A Bear Named Trouble (4 page)

He should have been afraid. He should have known to go far away, but he was drawn toward the scent as if he were being pulled by a rope. He was so lonely.

At the bottom of a small ravine a creek passed beneath the fence. The young bear began digging. When he had hollowed out enough space to squeeze through, he did. And he did the same thing at the next fence he encountered. Then he set off at a lope to find the bear.

A white goose honked at him, her voice strident, commanding, but the young bear

paid no attention. He was on a mission.

***

Jonathan poked his head through the ticket window.

"Guess what!" Frank was grinning. "We had a break-in last night."

Jonathan gasped. "A break-in?"

"Yeah. A wild brownie came to visit Jake. This morning you could see his footprints in the snow all up and down by Jake's pen. Apparently, the two of them walked up and down all night, talking to each other."

Jake was one of the resident brown bears, a large Kodiak. He had lived with his sister from the time both were cubs, but his sister had died the year before. Usually an older male would have no interest in a younger one ... except to prove his dominance. But maybe Jake didn't like living by himself.

"Have they caught him? The wild one, I mean." Waiting for an answer, Jonathan held his breath. Why was it that he knew so emphatically that he didn't want the brownie caught?

"Nah. This morning your dad found him asleep between the two fences, right by the stream where he'd dug in. But he scooted out
again before anyone could figure out what to do about him."

Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief. Then his bear was all right.

It
must
be his bear, the one that had visited his deck the night before last. He didn't know why he knew that, but he did.

Jonathan left his backpack, accepted the usual bag of popcorn, and headed toward the enclosure that held Jake. Just wait until the next day at school when he told his friends! A brownie breaking
into
the zoo!

Had such a thing ever happened before in all the history of zoos?

But then maybe he wouldn't tell them. He didn't know why, exactly, but he kept his friends separate from his life at the zoo. It had been that way in Minnesota, too. The zoo, his dreams about being inside the animals ... all that belonged to him and Rhonda, no one else. Not even Mom knew about the game they played.

A raucous honking stopped him in his
tracks. "Hello, Mama," he said. "Did you meet the visitor last night?"

She honked again, sounding indignant.

Jonathan laughed. "If you did, I guess you didn't like him all that much."

He poured some popcorn out onto the ground and watched Mama Goose go to work on it.

"He's
my
bear, you know," Jonathan confided. "He came to visit
me
first."

Mama Goose ignored him, intent on the popcorn. When she had gobbled the last kernel, she pecked at his shoe.

"That's all you think about, isn't it?" Jonathan scolded. "Something to fill your belly." But even as he said it, he ran a hand down the goose's supple neck, feeling the lively movement beneath the downy feathers. "Well ... here. I'm not all that hungry anyway." He poured the rest of the popcorn onto the ground, then crumpled the bag and stuck it in his jacket pocket. "Enjoy," he told the white goose, though
she was clearly already doing just that.

As he moved toward Jake's pen, he felt his body fold down until, in his mind, he was walking on all fours, his feet flat to the ground. His four sturdy legs moved in a steady rhythm; his heavy coat rippled with each loping step. He was a wild brownie, and he was hungry, and he had just broken into the zoo.

Lumbering along, he could feel the bear's longing. Not just for food. Nor for a caged companion he couldn't even reach. For something more than that, Jonathan was certain. But what?

J
ONATHAN
crept down the stairs in the dark. The occasional low snorts coming from his father's bedroom told him Dad was asleep, but he still didn't want to turn on a light. You never knew when he might awaken and start to ask questions.

In the kitchen Jonathan found the loaf of bread Dad had bought just yesterday. He started to open it to take out a few slices, but then he closed it up and picked up the entire loaf instead. A few slices of bread would hardly make a snack for a bear. Jonathan wanted the brownie to stay around awhile so he could watch him.

Outside, he looked both ways, half expecting the bear to be out there already, watching from the shadow of the trees that loomed at the edge of his yard. Then he laid the loaf of bread on the deck, still in its plastic wrapper. A thin wrapper like that would be no hindrance to a bear. And if no bear came, he could wipe off the plastic, bring the bread back to the kitchen, and Dad would never need to know that the bread for his lunch sandwiches had spent the night out in the cold.

