Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear

by J. Joseph Wright

  “Okay, okay. I promise. But what about the others, your friends? We can’t just leave them in Winmart. Sooner or later those same people will find them, don’t you think?”

  “Not after I go away,” Takota faced the other direction.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I’m getting out of here. You all were fine before I came around. Then I showed up and spoiled everything. I’m gonna make it right. I’m going away. Far away.”

  “But you can’t leave. Not now,” Jack cried.

  “You talking to yourself again, Jackie-boy?” Mike taunted from across the locker room. Takota froze, once again donning the perfect camouflage of a cuddly stuffed toy.

  “Of course he’s talking to himself,” Dillon darted from behind a row of lockers, chomping on a wad of gum. “Who else would want to talk to him after this morning?”

  “I don’t know,” Mike used a menacing tone. “Seems to me he has himself a girlfriend now.”

  “Naw, she just talks to him ‘cause she feels sorry for him,” Dillon laughed. “That’s what Wendy tells me, anyway.”

  Fresh from the athletic field, the two boys were adorned in official field hockey regalia, complete with helmets, shin and elbow protectors and, of course, long, imposing sticks with hooks on the ends resembling giant, upside-down candy canes.

  “So what?” Mike strode to Jack. “Who cares about some stupid girl, anyway? You wanna know what I do care about? I care about my dog. What’d you do to my dog, Jack?”

  “What’re you talking about?” he stepped in front of Takota. “I didn’t do a thing to your dog.”

  “Yes you did,” Mike brandished his hockey stick. “You scared the pee out of him, literally. He made a mess inside my brother’s car and my brother went off on me. Now you’re gonna pay.”

  “But I didn’t scare your dog. I wasn’t anywhere near it. I was with you guys. How can you say I did anything to Harley?”

  “You did something to that teddy bear, didn’t you? Maybe a shock collar. Is that what you did? You booby trapped a teddy bear and gave it to my dog?”

  “No!” Jack moved back, trying his best to block Takota from view.

  “He planted some cockamamie gadget inside, you can bet on it,” Dillon’s disdain was clear. “His criminal dad was probably involved, too.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jack laughed.

  “You better notta put one of your weirdo dad’s machines in my dog’s mouth!” Clang! Mike dented an innocent locker with his stick. “I’ll take that teddy bear and shove it up your nose!”

  “Can’t,” Dillon sounded proud. “It’s gone. The little boy who lost it was so heartbroken his parents combed the town until they saw my Lost and Found poster, and the rest is history. Jack doesn’t have the teddy bear any more, do you, Ja…”

  Dillon stopped. He choked when he spotted Takota, his chewing gum lodging in his throat. He gagged again then coughed it onto the floor.

  “What the..?” he stepped away. “Jack, you’re in trouble, big time! That thing belongs to someone else and you know it! Your dad just got thrown in jail. You wanna get your mom fired, too?”

  “You mean you’ve got it with you?” Mike tried to push Jack aside. “Is that what you’re hiding? Let me see it?”

  “No! You…can’t…have…it,” Jack struggled with the bigger kid.

  “Get it!” Mike ordered.

  “You crazy?” Dillon retreated even further. “I’m not touchin’ that stupid thing.”

  “All right,” Mike placed his foot behind Jack’s leg and gave him a shove, putting him flat on his rear. “I’ll get it.”

  He yanked Takota off the bench by one arm and held him up, a hunter with his trophy.

  “Leave him alone!” Jack sprang to his feet. He lunged at Mike but was held off by the slighter Dillon.

  Mike teased, “What the heck do you mean, ‘him’? This isn’t real, you freak! It’s a stuffed animal, right Dillon?”

  He waved Takota toward his buddy, who didn’t act appreciative of the gesture.

  “Hey! Get that thing away from me!”

  “What’s up with you, anyway?” Mike chortled. “This thing’s not alive. It’s just a toy. An ugly toy, too. I can’t imagine someone thinking it’s cute.”

  “Don’t you hurt him, Mike!”

