There Will Be Bears (5 page)

“I think that would be a lovely gesture,” she says.

At the mall gift shop, I find a smiling stuffed elk, and after browsing over a million sappy cards with poems and cursive writing — the kind you’d get someone on their deathbed — I grab the perfect one.

On the front it says:
I was looking for the perfect kind of cake to cheer you up
. . .

I open it and there’s a picture of a buff dude with his shirt off. The caption says: . . .
so I got you a beefcake
.

Gramps is going to hate this.

It’s perfect.

I pay for the card and the stuffed animal and I’m ready to get out of the mall, but then we pass the Halloween store.

A lady dressed as a witch has two full-size bear costumes in her hands, debating where they should go on display.

Oh, my God, they’re so nasty. It’s like she’s holding up two actual skinned bears. They’re like some old-school outfit pagans would wear. The upper jaw would hang over my head like a hat, and the rest I’d wear like a fur coat. And those claws must be three inches long!

I have to get it. Every Halloween me and Bright go all out on our costumes. We’re a legend around school. Even if he doesn’t dress up with me this year, this would definitely solidify my reputation.

“You’re not getting those hideous things,” Mom says, escorting me out. “Don’t spend your money on something you’ll only wear once.”

“How much did you spend on your wedding dress?”

She laughs.

When we get home, I go up to my room to write in the card. I’ve been thinking about what I want to say to Gramps. Do I ask him what’s wrong, or why he doesn’t trust me?

Nah, I’ll save the serious stuff for when I see him.

I really doubt that Gramps and I are still going to the Grand Tetons. I know Gramps said you never break a bear swear, but we only have two more weekends before elk season ends, and he lives in a nursing home now. And even if we somehow found a way to get him out of there, should we? He might be too sick to handle the wilderness. I mean, this could actually kill him.

On Saturday morning, when I get back from dropping off my package with the card and the stuffed elk at the post office, there’s an envelope on the kitchen table. My name’s on the front next to a really crude drawing of a bear paw print.

Inside is a letter and a newspaper clipping.

Mom and Dad would freak if they found out Gramps told me where he keeps the key. When we moved here last month, him and Dad got in a fight about how he kept his rifles displayed above the TV, so they went fifty-fifty on a gun safe. It’s not like I don’t know how to handle a rifle, and I would never treat it like a toy. At the shooting range, Gramps always stressed the importance of gun safety. But Dad thinks that Ashley and I are going to be the next tragic story about two kids finding a gun in the house.

“What did Gramps have to say?” Dad asks, entering the kitchen. “He told me to give that to you.”

I fold the clipping and letter and shove them in my pocket. “He’s just looking forward to seeing me.”

Gramps wants me to unlock his gun safe and break Mom and Dad’s trust for a bear swear. Do I really want to go through with this? Just so I can go hunting and maybe see a grizzly? I mean, dragons and vampires are only in stories, but grizzlies are actual living monsters. They can weigh over one
thousand
pounds. They bury horses and eat rotting flesh, and just the thought has my pulse racing. I mean, it’s cool and all, but would I be able to outrun a bear? Would Gramps?

I just have so many things on my mind that when Ms. Hoole hands back my test on Monday with a grade of thirty-six and a “See me after class” note, I’m all whatever about it.

When the bell rings and everyone leaves the classroom, I go to her desk and put my test in front of her. “What’s up, Hoolio?”

“Tyson,” she says, “I’d like to ask you the same question.”

“Oh. Yeah. I didn’t do so good, did I?”

“Have a seat. I’ll write you a pass.”

I grab the top chair from a stack in the corner, beneath a map of colonial America, and set it beside her.

“Look here.” She points to my name written in her laptop and scrolls across my numbers. “A sixty-one percent on your midterm report, a fifty-five percent on your Jamestown presentation — you didn’t even know where Jamestown was. A six
teen
on the Native American tribe quiz.”

“So?”

“Tyson, you’re failing. If you don’t get at least a B minus from here on out, you’ll have to repeat this class. I don’t want to fail you. You’re a very nice kid, and I like you a lot.”

“Ms. Hoole, I’m flattered and . . . and I don’t know what to think . . . but aren’t you married?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m going to write you a makeup.” She hands the test back.

“When is it?”

“Monday. So you’ll have a week to study the material again. Maybe you could actually put in some effort this time.”

I give her a smile like it’s all some big joke, because I’m the kid who can laugh off anything. The thing is, I
did
put in effort. I read the chapter four times, but I just can’t remember anything.

“Effort?” I fake a really convincing laugh. I’m a very good actor, and Ms. Hoole has no idea how much her comment hurts. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

I grab my things and leave the classroom.

