The Bear in a Muddy Tutu (13 page)

“He hurt Sadie?
”

“Well, he was very mean to her, yes. He had this long whip made of braided black leather, and he would lift it above his head and snap it forward, making a sound just like a crack of thunder.
”
Bagg
told this part in a soft voice, empathizing
with
just how frightening the whip must have been. “That was how the man taught her to be a dancing bear. And whenever there was a lightning storm, Sadie would huddle in her cage and feel very sorry for all the other bears being made to dance in the world.
”

“I’m a little afraid of lightning, too,
”
Morgan told her father. “Did Sadie want to run away?
”

“Yes, she really did. But Sadie was afraid to run away. She’d been taken away from her mother as a very
young
cub and had never learned to catch fish or find berries. Imagine what it would be like to be stolen away from your family and forced to live among bears?
”

“So she stayed with the mean man.
”

“Yes, that’s right,
”
Bagg said. “And she learned his dances while he snapped his whip at her paws.
”

“Did she wear a tutu?
”

“Yes, a pink one. The very nice magician’s assistant made it for her because she understood that even a girl bear should not dance without any clothes on.
”

“Daddy!
”

“It’s true!
”

“Tell me about the magic.
”

“Well, Sadie and the magician’s assistant spent a lot of time together because neither w
as
allowed to explore the towns the circus traveled to,
”
Bagg explained, and there
began
the first yawns and rubbing of eyes as the story settled into
its
less scary parts. “And Sadie thought the magician’s assistant was really wonderful. She had made her such a beautiful tutu and could do almost all the tricks the magician
knew
. The kind lady made flowers appear out of a little black stick, although they didn’t taste like flowers to Sadie.
”

“Sadie ate the plastic flowers?
”

“How’s a bear to know?
”
Bagg
shrugged his shoulders as he always did
. “Anyway, the assistant could turn a quarter into a puff of smoke and make a
torn
-
up dollar bill whole again. But Sadie’s favorite trick the assistant performed for her
—
you see, the assistant really wanted to be a full-time magician
—
was turning
objects
into lovely white doves.
”

“What kind of things could she turn into doves?
”

“Well, she turned a man’s watch into a dove.
”

“And what else?
”

“Um, she turned a little boy’s half-eaten candy bar into a dove.
”

“Ew! That didn’t happen!
”

“She turned a woman’s broken
pair of
sunglasses into a very beautiful dove.
”

“So she could turn anything into a dove?
”

“Well, she could try to, but she was still just a magician’s assistant, not a real magician.
”

“Did Sadie want
her to turn something
into a dove?
”

“Well, yes, I suppose you could say that,
”
Bagg said. “You see, Sadie thought it must be the most marvelous thing in the world to be a dove. Doves, as you know, are very pretty animals and nobody ever thought a dove was going to bite them. And even the meanest of mean people would never think to crack an awful whip at a dove. Why, that would just make a dove fly away.
”

“Nobody would ever be mean to a dove.
”

“Yes, nobody would ever be mean to a dove.
”

“So what happened?
”

“Well, one night, when the mean bear trainer was off doing mean things with other mean people, Sadie slipped out of her collar and went to visit the magician’s assistant. In her bear language, she asked the
magician’s assistant to
do a magic trick for her.
”

“What trick?
”

“To turn her into a beautiful dove.
”

“Did she?
”

“Well, the magician’s assistant was very worried. She didn’t think she could. After all, turning
a bear into a dove might just
be the greatest magic trick ever performed.
”

“So she wouldn’t even try?
”

“She didn’t want to disappoint Sadie
by failing
, but she could see all the sadness in her eyes. Who could turn down a dancing bear on the verge of tears?
”

“Dad, what are crocodile tears? Mommy said I cry crocodile tears.
”

“Hmm.
”
Bagg paused. “They’re pretend tears.
”

“Crocodiles pretend to cry?
”

“Maybe they cry to make other animals feel sorry for them, so they
can
get close enough to eat
them
.
”

“Sadie would never do that.
”

“Off course not
,
”
Bagg
said. “So, the magician’s assistant
pulled out the magician’s special
black handkerchief and tried to cover Sadie with it.
”

“It was too small!
”

“Yes, it was too small. So she had to go find a magic bed sheet to cover the great big bear.
”

“And she said the magic words?
”

“Abracadabra ziggity-zam,
”
Bagg
held
his hands up over his daughter, who covered herself like Sadie, except for her eyes. “If
your
heart is filled with love, may the magic powers make you a dove!
”

“Did it work? Did she turn into a dove?
”
Morgan
lowered
the blanket beneath her chin.

