Fox calls back to conscience

There is a war going on. Peter's father is going to the front, but first he must take his son to his grandfather, because there is no one else to take care of the boy: his mother died several years ago.

The boy has a pet fox named Pax, with whom he is inseparable, but the fox cannot be taken with him, he has to be taken to the forest and treacherously abandoned there. Peter suffers mortally, but does not dare to contradict his father: his father is a complex person, and Peter is just a child, albeit one who matured early.

However, when he finds himself at his grandfather's and says goodbye to his father, Peter suddenly clearly understands that all of his father's admonitions were a lie: Pax, who spent his entire life next to a human, will not survive in the wild; they, the owners, doomed Pax to certain death.

Then Peter sets off to save Pax. He will have to walk dozens of kilometers, in unfamiliar terrain, in the forest, approaching the front line. The path will be very difficult physically and mentally, all the way Peter will be calculating Pax's chances of salvation in his mind, losing and regaining hope, making superhuman efforts to not come too late.

Meanwhile, Pax is trying to survive, he doesn't blame his boy, he's waiting for him, because the boy just left for a while and will definitely return soon. In the meantime, he needs to learn how to get not only food, but even water, hide from the cold, get along with other animals, and escape from some monstrous destructive force.

This book does not describe the horrors of war, and this war is not historical - just some abstract war. But it embraces everything: people, animals, nature. It is impossible to stay away from it, it rolls life itself like a hundred-pound steamroller.