by K. E. Rocha
He grabbed a pebble from the ground. Might as well double check to make sure it’s not real. Climbing a tree only to be attacked by a swarm of real bees didn’t seem like the best idea. Taking aim, Spencer threw the pebble at the beehive. It hit its mark, but nothing happened. There wasn’t so much as a buzz. Definitely fake. Definitely a camera.
Spencer wished the Bear Guard hid their cameras in low bushes instead of trees he had to climb. He hated climbing, no matter how high. He dreaded the moment his feet left the ground, but if he wanted to leave Bearhaven without getting caught, this was the only way. Somehow, he had to stop the beehive surveillance camera from filming him. He wrapped his arms around the tree trunk.
“It’s just like STORM training,” Spencer whispered, trying to reassure himself. “Let your legs do most of the work,” was the first pointer Aldo had given him. But when that tactic hadn’t helped Spencer get himself off the ground, Aldo had tried another approach that was working during Spencer’s training sessions. Aldo said: “Just pretend you’re a bear.”
Taking a deep breath, Spencer shimmied up onto one of the lowest branches. Climbing a little higher, he crouched down and lowered his belly onto a branch, then slid forward until he was stretched out over the beehive. Don’t look down. The worst thing about climbing was the possibility of falling …
Not now. Spencer focused on the camera. He didn’t want to cause any damage to Bearhaven’s security equipment. Professor Weaver made all of the bears’ cool technology, and no matter how angry Spencer was with the professor, breaking the camera would be going too far. Instead, Spencer reached down and untied his left shoelace, then removed the lace from the shoe altogether.
Grabbing a skinny, leafy branch nearby, Spencer snapped it off the tree. He used the shoelace as a length of rope and tied a figure eight knot around the end of the small branch, just the way Dad had taught him. He tied the free end of the shoelace around the branch beneath him.
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered and released his leafy shield so that it dropped into position in front of the beehive. Hopefully, in the Bear Guard’s surveillance room, it would look as if a branch had accidentally fallen in front of the camera’s lens.
Spencer inched backward on the branch and climbed down to the ground as quickly as he could with the unlaced sneaker slipping around on his foot. He ran to the opposite side of the clearing, approaching the wall of tightly packed trees. He slipped between two trunks and was immediately faced with another tree blocking his way. He slipped past it, and again faced two more. He looked for another opening. With lots of squeezing and stumbling over roots, Spencer made his way deep into the wall of trees.
By the time Spencer stood sandwiched between two trees on the outer edge of the wall, his T-shirt was dirty and his arms were scraped from twisting and squeezing past so much rough bark. Getting through Bearhaven’s outer wall had been harder than he’d expected, but his anger at Professor Weaver and Uncle Mark for lying to him hadn’t faded a bit. Each time Spencer considered turning back, he’d heard Professor Weaver’s voice in his head, All he can do is stay here and wait. It made Spencer even more determined to get outside Bearhaven’s walls.
“I can do a lot more than stay in Bearhaven and wait,” he whispered to himself. And he was in the middle of proving it. Spencer wasn’t going to be anyone’s prisoner. He could leave Bearhaven whenever he wanted.
Crack!
Spencer jumped at the sound of a branch snapping above him. There was a quick rustling of leaves. He looked up. Hundreds of branches were woven together to create a thick canopy, so it was impossible to see through them from above: another layer of Bearhaven’s cool security.
Hopefully, that’s a bird, or the wind … Spencer couldn’t get caught now, not after he’d made it this far. As soon as he pushed himself through this last small gap in the wall of trees, he’d be out of Bearhaven’s territory.
Spencer scanned the forest, searching for a surveillance camera. He didn’t see another beehive anywhere. This spot in the perimeter of Bearhaven seemed clear of cameras, but Spencer had a good reason for double checking: He had gotten a glimpse of the bears’ surveillance once before—and he knew how sophisticated it was.
On his first visit to the Lab, one of their surveillance screens had shown a girl in the woods right outside this very same wall of trees. B.D., the Head of the Bear Guard, had said she was a security concern, but he wouldn’t tell Spencer anything else about her. Spencer had overheard B.D. talking and he learned the girl’s name was Kirby. He calculated that when the security camera caught Kirby on tape, she couldn’t have been far from where Spencer was standing now. Still, he couldn’t find a beehive anywhere. He’d have to trust that this part of the perimeter wasn’t under surveillance.
Spencer shimmied sideways and stepped out of Bearhaven’s tree wall, leaving the bears’ territory. He was free! He could go anywhere. But he didn’t really have anywhere to go. With Mom and Dad missing, it wasn’t safe for Spencer to go home. Even if he could, he wouldn’t know how to get there. He wanted to look for his parents, but without any leads on Mom and Dad’s location, he’d never know where to even start the search.
