The Bear: A Novel Read online

  I know that dogs can swim because I have seen Snoopy swim. He came up to our cottage and he was in the water and there was another summer friend dog named Fergus. He is short and fat. His hair is white and I tried to take him in for a swim and his momma said no. Fergus hates water same as Stick. Fergus fell in when he was getting out from a boat and the water was bad ever since. So Snoopy was at my cottage and jumped off the dock into the air after a ball and Fergus just got to watch and wag wag wag. I get worried that the black dog will jump into the lake and is coming for us but he stops. His toes at the water like mine. Both our toes are inside the lake and I can feel that he knows and I know it is like we are touching across the water. He keeps his nose sniffing up in the air. I can see him more now because he is out from the bushes and his fur is very black. His belly is big and his legs are short. I let go of my breath and feel phew.

  He is a black dog that isn’t a swimming dog. He is more like a bear than a swimming dog, except he isn’t brown like Gwen or a real bear. If I threw a ball into the water he would not jump off a dock just wag wag wag. My family isn’t scared of bears. They come around the cottage to remind Daddy that he didn’t scrub the barbecue enough and left a piece of hot dog that was burned on there so I didn’t want to eat it and I make Daddy cut it off. Momma said that was very bad because then we get the bears used to us so we never do that anymore. If I don’t like a burned hot dog I gave it to Stick. And sometimes he won’t eat it so I peel off the skin of the hot dog because they look like a finger but really they are more like trees and you can take off the burned bark and the inside is fine. Stick will eat it. Then when Momma asks if I ate it I can say yes and get a cookie. When our family sees a bear I never saw it. Daddy is the only one who got to. We just stay away and sometimes we make noise with two pots that we bang together. Momma says to tell the bear “Yo, bear” but I never say “Yo, dog” so I don’t say anything. I listen to see if Momma is banging a pot and she isn’t. I don’t hear any pots and no one yelling. The black dog has a big nose and it just sniffs the air and I don’t have to be scared because of water. But I have to be careful of strange dogs.

  I watch the black dog and I feel like it is watching me with the tip of its nose. I watch like on TV when animals are inside there. I wonder if Momma can see it or if she is still asleep or she might be gone away. I know that if there are no pots she is not near it. The black dog noses around and it grabs something in its mouth and I look and I can’t tell what it is besides long. But it waves around and on the end it’s red and it might be the meat with Daddy’s sneaker. Daddy won’t like a bear chewing his sneaker.

  “Hey,” I say.

  The black dog looks up for a minute and sniffs like I don’t matter. I watch and he goes back to the meat and he sits on the ground and chews his bone. I put my hands on my belly and it feels weird.

  I hear Stick making noises behind me.

  “I pooed,” he says and with crying eyes.

  I look and he is sitting with a naked bum and there is still the pile of poo beside him and yuck. It’s like he thinks I am his momma and do poo and lunches now and I don’t like it no thanks. I don’t help him. I wrinkle my nose and lift Gwen for a sniff.

  “Hi, Glen,” he says.

  That is nice and I sniff her. Gwen feels like we share with her. My momma says it can be hard with only three people but Stick and Gwen and I are used to each other. I stick Gwen out to kiss Stick on the cheek because she is quite kissy and that’s what she wants to do. Stick’s tears have stopped and he even smiles and I see the two dimples that are like when a stick goes in the marshmallow and a hole is left in it.

  “Sanks, Glen,” says Stick to Gwen.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Stick stands up on his fat legs and shows me his pooey bum. Yuck.

  “Bitchy,” he says.

  He is itchy. He means I have to watch him more. Things like diapers mean you are a babysitter but I am not. I take a breath out my nose and it makes me sound like Momma when I do that. I do it again because when the air is coming out my nose I can’t smell the poo and that is better. I do it again and again but then my head feels like the balloon would pop so I stop. It floats back into my nose and smells like the time Daddy forgot and left the diaper in the car and we drove around with the poo by accident. Gwen says she will help me and I think I will help Stick because we are three.

