the massive open fields. O’Malley stopped a few feet ahead of them. “Well come on then,” he called back.
    “We don’t walk with strangers neither,” Tommy shouted back stubbornly.
    “Suit yourselves, I’ll walk home by myself then. I can’t wait to put my feet up by a nice warm fire and eat some of my homemade rabbit stew. Hmm, or maybe I’ll have some tomato and basil soup. It goes well with pheasant. Anyway, good luck with the storm, boys. Tomorrow’s the first day of winter.” He chuckled again and continued walking, whistling, without a care in the world. The beautiful glow of the full moon gleamed down on him, lighting up the rows of the fields in the distance.
    O’Malley seemed a very odd character, which made Tommy extra cautious of him. The toughened orphan had never had any good experiences with adults or guardians before, much less a wild hunter from the country.
    Benjamin also had little, if any, trust for adults, especially strangers. But O’Malley appeared a bit too jolly to fit into either category. It was a risk between joining this stranger or trekking through the bitter cold and possibly freezing to death.
    “I think we should go with him,” suggested Benjamin.
    Tommy rolled his eyes and pushed his smaller friend forward. “You go with him if you want to get yourself caught or worse…kidnapped. I’m following the map.”
    Benjamin kicked at the frosted grass in frustration at Tommy’s stubbornness.
    “Well, I’m not going to freeze to death trying to find my way in the dark,” Benjamin sighed as he followed the rabbit hunter’s footsteps.
    Tommy slumped next to a tree to memorize the map. Hypnotic sounds of branches rustling inside the woods sent him into a restless sleep until a loud howl woke him. He peered over the hill’s edge to see a large stretch of land close below, but Benjamin and O’Malley were no longer in sight.
    Winds blew fierce across the fields as Tommy made a late start toward his destination.
    Adrenaline kept his body going while he ran down the opposite side of the hill. A stone embedded in the ground instantly caught his shoe and flung him forward. Rolling the rest of the way down the steep hillside, Tommy roughly landed flat on his face in the frost.
    The winds had grown stronger and he could feel the frost bite at his bare knees where his trousers had been ripped. His legs were cut and bruised from the tumble, which made him feel wretched. Picking himself up from the frosty ground, he limped his