Bringing Me Back

by Beth Vrabel

  “No!” I snapped. “Well, the friend, she’s a girl. But the project isn’t a girl.”

  “Uh-huh,” Glen and Jeff said, in unison.

  “It’s not a big deal!” I flung my arm out, accidentally toppling a tin can full of screws. I caught it, shoving the screws back inside, and elbowed another can, this one full of pens. “It’s just a thing.”

  “Sure,” they said.

  “Seriously, guys!” I stumbled backwards. “It’s not like that.”

  “This thing … ” Glen chuckled. “She cute?”

  “What? No! I mean…”

  “Oh, she’s cute,” said Jeff, rolling onto his toes and looking behind me into the shop lobby.

  I whipped around just as Rina turned toward us. She stopped and raised an eyebrow at the way we were all staring at her. I waved and she tilted her head a little but kept walking. “Just shut up about it,” I hissed as they laughed.

  I led Rina toward the workstation. She dumped her backpack onto the counter and ripped into the bag of sour cream and onion chips. “Awesome! I’m starving.” She gulped down half the can of pop. “So, what’s up?”

  “Um.” I sank onto the stool next to hers. “It’s just…”

  Rina rolled her eyes again. “Spit it out, Noah. What do you need help with?”

  “What makes you think I need help?”

  She stared at me, chewing on her chips.

  “It’s the bear,” I finally said, hating the way my voice cracked on bear.

  “Bucket Bear?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, if you have to call her that.”

  “What’s wrong with ‘Bucket Bear’? I mean, it is a bear with a bucket on its head.”

  “It’s a little more than that, don’t you think? I mean, just calling her Bucket Bear is sort of callous.”

  “Hans Christian Andersen calls a girl who is literally starving and freezing to death the “Little Match Girl” because she has a match. I think a bear with a bucket on its head can handle being called Bucket Bear.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Whatever. This bear—”

  “Bucket Bear.”

  “Yes, that one. Can we move on?” I waited until Rina nodded, not liking how she wasn’t even trying not to grin. “So Mr. Anderson called the Department of Natural Resources this morning, right? Well, I called again after school. They still haven’t caught her.”

  “Yeah.” Rina nodded. “I called, too.”

  “You—what?”

  “I called.” She pointed to the other bag of chips. “You gonna eat those?” I pushed them toward her. “My mom is health freak. She’d probably force me to eat baked, non-GMO, free-range tortilla chips if they were a thing.” Rina shoved a handful of barbecue chips in her mouth. “So, yeah, I gave them a call after school, too. No wonder the guy seemed so annoyed. You must’ve just gotten off the phone with him.”

  “I get the impression Officer Ron is generally annoyed,” I said. Rina smirked. “But why did you call?”

  Rina licked some barbecue powder off her fingertips. “Look, since school started, you’ve reacted to absolutely nothing. Nada. Not teachers picking on you. Not trash piling in your locker. Not your best friend death glaring you across the cafeteria. Then this bear shows up and suddenly you care about something again. It didn’t take a genius to figure that’s what this,” she pointed between us, “is about. Which I am, by the way. A genius, that is.”

  “Congratulations. It’s just … ”

  Rina shrugged. “It’s genetics. I can’t really accept the congrats on brainpower I was born having. But I assumed that’s why you wanted to talk to me. Because I’m smart, like you. And I know how to get things done.” She smiled into the distance, no doubt thinking of her small moments English comp win, totally ignoring the fact that an additional task on the curriculum list made her about as popular as me.

  “It’s just … ”

  “There are more than 250,000 words in the English language. If you say, ‘It’s just,’ one more time—”

  “I want to save her,” I blurted. “The authorities aren’t doing a good job.”

  “I agree.”

  “They’re setting live traps, but I bet they can’t get her to them because she can’t sniff them out. And black bears are super fast, too, so they can’t catch her.”

  “So what can we do?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure.” I opened the laptop Jeff had loaned me and typed black bear in the search engine. Rina leaned over my shoulder, not speaking but reading along as I researched. I could tell she finished reading pages before me, but she didn’t say anything about it, just leaned back in her seat until I was finished.