“No, she did not.
”

“But
…
”

“Not right away,
”
Bagg interrupted. “You see, there’s a lot more to tu
rning a bear into a dove than just a
wristwatch or wedding ring. The magician’s assistant repeated the words four more times, then added a little sparkly magic dust, and voil
à
!
”

“Voil
à
?
”

“Yes, the bed sheet suddenly dropped to the floor, all crumpled up
,
where a
big
bear had been sitting patiently, hoping and wishing.
”

“
T
here was something under the sheet, right?
”

“Yes, but it wasn’t a dove.
”

“Oh, no!
”

“But it was a creature meant to fly, just the same. And even though it wasn’t a beautiful white dove, it was still quite lovely.
”

“What was it?
”

“Well, out from under one corner of the big bed
sheet poked a tiny little antenna, followed by another,
”
Bagg said in a low voice. “It prodded the air on the other side of the sheet, twitching this way and that, making sure the coast was clear. And then one orange wing appeared, followed by another.
”

“A butterfly!
”

“Yes, a butterfly! And the butterfly swished her beautiful orange wings and danced u
p into the air in the magician’s
assistant’s tent.
”

“Did she fly outside?
”

“Oh, certainly she did,
”
Bagg told his daughter. “The magician’s assistant, who from that moment on became a full-fledged, top
-
of
-
the
-
line magician, opened her tent flap and allowed Sadie to fly into the night, far from the mean trainer, to where there were endless meadows of flowers.
”

“And she danced from flower to flower?
”

“Yes, Sadie the dancing bear
…
”

“D
ancing butterfly!
”
Morgan squeal
ed.

“Sadie the dancing butterfly lived happily ever after, dancing from flower to flower.
”

“Will you tell me the story again?
”

“Tomorrow night,
honey
,
”
Bagg said, leaning down to kiss his daughter
.

Had
that
been the last time he kissed her?
Had
she
been
too busy getting her papers and crayons stuffed into her backpack when he dropped her off Sunday afternoon? She
had worn
a plain white shor
t
-
s
leeve
d
shirt and jean shorts. Pink and white sneakers
with a picture of
one of the Disney princesses
;
he couldn’t remember which one.
Morgan’s
brown hair was short, had just been cut.
A tiny freckle on the left side of her nose,
which
you
could
only see close up. Her eyes were blue. A little girl
;
she looked like a little girl.

Bagg now sat behind the wheel of his Jeep, not really any better or any worse than he’d been when Morgan first went missing. He’d found
that as the parent of a stolen child
you daydreamed a lot. When fragments of happy memories appeared out of nowhere, you tried to hold onto them, even if it meant getting honked and sworn at while sitting at a green light by someone who didn’t have a giant hole in their heart.

“Wake up, shithead,
”
the female driver shoute
d as she pulled around Bagg
, laying on her horn, almost hitting him as she swerved around and in front of his Jeep.

Calls had come int
o the newsroom
reporting
a bear attack
at one of the local golf courses, and Bagg was daydreaming at stoplights instead of getting his ass to the scene.

“Sorry
.
”
Bagg
shifted
the cranky gears and
rolled
forward. He just wished he’d had another minute or two
to spend
with that last memory of his little girl.

Graceful Gracie was hungry and tired. Her tutu was in tatters, all tangled with burs
,
and kept snagging on sharp twigs. The gentle old black bear loved the pink tutu her
man
had given her more than anything in the world. He’d scratched her ears and rubbed her chest to make her okay with having it snapped snuggly over her lower belly, but he didn’t need to do any of that. It was beautiful and smelled like flowers, and she was happy to show it off. No complaints about the extra scratching, though.