  “Or what, Jack? Whatcha gonna do? You gonna beat me up? Naw, you’re too much of a brainiac for that. Instead of being brave and standing up for yourself, you’d rather invent some sort of ingenious revenge by planting an electronic device in a teddy bear and then giving it to a dog!”

  “But I never…”

  “Shut up! I know you’ve got one of your dad’s inventions inside this thing, don’t you? Well you know what I’m gonna do?”

  With one hand, he dangled Takota high. With the other, he pulled the hockey stick behind his head, readying for a swing.

  “Smash it!” urged Dillon.

  “I’m gonna whack the stuffing out of this thing!”

  “Like a piñata!”

  “Wait!” Jack pushed Dillon against the lockers. Too late. Mike had already tossed Takota into the air and swept at him hard.

  “Kiss this sucker goodbye!”

  Jack covered his eyes, expecting to hear a loud, sickening Thump! When that didn’t happen, he peeked through his fingers to find Mike searching wildly.

  “What? Where’d it go?” Dillon asked.

  “I, uh,” Mike searched up, down, under the benches, in the lockers. “I don’t know.”

  At the same moment, all three boys noticed a small, grayish-brown lump adhered to the end of Mike’s hockey stick.

  “What the?” Mike widened his glare. “How’d that get there?”

  He whipped the stick with a force that would have split it in two had he made contact with something solid. Takota didn’t budge, though. Not a millimeter.

  “Hit it on the floor!” urged Dillon.

  “No!” Jack screamed.

  Mike gripped with both hands, lifted the staff, then swung with the power of a sledge hammer. The hook on the end splintered against the concrete floor, leaving small shards of fiberglass, but no Takota.

  “Help! Help!”

  It had happened so fast, no one noticed. While in mid-swing, Takota had climbed up Mike’s arms and took residence on top of his helmet.

  “Why’d you wanna go and do that?” Takota grinned.

  “Ahhh! Get it off! Get it off!”

  “Okay, okay!” Dillon moved in. “Hold still!”

  He clubbed downward with his hockey stick. Takota switched positions, moving with blinding swiftness and avoiding the danger.

  Smack!

  Mike took the full force.

  “Quit it!” he cracked Dillon across the chest. “How’s it feel, huh?”

  “Hey! Don’t!” Dillon retaliated with a blow to his plastic body armor.

  Though Jack knew it would attract unwanted attention, he couldn’t stop giggling. He knew his instincts were correct when Mike focused on him.

  “You think it’s funny?” he raised his makeshift weapon. Jack searched. Takota was gone.

  “FREEZE!” Mr. Jarvis stood in the doorway ringed by a halo of sunlight.

  “Miller! Shane! I don’t know what you girls are thinking, but you just bought yourselves a couple one way tickets to see the principal!”

  “But, Mr. Jarvis,” Dillon whined.

  “I don’t wanna hear it, Shane! Move it, now!”

  “Mr. Jarvis, you gotta listen,” Mike pleaded. “It’s Jack’s teddy bear. Something really spooky’s goin’ on with it.”

  “It’s possessed or something,” added Dillon.

  “Yeah, possessed. It’s haunted by an evil spirit, dude!”

  Jarvis put his hands on his hips. “Haunted, huh? The only thing that’s gonna be haunted is the principal’s office. By YOU TWO! Now, you’ve got exactly three seconds to move out, or you’re gonna owe me pushups until you graduate high school—GO!”

&nbs
p; “Okay, okay,” the crestfallen troublemakers succumbed. They collided while trying to fit through the doorway at the same time, their plastic body armor clanking together.

  Mr. Jarvis recast his ire on Jack.

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, James,” he squinted. “But when I find out, mark my words I’m gonna…”

  The sound of wheezing made him hesitate. Without moving, he allowed his gaze to drift one way, then the next, then again at Jack. When the noise changed to a low snarl, he started to sweat. Every shred of ill-humor evaporated into childlike terror as the man took a step backward, chewing his fingernails.

  “Wha…what is that?” he asked Jack the way a three year old would question his daddy why the sky was blue.