  Once she reached around me and clicked on a story I would’ve skipped since it wasn’t a science or environmental page. It was a news article from a couple weeks back, about a huge black bear that had been hit by a tractor trailer. I swallowed as I read. My bear was so small, and she practically had blinders on, thanks to the bucket.

  After a few minutes and a half dozen web pages, Rina said, “Okay, so what do we know, aside from that the bear doesn’t have a lot of time?”

  “Well, that first site said bears should be hunting and eating like crazy this time of year to bulk up for hibernation. But she can’t do that because of the bucket, so she’s probably not eating nearly as much as she should.”

  “Yeah,” Rina added, “but at least something else makes sense now. I couldn’t get how she was even still living. We first saw her like this a week ago.”

  “But that natural resources site had a lot of info about hibernating and— ”

  “Right,” Rina said. “Everyone always thinks hibernation is about it being super cold. But it’s not. Hibernation is from lack of food, not winter. So maybe she’s going in a pseudo-hibernation? Pseudo means fake.”

  “I know what pseudo means.”

  Rina grinned, like she was proud of me. Man, she could be irritating. But, for some reason, I smiled back. “Right. But it’s dangerous, because right now she should be eating a ton of food, building up her fat stores to get through actual hibernation.”

  “So even if we save her, it might not be enough?” Rina asked.

  “Maybe not.” I gritted my teeth. “But I want to give it a shot.”

  “What can we do?” Rina asked.

  “I think we should track her. You know, the more people we have looking for her, the better. Maybe we could do search parties or something.”

  Rina’s mouth twisted. At the same time, Jeff bellowed, “Hell, no.”

  “Jeff!” I yelled, annoyed that he was listening.

  “No way,” he said, his voice firm. “No way are a bunch of kids going tracking through the woods after a scared, desperate bear. No way.”

  “Look,” Rina broke in when I opened my mouth to protest. “Your dad’s right.”

  “He’s not my dad.” I kept my eyes down so I wouldn’t see Jeff.

  “Even so, he’s right. We can’t go looking for the bear ourselves. But what if we got other people to do it?” She smiled. “You know why this ‘Bring Back the Bruins’ bucket thing is working, even if it isn’t raising as much money as it should?”

  I shrugged and turned away from Rina, putting my elbows on the counter. I didn’t want to talk about the bucket contest.

  “Because Landon, Mike, and Brenna got people to care about it. That’s all. Whether it’s successful at raising money or not, it got people to talk about the football team like it’s a real thing again. And that’s why it’s going to work. If you want to save Bucket Bear, we’ve got to get people to care about her.”

  “How am I going to do that?”

  “Well, you already got me to care.” Rina put her elbows on the table, too, so our arms touched. I felt a buzz, like soft electricity ran along that length of skin. “And that was just by mumbling incoherently.”

  “No one’s going to care what I have to say.”

  “Dude, enough with the pity party.” Rina crumpled her chi
p bags and tossed them into the trash can. She missed. “But I agree with you. You do have a bit of a reputation problem. People have long memories.”

  “Exactly!” I slammed my fist on the countertop.

  “So we’ve got to get people to care without knowing they’re caring about you.” Rina messed around with the laptop, then flipped it so it faced me. “Check this out.”

  This time, I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard of social media.” Rina had a half dozen sites gridded on her screen—Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat.

  She pushed a few more buttons and the screen just showed a picture of the bear. “This is the only shot I got during that assembly before my phone died. But maybe it’ll be enough.” She chewed her lip a second. “We make the bear go viral. Get people to upload when and where they spot her.”

  “Maybe add Officer Ron’s contact info, too. So he’ll know right away?”

  “Save the Bucket Bear!” Rina cheered, like Brenna. Then she turned to me and was back to being know-it-all Rina. “Social media presence is huge, according to my dad. He says that’s what sells books these days more than anything. And at my journalism camp, the editor said digital copy is gold. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re a genius,” I whispered.

