He'd seen lots of blood on TV, lots of creatures and even people dying. But you always knew the blood you saw there—however red it might be—was really fake. The blood, the limp body, all of it was fake.
Trouble's death would be different, though. It would be real. Because Trouble was real. At least he would be for a little while longer.
Would he still be real after the Fish and Game guy finished with him?
Jonathan turned away from the men in the parking lot and looked down the road instead. Still no sign of the school bus.
Why had his father given that stupid bear a name? Everything would be easier if Trouble were still just "the bear." There were lots of bears out there. Lots and lots. But the moment you gave one a name—even a not-very-friendly name like Trouble—he became the only one. There was no other "Trouble." So did that mean that what happened to Trouble mattered?
Jonathan took a deep breath, and just as he let it out he saw the top of a yellow bus rising out of a dip in the road. He tightened his hold on his lunch bag and hunched deeper into his jacket.
The bus rumbled to a stop and the door shushed open. Jonathan stared at the open door and at the metal steps climbing up into the bus, then he stepped back.
"Hi, Jonnie," Dorothy, the driver, said. "Missed you yesterday. Were you sick?"
"Uh," he said. "Uh. Yeah ... kind of." But he didn't move from where he stood, his shoes rooted to the half-frozen ground. A mew gull flew over, making its familiar sound that seemed almost like crying.
Dorothy said nothing more. She just waited, her round face smiling, her arms crossed, leaning on the steering wheel as though she had all the time in the world.
Jonathan took another step back. "You know," he said, holding his free hand in front of his face as though to shield himself from the force of Dorothy's smile, "I guess I'd better go back home. I think I forgot something."
He expected the bus driver to argue, to tell him, as his mother would have, to get on the bus and quit being silly. If she had done that, no doubt he would have obeyed. He was not accustomed to ignoring orders from adults. But, her voice warm with concern, Dorothy said only, "Then how will you get to school?"
"My dad," he answered quickly. "My dad will take me."
And to his enormous relief—and instant despair—she nodded. "Okay," she said. "If you're sure." And she whooshed the door shut again. Jonathan stood perfectly still at the edge of the empty road as the bus rattled off, leaving him alone.
His breath came in short gasps. He was skipping school. He'd never done anything like this in his life. He flapped a hand at the diesel exhaust that hung in the air and turned toward the zoo entrance.
He needed to talk to his father. He had to make sure Dad knew that someone from Fish and Game was at the gate. And the TV reporter, too. A gun and a camera. Dad had to be told.
He had wanted something done about Trouble, to have him go away and never come back, and now they were going to kill him ... and show the killing in the middle of everybody's dinner tonight. That wasn't what he'd asked for, was it?
***
The voices woke Trouble. They moved toward him, floating on the cool morning air. First he looked toward the enclosure that held Jake, but the older bear was still nowhere in view. Then he rose on his hind legs, trying unsuccessfully to peer through the dense trees that grew on each side of the zoo path. He dropped to all fours again. Where should he go?
He could smell as well as hear the humans, even if he couldn't see them. Although everything in this place was permeated with the smell of humans, he could make out distinctly the fresh scent of the ones moving toward him. The smell didn't put him on edge as much as it had just a few days earlier. He had grown almost accustomed to the way it clung to everything in this new territory, and accustomed, too, to the manner in which the disturbing smell seemed to be connected with food.
Soft food, easy to chew, to swallow.
Still, he wasn't so accustomed that he was going to stay here and wait for the humans to arrive. He'd go back instead to the place where he had dug in. He was all the way inside the zoo this time, inside both fences, but he had left a tunnel behind. He could still slip out easily enough.
And then ... there they were! He could see them. Three tall humans, walking on their hind legs the way humans did. Coming toward him.
Trouble lumbered off the path and into the woods.