“What was that about?”

I jerk back. Bright stands outside the door, both hands around his backpack straps.

I say, “Oh, you know. Ms. Hoole wanted me to stay after for ‘extra credit,’ if you know what I mean.” I laugh, but Bright makes no reaction. “How was Steamboat Springs?”

“It was awesome. The guys on the team are really cool.”

“I bet.”

“You know, we haven’t talked about Halloween yet. Wanna walk with me to class?”

“Sure,” I say, even though my pre-algebra class is in the other direction. “I saw these really nasty bear costumes at the mall.”

“Um, I’m gonna pass. I think me and some of the guys are going as zombies.”

I lower my eyebrows. “Then why’d you ask?”

“I wanted to let you know.”

“Because you want to rub it in?”

“We dress up every year, and I know it’s important to you.”

“Yo, B-Right-On!” Nico shouts out, going the other direction. They bump fists as we pass.

I say, “It’s not important to me. I don’t care.”

“Good.”

“I mean, those sound like pretty boring costumes.”

“I think they’ll be good.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Bright Man!” Gideon, the team’s quarterback, and Bright do this handshake in the middle of hallway traffic that takes five seconds to complete.

“What does that mean?” I say.

“It’s an inside joke.”

I hate it when people say that, because I’m always on the outside.

I say, “
You’re
an inside joke.”

“What?”

“You think you’re hot stuff, but you go on the field for ten seconds and kick a ball. Wow. That’s impressive.”

I look over. He’s shaking his head with this irritating smirk. “You’re just jealous.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re just the kicker. And you lost the game.”

He shoves me so hard that I tumble through the traffic and slam against a locker. I want to pummel his face in, but he vanishes into the crowd. Kids point and laugh at me.

I carry on with the rest of my day with my head hung low. By eighth-period homeroom, everyone is saying that Brighton beat me up. I tell them what really happened, but no one believes me.

I hate everything about school.

Monday and Tuesday night come and go, and I don’t get any studying in. I’m too busy trying to beat my high score in Great American Hunter 5, and I’ve killed more elk with head shots than ever before. I even got one from five hundred yards. Wednesday, I eat way too much cereal and nap for like a thousand hours, so no studying then. I have until next Monday — I can study over the weekend. Maybe while me and Gramps are driving to the Tetons.

This trip can’t come soon enough. I need to get away from school and never come back.

It would be so awesome to be in the wilderness. I’ll live off of grubs and berries and howl at the moon with the coyotes. When winter comes I’ll have a shelter made of sticks and mud, a campfire to keep me warm, and a guitar to pass the time. There won’t be anyone around for a hundred miles.

When I get home from school on Friday, I go into Gramps’s bedroom, find the key, and unlock the gun safe in his closet. The Browning rifles we use at the shooting range are hung up, and boxes of ammunition sit on the top shelf. I stuff it all beneath the clothes in my duffel bag.

The staircase creaks. I zip my bag shut and lock the safe before Dad walks in.

“You know you’re not allowed in here,” he says suspiciously.

“Gramps wanted me to bring a few of his things.” I do a quick search through his closet and grab whatever I can find. The Jenga box.

“Jenga?”

“He wanted to play. What are you doing home so early?”

“I took the afternoon off. I got us reservations for the Red Robin in Rock Springs tonight.”

“Ooh, baller status.”

“You all ready to go?”

I know he’s asking me if I’m done packing. But all I’m thinking is, Am I ready mentally and physically? I’ve never hunted in my life, I’m going to be out in the wilderness with a man who could be dying, and there will be bears.
Angry
bears.

This is exactly what I need.

“Tyson. You ready?”

I say, “You have no idea.”

I only need two words to describe our trip to Rock Springs: “sagebrush” and “nothing.” When we enter Wyoming, there are all these really creepy and secretive military installations with high fences, like they’re experimenting on humans or building top-secret predator drones.

I haven’t been able to put down Gramps’s grizzly book since I read that article he sent me. I need to know my enemy before I enter his territory.

That girl from Oklahoma probably just found some bear cubs and thought,
Oh, cute. I’mma go frolic with them!
And then boom, bear paw to the face.

Dad’s driving. He puts on his favorite eighties station and the words “Eye of the Tiger” appear on the navigation screen.

He goes, “Can anyone guess what movie this is from? Tyson?”

I look up from my book. “I have no idea.”

“Anyone else?”

Mom and Ashley stay quiet.

“
Rocky Three
. Haven’t I ever shown you the Rocky movies before?”

I go, “Yeah.”

“About the boxer? With Sylvester Stallone? I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Hey, Tyson?”

“Yeah?”