T
he human cubs who came to watch her
adored
her pink tutu as well
; t
hey made lots of happy noises
. T
here
were
bright blinking lights when she rose up
and
danced on her hind legs. Sometimes, Gracie’s
man
would dance with her and feed her peanuts, although
now that she didn’t have teeth,
she could only swallow them whole.

This
man
was kind and gentle to Gracie and she loved him very much. She knew what it was like to be forced to wear a muzzle, which had pinched her lips and made her chest hurt because she couldn’t breathe. The muzzle wasn’t necessary. No matter how badly her first owner
had
treated her, she wouldn’t have tried to bite him. Not even when the man put her in that awful little cage where she was
forced to stand on her back legs
, making her hips ache like they were on fire.
T
he ground turned red hot when the music came on, and she had to hop and dance to keep from burning. Gracie had learned
that
when the music played, the ground was going to
get
hot, so it was time to dance.

But Gracie
had
got
ten
old. Her stomach sometimes hurt for days and she couldn’t eat. And when the
bad man
tried to force a tube down her throat, she
feared
she really might bite him. She didn’t bite,
of course,
but she also didn’t keep the liquid in her belly. The
bad man
had kicked her, snapped the whip across her face, and yelled
that
he was going to get rid of her. Gracie couldn’t help
that her stomach hurt so badly.

Her new
man
loved her
,
and she danced for him even when she was sick. This new
man
smelled terrible, with layers of greas
e
and old urine
–
Gracie knew his mother had never taught him to properly lick himself
—
but he didn’t make her wear a muzzle and he never hit her with
a
stick. He even woke Gracie one night, stumbling against the lion’s cage and
tripp
ing
and
f
a
ll
ing
over metal tent stakes. The
man
had come to her cage and
talked sweetly to Gracie,
telling her a story in his human language.

Gracie was curled up in one corner, just watching her
man
with her yellow eyes, ears
cocked
, ready
to listen to his lullaby
,
when she heard the chain rattle and the lock click open. Her
man
let out a grunt as he climbed into her home and began stroking the soft fur of her jowls. Gracie closed her eyes and the
man
stopped rubbing and settled down in the straw
beside
her, his smelly back to her. Gracie lifted her big right paw and pulled him close, and her
man
made a low murmur as she began licking away some of his filth.

Graceful Gracie’s safe cage and kind
man
were now lost. She was lost. Her tutu flapped like a broken kite, taunting the bad animals who were gaining on her. Gracie lumbered as fast as she could, with the yapping, angry animals
in
chas
e
. She ran across an open field of perfectly groomed grass
that
looked like a gigantic carpet. Groups of strange men carrying bags and skinny metal sticks ran to their little white cars when they saw her charging toward them.
I’m lost
, Gracie wanted them to know,
and I’m being chased
.
Help me
!
B
ut the men in their brightly colored clothes
—
which Gracie envied
, despite her current situation
—
were driving and running away from her.

Gracie knew this was all her fault. When the man who was shot out of the big blue and red
machine
flew into the tiger cage and broke it open, Gracie was scared and tried to hide under a truck and wait for her
man
to come find her. But then the truck roared to life, and a big herd of screaming cars and trucks with horrible flashing lights were after her, and she ran from her hiding place.

Grace scurried through the night, trying to escape the lights and hard ground
,
which
hurt her old paws. She ran until she came to a shoreline of muddy salt water
that
smelled like dead fish and rotten grass. Gracie stopped to catch her breath, turning to look over her shoulder at the giant mass of buil
ding
s
and the lights shining
up on the clouds. Off in the distance
,
she could hear the screaming cars still looking for her, so she stepped into the cool water one paw at a time. The mud soothed her paws and she was tempted to just roll there in this sudden goodness when one of the screaming cars came wailing around the big building toward her.