12. Go, Trouble!
JONATHAN made a wide circle around the television reporter and the Fish and Game ranger and arrived at the locked gate. Fortunately, Frank was in the gatehouse, getting set up for the day. The smell of popcorn already filled the air.
"Frank, I've got to see my dad. Do you know where he is?"
"Back by Jake's pen. They radioed me to say they'd found that wild brownie sleeping there this morning."
So Trouble was here, just waiting for someone to use a gun on him.
"Would you let me in?" Jonathan grasped the bars of the tall metal gate. He wanted to shake them, but he resisted. "There's something I've got to tell my dad."
Frank looked skeptical. "I don't know as how he'd want you in there with that bear loose and all."
"Please," Jonathan pleaded. "It's important. Really, really important. My dad would want me to tell him."
"Well ... I don't know," Frank said, but even as he said it he opened the gate, just wide enough for Jonathan to slip through.
"Thanks!" Jonathan called, and he was off running toward the back of the zoo and Jake's pen before Frank could say another word.
He found his father and Pat Rawlings and Katie Doran, the education director, on the path in front of Jake's pen. Trouble was nowhere in sight.
"Jonathan!" his father exclaimed before Jonathan could catch his breath to begin to speak. "What are you doing here?"
"I had to tell you," Jonathan panted. "They're out there." He bent over, his hands on his knees. "Outside the zoo. At the front gate."
"Who's out there?" The question was clipped, angry.
"The Fish and Game guy."
His father groaned. So did Pat and Katie.
"And somebody from the TV station, too."
His father cast a glance at the other two. Jonathan saw that Pat was carrying a gun, and it looked very much like the one the man from the Fish and Game department had with him.
"Just what we need," his dad said, speaking to the other adults, not to him. But when he turned back, his attention was fully on Jonathan. A hand clamped on each of Jonathan's shoulders.
"You don't belong here, son," he said. "That brownie is here again. Just as we came up, he disappeared into the woods. Right here." He waved an arm to indicate the large stand of trees just behind Jonathan. "And we're trying to catch up with him. So go!" He released his hold on Jonathan's shoulders and gave him a slight but definite push.
Jonathan held his ground. "What will you do when you catch him?" He knew the situation was urgent, that the slightest delay would make his father angry, but he had to ask.
"Never mind about that." Dad waved his hand again in the direction he wanted Jonathan to take. "Just get out of here before you miss your bus. I don't want to see you again until the day is over."
Jonathan didn't move. "Are you going to kill him?" he demanded. "Just like the Fish and Game guy out there, are you going to shoot him dead?"
His father looked surprised. For an instant, Jonathan thought Dad was going to remind him that last night he'd said he wanted Trouble killed. But his father didn't say anything about that. Probably only because any discussion would take too much time.
He merely shook his head. "No ... no. We're not going to kill him. We'll dart him, put him to sleep. That is, if we can keep him from leaving the zoo. If he gets out the front gate or back out where he dug in, the ranger will have to kill him. Now, get out of here. I told you, you don't belong here. It's too dangerous!"
Strangely relieved, Jonathan turned and took off running.
He didn't go back to the bus stop, tho
ugh. There was no point in that. His father hadn't checked the time, didn't realize he'd already missed the bus. As soon as the curving path had taken him out of his father's view, he stopped.
The three adults were going to walk this path—and probably the one on the other side of the stand of trees that Trouble had disappeared into—trying to herd the bear before them. But if they succeeded in getting Trouble to move, he might very well keep going until he ran out the front gate—to face the ranger's gun!—before anyone on the inside could stop him.
For an instant, Jonathan could feel Trouble's terror make his own muscles go limp, could feel the great heart slamming against his own ribs. Trouble hadn't meant to kill Mama Goose. A bear didn't understand killing. He understood noisy and quiet. He understood hungry and full. He understood lonely.
Trouble had to be lonely. Why else was he using up so much energy digging into the zoo just to be near Jake?
And now his loneliness was going to get him killed!
