The next problem Ben has is getting Madec’s attention, get him off the side of the mountain, and to get him within slingshot range of Ben without expecting Ben’s attack. After Ben gets his food and water, he must get back down the mountain because Madec is climbing up the side of the mountain with intent to kill him. He spots Madec on the side of the mountain, facing the mountain, and sees him pounding something into the side of the hill. Ben needs to get Madec’s attention so he will come to Ben. If Ben were to go to Madec, it would be far too dangerous considering the weapon difference. The next thing that Ben does is he sets Madec’s camp on fire. He did this by shattering the Coleman lantern and the camp caught fire quickly. So Madec abruptly swung his head over to his camp which was now totally up in flames. Madec came down from the mountainside in a fush to put out this fire before it possibly spreads, ignoring everything else including the stone slab that Ben was behind. Ben then ambushed Madec with his slingshot, first shooting him in the hand that Madec was carrying his .358. It was a direct hit and the gun did drop to the ground, but Madec was still going for it hoping to grab it and kill Ben. But Ben was relentless and kept firing away at Madec, each time weakening Madec to the point where he had to give up. Now Ben was in control. He finally outsmarted Madec and it appeared that everything was going to turn out just as Ben had hoped. In the end, the police found out that Madec had been lying and Ben was telling the truth, which was the opposite of what they had thought all along.
In the novel Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein, the main character, Rod, faces many challenging problems during his life-threatening journey to survive. Rod plays a major role in a community formed by young adults involved in a huge survival test. The test that they are taking has no rules, no boundaries, and nobody to protect them. Rod shows great leadership in the story and not just keeps himself alive, but helps many people do the same. But it’s not easy.
The first problem Rod faces occurs before he even leaves home for his survival test. While Rod is talking with his sister, Helen, she gives him some very surprising news. She tells him that their father has a degenerative disease under which he was slowly starving to death. He has a couple weeks to live, at most. Rod is stricken from this news and doesn’t know what to do. He really wants to go on this survival trip and it’s already all planned out, but if his father doesn’t have long to live, then Rod wants to spend as much time with him as possible. Before Rod heard this disturbing news he had gotten into an argument with his father, who doesn’t want Rod to leave, pleading, “I can’t let you go away at this time”. Because of his father’s illness, Rod’s parents decide to make a Rambotham jump. This is when they will exchange twenty years for two weeks. They will be away for two weeks, which will give Mr. Walker twenty more years of life. Hopefully, during these twenty years, a cure will be discovered for Mr. Walker’s disease. This is good news for Rod because his father will be alive for a lot longer than anyone expected and this means that Rod will be able to go on the survival test.
The next problem Rod is faced with and must find a way to solve occurs when the four older students come across Rod and the rest of the group and try to take over. These students don’t think that they have to listen to Rod because he is younger than them. So when Rod orders them to work and they refuse, it turns into a bad situation. Rod demanded that they work by saying, “You’ll have to fish or cut bait”. This really ticks them off, especially the McGowan brothers. Bruce gets so upset and fed up by Rod trying to tell them what to do, that he slugs Rod in the stomach, knocks the air out of him, and quickly holds a knife to Rod’s back. Just like that, the whole situation is reversed. Now it seems that Jock and his buddies are in total control, until Jock is shot by Jackie with a dart gun. The situation is turned around again when Jock is down and Rod grabs the knife held by Jock’s brother, Bruce. This problem was not just solved by Rod but turned out to be a group effort. I think that this event gave the group more confidence because they know now that if they work together they cannot be defeated.
Another problem that Rod must work through occurs in Chapter 11 when he and Roy Kilroy set out to find a better, safer, and better equipped spot to set up camp. They come across some ancient cliff dwellings which seem to be the perfect spot to form a community. They plan to go back and tell everyone about it but are drastically delayed because Roy breaks his leg. This is really bad because they are so far away from everyone else. Roy, of course cannot walk on his leg, so they must wait it out. They end up staying about five times longer than they expected. It took so long for them to return that everyone at the camp thought for sure they were dead. So they began to work on the campsite and make it more livable. Rod stays with Roy the whole time, waiting until he is healthy enough to walk back to camp, which takes about two whole months. When they finally get back to where everyone else is, they are surprised to find out that the campsite was improved to the point where nobody wanted to go to the cliff dwelling that they had discovered. Therefore, the problem resolved itself.
Rod faces many problems in this story but deals with all of them extremely well. Rod was well prepared for everything that happened to him and the rest of the group. He showed that he could handle everything that was put on him. In this novel, Rod proves his skills in leadership, courage, and most importantly, survival.