But if the bear did come...

Jonathan's heart raced at the thought.

Another thought followed in rapid succession. What was he going to say in the morning when his father couldn't find the bread? That was going to be one interesting conversation. Jonathan could hardly admit that he'd put the bread out hoping the bear would come by again. Luring wild animals with food was an even worse offense than disrupting the carefully planned diets of the ones being held in the zoo.

Would Dad believe him if he said he'd gotten hungry during the night and eaten the whole loaf himself?

Jonathan shrugged, stepped back inside, and carefully, quietly slid the glass door shut. The morning would have to take care of itself. Right now he wanted to see the brownie again.

He turned on the deck light—he'd put in a fresh bulb before dinner—pulled an armchair close to the deck door, and curled up in it to wait.

"Come on, bear," he whispered. "Come on!"

***

Again the young bear had spent the day sleeping, hidden in a thick clump of trees. The land was heavily treed, both inside and outside the zoo, so it was easy for him to find safe and private places to sleep. But now night had fallen, and he prowled once more.

This night was less successful than the one before. He couldn't find any garbage cans this
time. He located another bird feeder and smashed it into splinters trying to get the remaining few seeds out. And then, whether by accident or intent, he ended up at the deck where he had met the young human before, though he had found no food there the first time.

This time he was lucky. A full loaf of bread lay waiting, and he gobbled it, plastic wrapper and all.

His jaw still ached, and the teeth didn't mesh on the side where the moose had kicked him, but the bread was soft and went down in quick gulps.

***

A shiver passed down Jonathan's spine as he watched the bread disappear. He had thought a whole loaf was a lot. It would have been a lot for him and his father. They would have taken the entire week to eat it all. But he could see now that a loaf would barely dent the hunger of so large an animal.

The bear had swallowed the last mouthfill and now licked the deck for crumbs. It was snowing again, fat, round flakes that swirled lazily in the light.

Sitting until the bear showed up had been hard. In fact, Jonathan had been pretty much asleep when the brownie finally appeared. He might have come and gone without being seen if Jonathan hadn't been pulled awake by the click of his long claws against the wooden deck floor. When the sound awakened him, he'd leapt to the sliding door for a better look.

"Where are you going next, bear?" he asked now, tapping lightly on the glass.

As though he had known all along that the human who had put out the bread was close, the brownie lifted his head and looked straight into Jonathan's eyes. Jonathan found himself stepping back, his skin suddenly prickling with cold, his mouth dry. Nonetheless, when the big animal turned and shuffled off the deck, Jonathan grabbed his coat and, being careful not to make a sound that might carry upstairs to his father, slipped through the sliding door.

The bear seemed to know exactly where he was going, and Jonathan followed, keeping what seemed a safe distance behind. In just a few minutes they were at the fence surrounding the zoo. The bear went immediately to the place where he had dug the night before, at the point the stream flowed under the fence. Jonathan knew, though, that Charlie, one of the maintenance men, had filled the spot in. Jonathan had watched him do it. Charlie must have done something to harden the fill, too, because the bear tried digging in the same spot once, then moved off to one side and began digging for real.

Jonathan kept a tree between himself and the brownie, but stayed close enough to see what he was doing. After the young bear had scooted under the fence on his belly, Jonathan approached the fence cautiously. He waited for the bear to dig under the second fence, too, then got down low and scooted after him. His jacket and his pajama bottoms were getting muddy, but he couldn't worry about that.

By the time Jonathan emerged from beneath the second chain-link fence, Mama Goose was making her usual racket. Obviously, she considered herself the guardian of the zoo and didn't approve of intruders.

"
Honk ... honk ... honk!
" she scolded.

For an instant, Jonathan let himself slip inside the goose, feeling her loud indignation. He smiled. She was one brave bird to stand against a brownie!