  I put Gwen and Stick’s pj top in one hand and take Stick’s hand like a babysitter even though I am not. We step carefully up the hill with grass to get away from his poo. We have to climb up and that is okay because sometimes Stick sits in the dirt and that will be a bit less for me to fix. We get to the top and I look and I see there is a forest here and a slide down to more grass. I tell Stick to lie down like when he gets diapers at night and I don’t have wipes or a washcloth like Momma. There is a green leaf and a few more on a plant and I take it and wipe and it smells like it tastes like a sour candy that makes my two sides of my cheeks get pulled into my mouth. There isn’t that much, so it is actually pretty easy and Gwen and I are good moms. Stick stands up and I make him put his pj top on. He wants the pants but I don’t know about those. He stamps his leg but that doesn’t make the pants come back. His little dingle just wiggles.

  “Juice,” says Stick.

  Me too. And Gwen. We are still always thirsty. I stand up and look down and see if we walk along the side of the trees they open up to a grassy spot and there is a little water trickling down. I say pretend it is juice and apple or orange and take Stick’s and Gwen’s hands and we walk over and there is a little pool of water like chocolate milk. I kneel down and put my lips in it and suck in like a straw except I don’t have one. I get mud in my teeth and I sit up and chew and it crunches. Stick laughs and he wants chocolate milk and puts his head down to the pool and I think about how a bad girl would smoosh his head in the water and I don’t because I am the one watching. He lifts up his face again and says he can’t get any into his mouth.

  I tell Stick it’s like a straw and he has to suck in and we both make sucking noises for a minute and it is funny and then he tries to drink again and I put my knees down and this time I know it is wet ground and a little like a sponge which is funny because Stick is on the sponge except in no pj bottoms so only me is getting wet at the knees. But not that wet and Gwen is dry because I hold her up. Stick isn’t getting water through his no straw so he starts licking the water like Snoopy. That is funny too and I laugh and he laughs and then he can’t lick and laugh so he tries to smoosh his cheeks back down so he can drink. He tips forward a little and gets his face wet and might cry but I say it is funny so he laughs.

  “Juice,” he says again.

  I put Gwen between my legs to hold and I scoop my hand in the chocolate milk water so I am holding it. Stick puts his face in my hand and he gets drinking like that. I put two hands together and scoop and it gets more in his lips. I do it again and I look at the water and see little pieces of dirt but they look like nice dirt not bad. Stick drinks all that and so I get a bit more and this time a fish! It is small and clear and has legs sort of like a crab but sort of like a spider and maybe not a fish but something crawly. Stick puts his face in to drink it.

  “No, Stick. There’s a fish.”

  “Where?” He looks behind him.

  “There!” I point down but my fingers can’t point because they are making the bowl that holds the fish like a fish tank.

  “Where?” He looks down into the muddy water in the pool.

  Finally I put my hands up near his face so his eyes can’t look anywhere else and he sees it.

  “Fishie!”

  He is excited too and we watch it scratch at my hands except I can’t feel it but a small tickle.

  We are busy watching the fish and I see something moving out of the corner of my eye but I don’t care because the fish is trying to crawl out the side. It looks not happy to be in my hands or like it is worried and I think about squeezing my hand to crush it. I clos
e my fingers but Stick makes me open them again because he wants to see. But I am the boss of it and the fish can’t get away and I don’t care about Stick so I smack my hands together and squish squish roar.

  “Hey,” says Stick.

  “I must crush you,” I say in my deepest voice and I am a pretend big man with muscles like Daddy’s. I open my hands again and look. There is no fish and the water has fallen back into the puddle and we look but no fish. It must be scared of me and it ran away. Or it fell back in the puddle or I crushed its body so we can’t see it anymore.

  “Here, fishie fishie.” Stick is looking around the ground.