Gracie pushed out away from the shore into the black water and the bottom fell away quickly. Tucked somewhere in a far corner of her mind, where cub memories
we
re stored, Gracie had images
—
like old Polaroid snapshots
—
that
flashed across her vision. In them, Gracie was swimming across a pond with her mother, reaching her young paws out one after the other in easy, sweeping movements. Gracie decided there must be something good about swimming, since she had done it with her mother so many years ago. She swam in long even strokes, resting a few times by just treading water and arching her back
to keep her nose in the air. And
after a while, her paws found mud again and she pulled her sopping body up and out of the bay, giving a great and mighty shake
that
nearly knocked her over.

There was tall grass here
.
Gracie walked into the thickest patch, made a few circles to mat down a bed, and
fell
asleep in less than a minute.

T
he sun and complaining seagulls startled her awake a few hours later. She looked around for her food dish but
then
remembered where she was and a little bit about what had happened. Her pink tutu was streaked brown with mud and she hoped her
man
could make it clean for her. With a grumbling tummy, Gracie peed and pooped a great watery mess, then set off to find her
man
, heading away from the wate
r and away from the bright sun.

R
oads
filled with cars
seemed to intersect every option, but none of these cars were screaming that terrible noise or shining those flashing lights, so Gracie sprinted across the pavement
each time
the coast was clear. It was on the first patch of perfect grass that the angry barking had begun. Gracie’s old muscles were sore from the swim and she didn’t know how long she could run, so she either had to find help or a sturdy tree.

Running
past the startled golfers, Gracie smelled the wonderful food even before she spotted the building the smoke and scent were coming from. Gracie felt e
nergized
by the
idea
of breakfast; she recognized the beautiful smell of hotdogs and hamburgers and the tasty buns they came in. Gracie’s dry mouth filled with drool, and a rush of adrenalin
e
drained away her fear of the
pursuing
animals
;
she turned on them, rising as tall as she could
,
letting out a thunderous roar
,
and
baring her mighty gums
.

“Get away from me now!
”
Gracie thundered in her bear language at the pack of three mutts
that had been nipping idiotically at her
back paws and
muddy
pink tutu. The dogs nearly bowled each other over hitting the brakes, and their plaintive barks turned to yelps
as Gracie
transformed
herself into a
monstrous
ballerina.

“Go!
”
Grace bawled and the dogs obeyed, leaving her with yummy hotdogs on her mind.

The snack bar was empty of customers, but the grill was going and only one human was foraging around in the cold box in back. Gracie pushed through the screen door and
headed
right
for
the grill, lifting herself
onto her haunches
and carefully brushing
the two dozen sizzling hot dogs onto the floor, singeing
just
a few hairs
in the process
. Gracie dropped back down and began wolfing the hot meat, burning her lips and gums a little
. B
ut it was oh so heavenly good. Gracie barely noticed the woman who stumbled into her, f
ell
onto her hairy back and
started
screaming bloody murder, as Gracie licked every last bit of juice off the floor.

Screaming humans were nothing new. Male humans regularly snuck up behind their females and pretended to push them too close to the bars of her cage. The females almost always screamed, as if they were in danger. The game had hurt Gracie’s feelings at first, until she realized it was just how humans played.

The screaming woman
,
who
had
f
a
ll
en
on her
then
rolled
beneath the grill
,
was
le
aving
her alone, so Gracie checked the kitchen for more treats
. N
othing was as good as the hotdogs. The candy bars were okay, but
tasted
much better when human cubs took the wrappers off for her. The loaf of bread made her thirsty
;
she was trying to open a frustrating container of water when she heard the familiar screaming of the bad cars. Gracie’s heart sank and her stomach turned sour as the awful fear flooded back. Those cars
that
had chased her last night with spinning lights had somehow found her.

Gracie went for the broken screen door at first, but that’s where the cars were
loudest
. She backed away, searching for someplace to hide.
S
crambl
ing
back into the kitchen
, she
nosed open a cabinet. The space was small, but she got quite a bit of her three hundred or so pounds into it, with only the back half sticking out. There were boxes of cleaning supplies under
t
here
that
made her want to s
neeze, but Gracie held it in.

The old black bear, with her pink tutu clad rear end sticking out of the snack bar cupboard, sensed
that
she
would have
to be as quiet as a mouse if she ever wanted to see her
man
again.