The bear had moved on ahead, covering the ground faster than Jonathan could. He was heading for Jake's holding area again. But apparently the ruckus Mama Goose was making disturbed him. He paused and turned back. Jonathan caught up with him just in time to see the bear lift a great paw and swing at the noisy goose.

The blow lifted Mama Goose from the
ground in a sudden white arc. She landed in a rumpled heap.

"No!" Jonathan cried. His voice was the only sound on the night air.

The bear paused, peering down at the fallen goose, as though he didn't understand what had caused her noise to stop so abruptly. He poked his nose beneath her, lifting her slightly from the ground, then letting her drop again. Then he turned away and lumbered toward Jake's cage, clearly unconcerned with the murder he had just committed.

For the space of several heartbeats, Jonathan couldn't move. He couldn't lift a hand or a foot or even, it seemed, blink his eyes. Then he ran and dropped to his knees before Mama Goose. The white feathers were soft, soft in his hands. He picked up the rag-doll body and held it tightly against his chest, the head dangling awkwardly over his arm.

She was so heavy, heavier than she had
ever seemed when she had climbed into his lap, and utterly still.

Beneath the soft feathers Jonathan could feel the life seeping out of Mama Goose, rushing away ... rushing ... gone.

"H
E
killed her! He killed her! He killed Mama Goose! She's dead!"

The words erupted from Jonathan in a shout. He filled the night air with his outrage the whole way home. He shouted and sobbed and ran, clutching the white goose close to his chest. He kept picking up her head, trying to keep it from dangling so pitifully, but each time the silence of the feathery head, the unnatural weight of it in his hand, made his fingers go slack, and he let it fall again. He tumbled through the sliding deck door and hurtled up the stairs to his dad's bedroom.

Halfway between the bedroom door and
the bed, Jonathan stopped and shouted it all again. "He killed her! He killed Mama! She's dead!"

His father lurched upright, rising so fast that Jonathan stepped back a couple of steps. But he didn't stop crying out. "She's dead! She's dead!"

"What!" His dad's brown hair stood in spikes all over his head, and his eyes were open so wide that they were rimmed all the way around with white. "Jonnie! What is it? What's wrong?"

"That bear!" Jonathan was sobbing now. He leaned back against the wall next to the door. "That bear. He killed Mama Goose."

"Oh," his father said. "Oh! Mama
Goose
." And his spine suddenly slumped. "I thought ... I thought..." He didn't say what he had thought, just reached out as if to capture Jonathan's hand, but Jonathan was too far away for him to reach. "Come here, son." He beckoned. "You were having a dream. Only a dream. That bear isn't going to hurt any—"

But when Jonathan approached, a thin beam of moonlight fell across the goose clutched to his chest, and Dad's gaze fastened there. "What?" He reached out and touched Mama Goose's dangling head, just lightly. Then he reached beyond the goose to the front of Jonathan's muddy jacket. "Where—where have you been?"

He was fully awake now. He even ran a hand through his standing-up hair to smooth it down.

"That bear." Jonathan gasped for breath. "The brownie that broke into the zoo. He did it again. And this time he killed her."

Dad had his feet on the floor now. His bare feet looked pale and somehow very naked. He reached for a robe and slippers. "You were there?" His voice was stern, but when he lifted Mama Goose from Jonathan's grasp and put a hand on his shoulder to lead him back downstairs, his touch was gentle.

First Dad opened the sliding door and laid the dead goose on the snowy deck, then he
closed the door again and, brushing his hands on his robe as if something about death might cling to them, pulled the drapes closed.

Jonathan let his knees give way and sank to the couch.

"Now tell me," his father said, coming to stand in front of him. "All of it."

Jonathan told "all of it" between hiccupping sobs. About luring the bear to the deck by putting out the loaf of bread. About following him into the zoo, under the fence. About seeing him strike Mama Goose.

As Jonathan spoke, his father's lips grew thinner, tighter, but when he finally fell silent, Dad said only, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry it happened, son. And I'm especially sorry you were there to see it." And without another word, he headed back toward the stairs.