  The corner of my eye sees something again. It is brown and over in the part where there are no trees and more grass. It has fur and it moves and that makes me turn my head. It is half in the grass and an animal. I think oh neat because I like animals and especially tigers. This is not a tiger because there are not orange and black stripes. The fur is brown and the body is big and it is like a blob sitting in the grass. I think it is cute for a second and maybe a hippo like at the zoo and then it moves a big head around to look at us and I feel a little scared. There is no fence and it is not that far away. And you have to be careful about animals I remember. Even Snoopy. They don’t speak English and can get confused like Stick except that he is human too. No fur. This animal doesn’t look mad but I don’t know if he likes us or not. He starts to move and I put a hand down to grab Gwen and sniff. The animal steps up onto a harder part in the dirt and I see it is huge and it has four legs that used to be in the water and now they aren’t.

  “Look, Stick,” I whisper. “A horsie.”

  Stick looks over and his mouth goes into an O and he is quiet. He turns to me and puts his pointy finger to his lips and says “Shh.” He is squatting down and has his hands on his knees. This is funny because when we are at the zoo he always shouts at the animals and Daddy says no. We are not supposed to shout or bang the glass because it gives the animals headaches and they have to put up with a lot. I watch it too and it is standing now up higher so I can see that it has legs that are really long. Now he is standing on them. It has a smooth fur that is brown and darker than Gwen. I think it is probably a horse with big lips because of the eyes at the side of its head. A horse can see backwards to run from people if it needs to. And big ears that might make it a donkey but it does not make donkey noises. It got a haircut because it has bangs that are straight across and not in his eyes. That is like how the lady cuts my bangs and sometimes I wish they could stay long but then I can’t see where I am going. The horse doesn’t make any noises. It just stands and looks at us and chews.

  “Moose,” says Stick.

  The horse blinks and chews some more.

  “It’s a horsie.”

  “No.”

  I feel fed up having to talk to babies. “A moose has big antlers on its head like a coatrack.”

  “Moose.”

  I think of our book of animals and we read it with Daddy and there are girl mooses and they maybe look like that with no antlers but Stick is too much of a baby to be right. “Horse.”

  “Moose,” he whispers and I should give him a smack but I don’t care. I just don’t want to only play with him and it would be good if Jessica was here. But we keep watching the horse and it eats some grass and then turns and walks off the other way and we can’t see it anymore. I feel like when we went to the zoo except no McDonald’s. I am so hungry.

  14.

  Also there is more windy and I feel a little colder on my legs. It is going to be nighttime and we need to get to our safe place. I pull on Stick’s arm so he will stand up and come because I think no more water on my legs it’s too cold so we walk over to the trees part. It is darker because the trees are spread out like a roof all over the top. Our safe place can be at the cottage because we have two beds. Or Toronto and we need to find it. We walk in there for a little bit and the feet don’t hurt until a pine needle decides to prick them ouch. Mostly they don’t prick only a few mean ones. Stick gets them too because he says “Owey” and stops and makes me look at his foot.

  “Gotta splinter.”

  He is scared of splinters because he got one and Momma and I had to go to the summer friends’ house to have them help us hold him down so Momma could take it out with pointers. Stick said “No, don’t touch” but Momma said yes because the splinter could get sick and die in his foot and then the dead body would make him sick. Finally she got it out with the pointers and showed us in a lamp and I looked and it was a small piece of the dock. So the splinter body was on the dock at first and so watch out when you walk there. Maybe wear shoes so no bodies go in your feet. And so Stick thinks there are bodies around the needles and I try to look at his foot and he holds it up but he falls. He almost cries but I tell him he is okay and I don’t know but no blood. Because I am the big sister and I say he is okay he is okay and doesn’t cry. When he is sitting on the ground I can look at where he got the splinter before. But he won’t keep his foot still and pulls it back and he doesn’t want me to look or pull his feet away all the time. I say to him to stay still but he is making the sad noise of his inside dog. I feel bad. I put the inside dog there. I made it stay.

  “Do you want Gwen?” I ask.

