Wenjack

This chapter is told from the first-person perspective of Wenjack.

Wenjack recognizes that the boys’ uncle is gutting the same fish that Wenjack saw in the river. A girl, the brothers’ cousin, enters the family home with her mother. Wenjack counts five people in the room on his fingers, not including himself. He looks at the small fish and calculates that there will not be enough food for him to eat too. This causes him to realize that he has forgotten the Ojibwe word for “none.”

The boys’ aunt prepares the food. The children are given fish, some hot fish water, and a small piece of potato. There is not enough food for the adults to have a full meal; the boys’ uncle insists that his wife have the scrapings from the pot.

The uncle lights a pipe and tells the boys about how their parents were killed next to the train track. Wenjack notices that the boys’ cousin is very pretty. As Wenjack listens to the uncle’s story, he sees a spider in the corner of the room.

Wenjack falls asleep and has a nightmare in which a Fish Belly man comes to take the pretty cousin to school.