Unable to view this email? Go to this link To ensure our emails are delivered to your inbox, please add "message.scholastic.com" to your approved sender list.

The last two moons of the year have cast an ominous light on our tribe. In fall we harvested the squash, beans, and corn we had planted in summer. I then went with the deer clan to bury sacks of noohkik on the hill that watches the bay. Every year I make father explain why we must store part of our harvest and move into the woods for winter. Every year he explains that to stay on the cleared land during the cold months, we would have to burn up too much firewood. He also says if I continue to question him so frequently I will end up in the turtle clan. Of late I have begun to show some skill at providing. I devised my own trap to catch a rabbit, which mother made into a delicious sobaheg. Soon after father gave me my first ahtomp and brought me with him on the hunt. Blessed by the animal spirits and by Kiehtan, we killed deer, turkey, and squirrel. Because of the strength and accuracy I displayed with the ahtomp, I was asked to join the deer clan on other hunts. On one we gave chase all the way back to the place of the cleared land, and there we saw it — the hill that watched the bay was disturbed. Our noohkik was gone. This theft caused much disturbance among the tribe. The Great Sachem arranged a scouting party to go back, and around the 13th moon they returned to the bay and discovered the culprits — white men, covered head-to-toe in cloth, paddling a mishoon back to their large wooden ship on the other side of the bay. Whether friend or foe, we know not. We only know they are strangers. Diary entry of 12-year-old Pometacomet, a fictional member of the Pokanoket tribe of the Wampanoag nation.

	Put yourself in Pometacomet’s shoes. How would you feel about this discovery? Would you feel threatened by the appearance of the strangers? Or would you feel a sense of adventure about this unexpected turn of events?

	Noohkik: parched corn Sobaheg: meat stew Ahtomp: bow Kiehtan: the creator Sachem: chief Mishoon: canoe