  He nods. It is very Stick to talk with his head instead of his mouth.

  “Here,” I say and hand him Gwen.

  “Glen.” He cuddles her and I think maybe it was a mistake because he will get used to her and love her so much that he thinks he loves her more than me. So I grab his foot to keep him from going away.

  Stick is scared when I grab his foot because it makes him think splinter.

  “Hug Gwen and sniff and don’t look,” I tell him.

  He cuddles her to his face and closes his eyes. “Okey.”

  I take his foot and I look at the same spot and see that there is no splinter so it is okay and no blood or body at all.

  “You’re fine, Stick. Don’t worry,” I say.

  He nods and sniffs Gwen again. “Glen.”

  “You are brave,” I say because that’s what Momma would say.

  He does another sniff.

  “Can I have her back now?” I stick out my hand.

  He sticks out a fat arm and gives her. I feel really glad and sniff and she stinks a little like Stick but not too bad.

  “Good dog,” I say to him. “Good, good dog.”

  “Woof!” He keeps his bum on the ground but puts his arms up in the air and shuffles his feet around in the needles. His face looks pleased and I think he knows that he is older and growing up from not a baby. He can be brave with splinters now.

  But then splinters are whatever because I am so hungry and Momma has not come like she said. I look from there and close by I can see a bunch of dangle berries. They are hiding under leaves so sneaky. I couldn’t see them from walking but down here on the needles I can see where they are. I keep on my hands and knees so they don’t run and sneak up. Grrrr I growl at them because my stomach does too and when lions are going to eat deers they don’t roar so then I think be quiet and sneak. The dangle berries don’t see me and I put one paw in front of the other and sneak up and then pounce. I get the plant under my paw and reach down and pick off a berry with my teeth. And then I stop and the dangle berry is in my mouth and I worry that it is red and might be the spicy kind of red. I take it out of my mouth with my fingers and look and sniff. It has a red stem in one end and a skinny brown stem on the other side and it is red but not like a cherry more like an apple except really small like a blueberry but it isn’t any of these. I stick my tooth in and a little juice comes out and I lick and it is spicy like the gum my momma chews not like hot but I like bubble gum better. I bite and it is a little bit like a mint spicy and not bad and I have another. And there is a plant beside so I pluck those and stick them in my mouth. I find another plant and then I hear breathing behind me.

  “Hey, want some.” Stick has words in his head and they come out more when h
e is hungry.

  I don’t want to share. I want to eat everything because the hole in my tummy is so big I need to plug it. I push Stick back and eat another berry and then the breathing again and I look and he has big sad eyes like his inside dog and they make my stomach sag.

  “Okay, one.” I pass him one.

  He gobbles it up like it is a cookie and it isn’t and I wish we still had those and where is the tin? But I don’t care because I am picking the berries off and shoving them in my mouth and the hole is big so I need lots.

  “More,” he says.

  Huff.

  “More, Nana.” His small paw wipes my back.

  “Here.” I show him a plant and shrug. “Take some if you want it.”

  He smiles this big smile like I just gave him a candy but I didn’t it’s healthy for my body and Momma would say that’s good so I should tell her when she comes to get us that it was good food I made for lunch and not junk. Stick puts his fat finger on the berry and pulls it down and it won’t come off. I try not to look because I need to eat many many berries and it doesn’t feel like there is another and his hand is there again and pulls and the berry falls off and rolls down into the dirt.

  “Hey,” says Stick like the plant is playing a trick on him.

  “Here.” I pick the berry off the ground and give it to him and then I keep plucking and eating some more and too many are getting spicy but at least it is good spice. Stick tries to get more with his useless fat hands but they don’t work. My momma said they didn’t work at all when he was a first-born baby but I remember him holding Arrowroot cookies so that was probably wrong. He didn’t have teeth but he smooshed the Arrowroot on his gums for so long that enough spit went in and it made the cookie mushy and so he kind of drank it but was kind of chewing it with his gums too but not teeth.