Spencer kicked a pebble. Maybe leaving Bearhaven was a mistake. It did make him feel a little better to know he could leave the bears’ community when he wanted to. But so what? He couldn’t exactly tell the Weavers or anyone else in Bearhaven he had left without getting in a lot of trouble. Even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to use this escape to prove anything, Spencer didn’t want to turn back just yet. It was the first time in a week he’d been outside the bears’ valley. Besides, what good was all of his STORM training going to do him if he never got to test it in the outside world?
That’s it! Spencer had the perfect explanation for why he had left Bearhaven: He needed to get some real world STORM training. He could tell the Weavers he needed to put his skills to the test. He couldn’t get in trouble for being dedicated to his training … could he?
Not if I actually train, Spencer thought. He grabbed two nearby sticks and crossed them in an X on the ground to mark the spot on Bearhaven’s perimeter he’d need to return to.
Satisfied he’d be able to find his way back, Spencer set out into the woods in front of him. He went into operative mode, putting silent walking, one of his Stealth skills from STORM training, into action right away. Rather than crunch through the woods, he walked using all the muscles in his body, quieting each of his steps. He and Kate had practiced this a lot. It was hard with one shoelace missing; his left sneaker kept slipping off and flopping down onto the leaves, making a smacking sound. Soon though, Spencer got into the rhythm of it. He crept through the forest, continuing deeper into the woods.
Something rustled nearby. Spencer spun around. It sounded too small to be a bear, but Spencer couldn’t shake the feeling of somebody following him.
“Dangit!” At the sight of a tiny red light, he ducked behind the closest tree. Bearhaven has security cameras all the way out here? He poked his head out from behind the tree. There it was. The red light he’d just spotted was nestled in the branches of a birch tree. Spencer didn’t see a beehive. Why would they conceal the cameras near Bearhaven, but not out here? Unless the camera didn’t belong to Bearhaven …
Spencer crept from tree to tree until he was standing behind the birch. The camera was low enough that he could see it without climbing, but the fact that it wasn’t high in the tree wasn’t the only suspicious detail Spencer noticed. Whoever had put the camera in the tree had tried to camouflage it, painting it green, brown, and black. But, even with the paint, Spencer could tell the camera wasn’t high-tech or surveillance-worthy at all. It looked just like the old video camera Dad toted around to all of Spencer’s T-ball games when he was little. This camera wasn’t one of Bearhaven’s. But who else could be watching the forest?
Suddenly, Spencer heard footsteps behind him. Then a voice.
“Freeze.”
Spencer spun around.<
br />
“Hey!”
“Hey!” Spencer yelled back, shocked by who he found behind him. He recognized her immediately. It was Kirby, the girl who B.D. had been watching on Bearhaven’s surveillance cameras two weeks ago.
“I told you to freeze!” Kirby was wearing a green backpack slung over one shoulder with a few black cables poking out of its front pocket. The camera was definitely hers. The paint camouflaging the camera matched a streak of paint on one of her bag’s shoulder straps. Maybe B.D. was right to keep an eye on this girl.
“Sorry,” Spencer mumbled. He was too busy looking Kirby over to take her orders too seriously. She looked as if she might be a little older than he was, but not much. The big sunglasses blocking her face made it hard to tell. Spencer stared at the sunglasses. Something about them seemed funny, plus, it was weird she was wearing sunglasses at all. There wasn’t any sun shining in the heavily shaded woods. There was a rustling in the trees nearby and Kirby jumped. When she whipped her head around to look, Spencer realized why the glasses looked so strange. Cheng, one of Spencer’s best friends from home, had a pair just like them. They were spy glasses with extra wide lenses to make room for little mirrors. Whoever was wearing them could see behind themselves. Cheng said it was like having eyes in the back of his head.
“Cool glasses,” he said. “My friend has a pair of those.”
Kirby returned her attention to Spencer.
“Want to try them on?” Before Spencer could answer, Kirby pulled off the sunglasses and handed them to him.
Spencer took the glasses, surprised by how willing Kirby was to share the cool gear. A minute ago he’d thought she was going to attack him for taking a look at the camera she’d rigged in a tree. Now she was handing him her stuff to try on?
“Hey, what’s your name anyway?” Kirby asked.
“Spencer.”
“I’m Kirby.”
I know, Spencer wanted to answer.
Kirby was already moving on to question him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Hikers don’t usually come this far out.”
Spencer slipped on the sunglasses, stalling as his mind raced to come up with an excuse. “I’m a Boy Scout,” he said finally, still thinking of Cheng. Cheng talked about his Boy Scout troop all the time. If Spencer could remember enough of what his friend had said, he might just get away with the lie. “My troop’s out here.” He gestured casually around the woods.
“And you got lost?” Kirby scanned the woods as though searching for more Boy Scouts. When she returned her gaze to Spencer, he was suddenly very aware that the Cougars T-shirt and jeans he was wearing looked nothing like a Boy Scout uniform.
“No, it’s … we’re doing our survival challenges, so we have to go out alone and … survive.”
Kirby cocked her head to one side and looked Spencer over, as though deciding whether or not to accept his story. Her eyes landed on his laceless sneaker. “What happened to your shoe lace?”