  It became apparent the sound came from inside a laundry basket. Jack played dumb, hoping his teacher might take the bait.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you look?”

  “Well, I, uh,” Mr. Jarvis fidgeted with the keys hooked perpetually to a belt loop on his coach’s shorts. The noise died down. When he got close and reached in the basket, his wide eyes probed the shadowy interior.

  Then a menacing growl from the dirty laundry forced Jack to take cover behind his locker door before realizing it was Takota. The teacher, though, didn’t share the same confidence.

  “It is haunted!” as he scurried to the exit, he gave Jack one last order. “Whatever kind of abomination you brought into my locker room, you’d better get it outta here!”

  Jack hurried to the basket.

  “What’re you doing in there?” he pulled his little friend from the sweat-stained mess. “It’s disgusting!”

  “It was the only place I could find,” Takota waved his hand in front of his nose. “I was in a hurry.”

  “Yeah, those guys are all over me lately.”

  “They wouldn’t be if I wasn’t around,” asserted Takota. “Everywhere I go I bring nothing but problems. First I almost get the others captured, then I get you in trouble with your friends. And your dad. That’s my fault, too. He’s in jail because of me.”

  “First of all,” responded Jack. “Those kids are not my friends. Never were, so don’t blame yourself for that. Second, your friends are fine. They’re in Winmart right now. And as for my dad, his problems started way before you got here.”

  Takota differed. “I know for certain your father is in trouble, and it’s my fault. Same goes for you, same goes for Ayita, Enola, Cheyton and Pud. I can’t stay here knowing my very presence is putting you all in danger.”

  “So what, then? Where are you going to go?”

  “I wish I knew. I shouldn’t go back to Wind Whisper Woods. But my kind are being hunted, and I need to warn them. There’s an ancient one, an elder who might know what to do.”

  “You can’t go now,” begged Jack. “What about those people who tried to take you today? I’ve got a really bad feeling, Takota. They’re out there, somewhere, just waiting for you.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Takota shrugged. “I can take care of myself.”

  “But,” Jack sniffled. “Who’s gonna take care of me?”

  He blinked away a tear, wondering why he had to feel such an attachment for this tiny animal. Three days ago he didn’t even know Takota existed. Now he was bawling like they were long lost pals. Were they? The idea of an interconnected universe, the theory of quantum entanglement was just that before they met—a theory. Now he knew it was true. All things were connected. Only with Takota, Jack felt the bond distinctly.

  “Listen, do me a favor,” he suggested. “Stick with me until we can find Amelia. She’ll know what to do. She’s got a gift for this kind of thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Takota asked. “What kind of gift?”

  “She’s intuitive. She can sense things other people can’t.”

  “Like Ayita,” Takota looked to the floor.

  “You don’t want to leave. I can tell.”

  “No, but…”

  “Then stay with me. At least until we can talk to Amelia, okay?”

  “Okay, but no more dirty towels.”

  They made a deal, even shook on it, which felt strange for Jack since Takota’s hand was so tiny, yet so strong.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  JACK SEARCHED FOR AMELIA during lunch while Takota stayed in his backpack, munching on his patty melt and fries. He checked all the usual places and didn’t find her. It seemed she’d vanished from existence.

  “Where’s Amelia?” he summoned the mettle to approach Wendy and her cadre of followers on the swings.

  “Who’s Amelia?” she asked her friends. “Any of you heard of an Amelia?”

  That made him nervous. What if she had vanished? What if the O/A had branched off a new universe, split away a whole different timeline to a world in which Amelia hadn’t even been born?

  “Earth to Jack!” Wendy shouted. “Ewww! You’re spacing again, aren’t you? Quit it! That creeps me out!”

  On cue, her posse backed her up with a slew of insults.

  “He’s weird!”

  “He should be locked up with his dad!”

  “Yeah, in a mental institution!”

  “You know what you need to do?” Wendy didn’t wait for a response. “You need to pray the police don’t find that machine of your dad’s, ‘cause if they do they’ll keep him in prison forever!”