  “We’ve covered that already.” But she smiled.

  “Looks like the project is going well,” Glen said from behind us.

  “It’s amazing,” I said, not taking my eyes off Rina.

  Her fingers flew across the keyboard, setting up sites. “Can we add a map thing?” I asked. “So, like, people can check in where they see her.”

  Rina nodded.

  “And they’ll be able to post pictures, too, right?”

  She smiled. “I like where your head’s at.” We went over setting up passwords and monitoring. She made me administrator of each site, and I jotted down the details.

  “This is incredible,” I said an hour later, when all the sites were live. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to thank me.” Rina stowed her notebook back into her shoulder bag. “You have to owe me.”

  “Owe you? What?”

  “You,” Rina poked me in the chest, “just became the first reporter of the Bruins Gazette. Welcome to the newspaper club, Noah. I’d like an opinion piece on saving Bucket Bear by Tuesday.”

  “But I thought we were keeping my reputation separate from the bear?”

  Rina shrugged. “We’ll try to use it, too. See which sticks.”

  “Which sticks?” I groaned.

  “Yeah. Think about it. Every time a celebrity does something stupid, they get all over the news. Then whatever movie or project they’re working on is news, too. You already did something stupid. Now we make Bucket Bear news.”

  “I still wish you’d stop calling her that.”

  Rina laughed and brought her bag back up her shoulder. “Bucket Bear is going to be huge.” Then she looked at her watch and sighed. “I’ve put it off long enough. Time to go home for dinner.” Her face scrunched up. “Mom’s on this vegan kick. Bean curd drumsticks with roasted kale on tonight’s menu. Have you ever bitten into bean curd?” She shuddered.

  “Nah, we’re more SpaghettiOs and takeout.”

  “You. Are. So. Lucky,” whispered Rina, hazel eyes wide.

  “Hey, Rina,” Jeff called out from the bay behind us. “Would you like to stick around for dinner? We’re just getting burgers from Sal’s, but you’re welcome to join us.”

  “Praise the Lord!” Rina clapped. “Let me just text my mom.” She danced a little while punching out the message on her cell, and then sat back down. “This will give us time to talk about your first feature. I was thinking a profile of Brenna. A real get-to-know-you piece about what matters to her.”

  I felt the blood leave my face. Rina laughed—a deep, honeyed laugh that I had never heard from her before—and pushed my shoulder. “Dude, I like you too much to subject you to that.”

  I laughed with her. A few seconds later, her phone pinged. She glanced at it, frowned and swallowed hard. She cleared her throat. “Um, it looks like…”

  “Let me guess: your mom said no.”

  Rina opened her mouth to deny it, then closed it again and nodded. “Micah’s my cousin, Noah. And my mom was at that party—”

  “Whatever.”

  “No problem, Rina,” Jeff said from under the car. “Another time.”

  Jeff insisted that I sit with him at the kitchen table to eat our burgers. “Here, have my pickle.” He flipped it into my Styrofoam takeout container, right on top of my fries.

  “I don’t want a pickle.” I tossed it back onto his plate.

  “Just eat the freaking pickle, Noah,” Jeff snapped. He tossed it back. “It’s the only vegetable on the table. I want you to have it.”

  I picked it up and took a huge bite. “Happy?”

  He didn’t answer. Both of us kept glancing at the glowing green numbers on the oven clock. Six forty-five. Jeff not-so-subtly knocked the huge stack of letters between us on the table. There were about a dozen of them, all from Mom to me. All unopened. The basket on the floor held about fifty more. I pushed the letters aside, then piled fries on top of the burger patty and smooshed it all together with the top of the bun.

  Jeff cocked an eyebrow at me then glanced down at his own burger. He had done the same, only with sweet potato fries.

  Both of us reached for the hot sauce at the same time. “Go ahead,” he said, and I put five shakes on the remaining fries before handing the bottle to him so he could do the same. Six fifty.

  I sucked up the last few dregs of my pop and polished off the burger. Six fifty-eight.