“Oh, I used it to tie up my food, in a tree. To keep it away from … ” Spencer hesitated. He was afraid that even saying the word would give something away.
“Bears?” Kirby said it for him.
“Yeah, bears,” Spencer mumbled.
“Have you seen one?!” Kirby exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement. “I caught one on camera a few weeks ago!” She crossed her arms. “There’s something going on with bears in these woods. Their tracks are everywhere. I spend more time here than anyone, so I would know.”
“So you live around here?” Spencer looked around. If Kirby lived here, it definitely didn’t seem like she had any neighbors. Nobody in Bearhaven had mentioned any humans other than Kirby living in these woods.
“I do everything around here,” Kirby answered.
Before Spencer could ask what that was supposed to mean, he was distracted by a flash of movement in the little mirrors at the corners of the spy glasses. Spencer’s eyes locked on the mirrors, searching the woods behind him. Something—or someone—was slowly moving through the trees toward them.
Spencer looked over his shoulder, trying to act casual. Were the mirrored glasses playing tricks on him? He was sure he’d seen something moving through the woods, but there was no sign of it now.
“I’ll take those back,” Kirby said suddenly, holding out a hand for the spy glasses. Spencer slid them off.
“They’re really cool.” He handed the glasses over. “So what else do you have set up out here? Aside from that camera.” Spencer nodded to the camouflage-painted camera in the tree.
“I have two of those cameras,” Kirby answered, straightening up. “They record onto memory cards, then I collect the cards and watch them for anything out of the ordinary. I also have a hidden microphone and three controlled locations throughout the forest—”
“Controlled locations?” Spencer interrupted. That sounded important.
“Right. So they’re like this.” Kirby grabbed a stick from the ground and drew a big circle in the dirt around herself and Spencer. “Three sections of dirt clear enough for me to study. One on the hiking trail and two deeper into the woods. I check on them every day, looking for bear tracks or other unusual details.”
Spencer looked around the circle Kirby had drawn. Hopefully, Kirby’s controlled locations weren’t anywhere too close to Bearhaven’s outer wall … With all her equipment and studying of the woods, she might actually be able to discover something Bearhaven’s bears wouldn’t want her to know. Especially if she really checked her surveillance systems every single day.
“Your parents let you walk around in here alone? Whenever you want?” he asked.
“My parents work a lot.” She shrugged, fiddling with the compass hooked to her backpack. She hadn’t exactly answered the question, but Spencer understood. After all, Mom and Dad worked a lot, too. But it didn’t sound as though Kirby had someone like Evarita watching her when her parents weren’t around.
Maybe all of Kirby’s freedom wasn’t as cool as it sounded. Even when Spencer was in Bearhaven he had Kate to hang out with, and at home he had his human friends. No wonder Kirby spent so much time watching the woods for suspicious activity, and no wonder she was so eager to tell him about it. She didn’t have anyone to talk to.
Spencer turned back to the camera in the birch tree. He put a hand on it, hoping to pull it down and take a better look.
“Hey! Don’t do that!” Kirby launched herself at Spencer, knocking his hand away from the camera. Spencer stumbled backward he was so surprised.
Just then, a bear crashed through the trees and hurtled toward them.
“AHHHH!” Kirby shrieked. No! Spencer saw with horror a flash of pink at the bear’s neck. He rushed forward, grabbing Kirby by the arm. He pushed her behind the birch tree as quickly as he could. “Stay here!” he yelled, then jumped out to face Kate, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Kate was crouching on the other side of the birch, snarling at the trees. She looked ready to tackle anyone who stepped out from behind it. She’s protecting me! Spencer realized. She thinks Kirby is trying to hurt me! Kate tried to move between him and the birch as though to shield him from another attack, but Spencer sidestepped her. If he didn’t act fast, Kirby would peek out from behind the tree and see Kate and her sparkly, pink BEAR-COM.
“Ahhh!” he yelled. “Get out of here!” He glared at Kate urgently. “Go!” Kate’s mouth dropped open. Confusion flashed in her eyes. This is for her own good, Spencer told himself as he yelled at her again. She may have thought she was protecting him, but now he had to protect her and all of Bearhaven from being discovered. Didn’t she know she was wearing her BEAR-COM? If Kirby saw it, there was no telling what she’d figure out! Kate will understand later. “Shoo! Don’t bother us! Go away!”
Kate shuffled backward, her eyes locked on Spencer’s. He could tell he was scaring her. “I SAID GO!!”
Kate let out a small whimper, then turned and ran back into the trees. Spencer watched her crash
away until she’d gone so far he lost sight of her. I’m sorry, Kate! he wanted to yell. Her feelings were definitely hurt. He wished he could run after her and explain, but right now he had to make sure Kirby hadn’t seen the BEAR-COM. If she was already onto Bearhaven’s bears, letting information fall into her hands about the BEAR-COM was just too dangerous. He felt horrible about how he’d treated Kate. But there would be time to fix things with her later.
“That was crazy!” