The Painted Bird

Though frightened, the boy is happy to have learned survival skills from Olga. He explains that a “comet”—a “small, portable stove”—can be made from a can punched with holes and looped with wire, and that the comet “could serve as a constant source of heat and as a miniature kitchen” (28). It also offers protection: swinging the comet by its handle scares away dogs and people, who fear being burned by its trail of sparks.

The comet is as hard to come by as it is precious, for cans “were found only along the railroad tracks which carried military transports” (30). Villagers fight over cans and send men out daily to gather them, prepared to fight outsiders who attempt to take them for themselves.

Cold and terrified by the shadows in the woods, the boy laments that he’s without the comet given to him by Olga. When he hears cows mooing, he climbs a tree and spies a band of people swinging their comets as they head toward their homes. He follows them, hiding in the bushes; he then attacks one of the villagers and steals the villager’s comet. The rest of the group runs off toward the village.