But he, Jonathan, could help. Even if his father thought he couldn't. He could stay right here and head Trouble back toward the adults and their tranquilizer gun. The bear hadn't touched him the night they had met nose to nose on the deck. Surely he wouldn't hurt him now.
Checking to make sure none of the adults had come far enough along the path to be able to see him, Jonathan stepped over the low wooden fence at the edge of the path and darted into the shadow of the trees. Once there, he stopped to take a deep breath and to look around carefully. There was a brownie in these woods, and he could be anywhere!
Jonathan knew about bear attacks. Brownies are often more aggressive than black bears, but very few of them will attack a human. All they want to do is to get out of the way. But even if it's only one bear out of ten that will—or one out of a hundred—your luck runs out when you meet up with the bear that attacks you. And Trouble was going to be scared and running, for sure. He could react to anything in his path the way he'd reacted to Mama Goose.
What was it they told you to do if a brown bear attacked you? Play dead. That was it. Fight a black bear, play dead with a brownie. Cover the back of your neck with your hands, pull your knees up to protect your belly and just lie there and hope the bear will go away.
A shiver rattled through his body, but Jonathan ignored it and moved deeper into the trees. Just as the adults couldn't see Trouble, because the stand of trees was so dense, they wouldn't be able to see him, either. And Trouble had to be lurking in here somewhere.
Jonathan's senses were strung so taut that he felt as though he might explode. And it was in that state of hyper-awareness that he stepped around a large bush and found himself face to face with the brown bear.
For an instant he couldn't breathe. He wondered if Trouble might be having difficulty breathing, too. The animal just stared with those small dark eyes, and neither of them made a sound. Beyond the trees, from the path Jonathan could no longer see, he could hear the adults. They were walking, calling to one another, coming closer. Trouble heard them, too. The brownie swung his great head this way and that, apparently looking for a way to escape.
Not this way! Jonathan thought. You can't go this way! And he began to jump up and down, waving his hands in front of Trouble's face, and shouting.
"Go!" he cried. "Go, Trouble! Get out of here!"
***
The young bear stood, rooted to the ground, amazed at the noise issuing from the boy. Humans were coming from behind, too. He could hear their footsteps and their voices. He could smell them. But directly in front of him was the smaller one he had seen before, the one he associated with the loaf of bread he had eaten, and noise was pouring out of his mouth.
Still, the voices coming from behind pushed at him! Trouble took another step toward the young one, but the boy held his ground. He kept yelling, kept flapping his arms up and down. Trouble stepped forward one more time, expecting the boy to give way. Still, the young one continued his infuriating dance.
For an instant, Trouble went completely still, caught, suspended. Then, trapped between the noise behind and the noise in front of him, he flattened his ears and popped his jaw in warning. Incredibly, the boy only yelled louder!
The confusion of humans on every side was too much. His grief and loneliness, his hunger and pain, were too much. And the human who bounced in front of him was no match for the power he knew resided in even a single swipe of his great paw. Trouble lifted one paw, ready to lunge, to strike.
The boy stopped jumping, stopped shouting, but still he didn't run away. He stood there and stared into Trouble's eyes. As though he thought himself the bigger bear!
The boy's stare unnerved Trouble, his bold stare combined with the voices moving up on him from behind. Trouble moaned, lifted his paw higher, moaned again. He was trapped, and all that stood between him and freedom seemed to be this scrap of a boy.
A noise came from the boy this one soft, almost a whimper. And though he didn't know why he did it, the young bear lowered the paw he had intended to strike with, turned, and dodged away. He ran toward the ravine and the creek and the holes he had dug beneath the two fences that enclosed the zoo.
The bear had almost reached the first fence when he felt a sudden sharp sting in his shoulder. He twisted his head to snap at the thing that had penetrated his thick fur, his skin, his muscle. Snapped and missed. And then, strangely, after he had run a bit farther, his legs didn't seem to belong to him any longer. He stumbled and struggled to stay upright. A liquid warmth stole through his entire body.