  “Noah,” Jeff said warningly. “Come on, man.”

  Instead of answering, I pushed off my seat. Six fifty-nine. I held up the pickle. “Look!” I said, like it was a peace offering and finished it just as the phone rang.

  “Noah!” Jeff called, but I was out of the door before the last ring.

  Fifteen minutes, that’s how long I had to hang out in the backyard.

  See, prisoners are only allowed to make phone calls a couple times a week. Mom was up to three calls weekly, now that she had finished parenting lessons, was going to group meetings for addicts, and was meeting with Dean Trenton, her sponsor, every week. And she could only make them at seven o’clock in the evening. Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays. Here’s another prisoner rule: phone calls automatically disconnect after fifteen minutes.

  “Hey, Diane,” I heard Jeff say into the receiver. “No, sorry. He’s not here.”

  I stomped further into the yard, tripping over something in the dark.

  “You know I’m trying. I am.” Jeff paused. When he spoke again, his voice was hard. “I can’t force the kid—”

  I reached around in the overgrown grass and fallen leaves, trying to see what I had stumbled over.

  “When you’re back, it’ll be different,” he snapped. “For all of us … I didn’t mean that.”

  My fingers flew back like I had touched a flame when I realized what was there, under all the debris. My old football.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next morning, I leaned back against my locker, waiting for Rina. When she finally approached—chugging from a Starbucks travel mug (seriously)—I sort of lost my mind for a second and jumped to my feet. A bunch of kids turned toward me, mouths surprised little circles. All the heat in the world slammed my face, and I knew I looked the exact opposite of Jeff’s always-cool-and-steady. But Rina just smiled. “I know, right?” she said, like our conversation was a minute ago, instead of twelve hours earlier.

  “One hundred likes on Facebook already,” I gushed like a baby. “And did you see the comments?”

  Rina nodded, transferring her books into the locker. “Everyone wants to save Bucket Bear! Someone even posted another pic.” She cradled the mug in her neck. I grabbed it as it started to slip.

  “I can’t believe your mom lets you
drink this stuff.” I sniffed the coffee. “Blech.”

  “She doesn’t know.” Rina grabbed the cup from me and took another long pull. “What did the DNR officer say this morning?”

  I fought the smile tugging my lips, happy that she just took it for granted that I called again today. I had a little script that I wrote out in the notes of my phone, to keep from getting off track when I checked in. (Why couldn’t Officer Ron just text?) This is Noah Brickle, calling about the Bucket Bear. I’d like an update on the case, please. Ron had cut me off this morning. “Yeah, yeah, I know who you are.”

  I gave up on not smiling as I answered Rina. “Ron said no action on the traps. When I ticked off the sightings people posted online, he said he’d head out and see if the traps need to be moved around.”

  “Great!” Rina closed her locker just as I worked to pop mine open. “I’ll follow up this afternoon.”

  Both of us sighed as a wave of granola wrappers, empty plastic bottles, and balls of paper rolled out of my locker. “I really need to get that lock.”

  Rina patted my shoulder. “The good news is, we’re having our first newspaper meeting at lunch. In the cafeteria.”

  “How in the world could that be considered good news?”

  “You get to have lunch with me.” Rina grinned.

  “Are your, um, other friends going to wonder where we are?”

  Rina rolled her eyes. “You know perfectly well that I don’t have any other friends, Noah. Apparently it sounds,” she made quote marks with her fingers, “snobby and annoying to talk about the city.”

  “Huh.”

  Rina shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I’m moving in with my dad when I’m in high school.”

  “What?” I felt like I’d been sucker punched. High school was two years away, but Rina was the only person here who treated me like I was human. I sucked on my bottom lip. On the other hand, Rina definitely didn’t belong in Ashtown.

  “It’s not for certain, but Dad’s working on it.” She slung her backpack up her shoulder. “So… the cafeteria? I have the table by the library entrance.”

  “Yeah, I know where you sit.” Why couldn’t I have just said okay? Now my face was turning red, and Rina was suddenly intent on a hangnail.