  Ignoring the taunts, he went to his favorite place in the whole schoolyard, a quiet, sunny spot on the far side of the field, made semi-private by a small cluster of oak trees.

  “Did you hear that?” he sat down and eased Takota out of the stuffy pack.

  “Hear what? Those girls making fun of you? Yeah, I heard.”

  “No, I mean what they said about Amelia. They acted like they didn’t even know her.”

  “So?” Takota furrowed his brow.

  “So, what if my dad’s machine created a new universe, one where Amelia doesn’t exist?”

  Takota chuckled. “You really do have quite the imagination, don’t you?”

  “Don’t laugh. I’m still not so sure you aren’t a part of my imagination. I mean, just look at us. I’m talking to you. How is it even possible you can understand me?”

  Takota raised his palms. “I don’t know. Tanakee have always had a knack for being able to interpret the languages of other animals. It seems humans are included.”

  “So you are a Tanakee. Amelia and I thought so.”

  “You two are pretty smart then, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. We found it on the internet.”

  “The what?”

  “Internet. It’s a library of knowledge we humans have compiled on computers.”

  “Computers. I know what they are. They’re trouble. And these computers, they have information about Tanakee?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Some. It said something about you being able to run fast and lift things much bigger and heavier than you should be able to. And it said other things, too.”

  “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  “Like…Takota? Do you know what an interdimensional being is?”

  “An inter—duh…what?”

  Jack’s turn to laugh. “On the internet, it says Tanakee are interdimensional beings. It says you have special powers. Mind control and disappearing into thin air. Your friends did it earlier today.”

  “Eteea,” Takota whispered.

  “What’s Eteea?”

  “It’s the power you’re talking about. All Tanakee have it in one form or another.”

  “So, you can vanish and reappear somewhere else? Teleport to anywhere you want?”

  “No. Well, yeah. Sometimes, I guess. Those with full understanding of Eteea can move anywhere, do anything in an instant, effortlessly, without thought or fear. I’ve done it once or twice. But it doesn’t work all the time. To tell the truth, I’ve never experienced Eteea until just recently. I mean, sure, I could play the dead game and perform the eyecatcher, but that was about it.”

  “T
he eyecatcher?”

  “What you call mind control.”

  Jack breathed deep. “So that’s why these people are after you? They want to control these powers of yours?”

  “Archer Savage.”

  “Archer Savage? The defense manufacturer? He’s after you?”

  “Him and someone he calls his client. They want to implant some kind of device in the brains of every Tanakee and make us slave warriors. They’ve been after us for a long time, it seems.”

  “So Amelia’s research was correct,” he sighed. “We sure could use her voice of reason right now. I doubt I’ll ever see her again, though. Her mom probably banned her from seeing me for life.”

  Takota grinned. “Don’t be so sure. Something tells me you’ll be seeing her sooner than you think.”

  “What, are you using your special powers now?” Jack acted skeptical, even disinterested. Inside, though, he burned to find out how far Takota’s abilities went. “Getting some kind of vision or something?”

  “No. She’s walking up behind you.”

  “Ha! There you are!” Amelia’s voice made Jack tingle with delight. She strode with confidence on multicolored gladiator sandals which peeked from under a long, lavender dress. “I knew I’d find you two together.”

  “Amelia! You’re not lost in some parallel dimension!”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TAKOTA FLOPPED SIDEWAYS on the lawn when Jack hopped to his feet and greeted Amelia. He didn’t mind, though. The soft grass gave him perfect cover. Besides, he knew the boy was worried about his friend.

  “Oops, sorry about that,” Jack placed him upright.

  Takota didn’t move. An instinctual self-preservation mode had kicked in, forcing him to play the dead game.

  “Oh, come on!” Jack’s frustration boiled over. “She knows you’re real, just say something to her. Say hello.”

  Takota simply couldn’t break from his camouflage.

  “Takota, I mean it,” Jack warned.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Amelia consoled him. “He’ll come around.”

  “I give up,” he tossed his hands and let them slap against his thighs. “Everything’s going wrong lately.”

  “Jack, I’m sorry about your dad,” she said. “He didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”