As he went down, crashing into the brush at the base of the ravine, he found himself staring up at the boy, who had, incredibly, followed his flight. That was all he saw at the end, all he could remember ... the boy.
13. A Lot Like Us
JONATHAN sat up in bed, listening. The neighbors surrounding the zoo would be complaining again. It had been almost a week since Trouble was captured, and he still banged around inside his enclosure, bellowing and moaning, day and night.
Was he, Jonathan, responsible for that, too—the fact that Trouble was miserable being confined, that the neighbors were being disturbed?
No. Not even his father would blame him for those things, though he had blamed him, it seemed, for everything else. The TV reporters being there. The Fish and Game people. But mostly Dad blamed Jonathan for being inside the zoo instead of on the school bus, for putting himself in danger to keep Trouble from rushing through the gate or back under the fence to be killed.
It didn't matter that everything had turned out all right. It didn't matter that Trouble hadn't had to be put down, that the television report had made the zoo personnel all look like heroes, that Jonathan hadn't been touched. Not so much as a nick from those long curving claws, those sharp teeth.
At first his father had been almost too angry to even notice that everything was okay. But then the relief had seeped in. Relief for Trouble, of course. His father truly didn't want to see the bear killed. But mostly relief that Jonathan hadn't been hurt. While the others went for a pallet to carry the drugged bear out of the ravine and into the den of the old polar bear exhibit where he could be held for a while, Dad had grabbed Jonathan, pulled him into the front of his denim jacket, and burst into rough tears.
"How could you?" he said, over and over again. "How ... could ... you? You might have been killed."
And even Jonathan knew what his father said was true. When he had stood, almost nose to nose with Trouble, when he had seen the desperation in the bear's eyes, he knew he had made the wrong choice. The young brownie might have swung at him as easily as he had at Mama Goose, and a boy would have about as much chance against such a blow as a too noisy goose. Everything had worked out, yes, but still he knew that he had made the wrong choice.
And how glad he was to be alive to know it.
Another roar from the captive Trouble reverberated through the neighborhood. Jonathan pulled the covers up to his chin, closed his eyes, and settled more deeply into his warm bed. Then sl
owly, silently, he let himself slip inside the bear. He let four strong legs carry him from one side of the concrete enclosure to the other, let Trouble's panic, his deep longing reverberate throughout his body.
"Animals," he was explaining to Rhonda just before he finally slept, "are a lot like us. They want, just like us."
***
Though Trouble's stomach was always full, the days he spent confined to the concrete room seemed to have no end. He had no knowledge of the negotiations that were going on, the reaching out to zoos all over the world, to find a new home for him. Nor would he have been impressed if anyone could have made him understand what these humans were doing. He wanted only what he had wanted since his mother sent him away: his old life back.
The day that one of the humans laid down a path of Fig Newtons, Trouble followed the path out of the concrete room, slurping one cookie after another without noticing where they led. An interesting new taste. He approved.
What he did not approve of was the small cage he found himself confined to after the last Fig Newton had disappeared. But he soon became sleepy—the cookies had been laced with Valium—and he was snoring mightily when the wooden crate was loaded into the belly of a passenger jet.
He slept so soundly, in fact, that he didn't catch a whiff of the 40,000 pounds of fresh salmon that had been loaded into the hold of the plane with him. The delicious aroma didn't even penetrate his consciousness ... yet. When the Valium finally wore off and the young bear woke, he was many thousands of feet up in the air, somewhere over Canada. And then, of course, he smelled the salmon.
When the familiar and delicious aroma reached his nose, he proceeded to bang, to thump, to rattle his cage. He moaned and roared. And he made such a commotion that the pilot had no choice but to come on the intercom with an explanation.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "don't worry about the noise you hear. You see, we have a very special passenger on board for this flight. And by the way, his name is Trouble!"
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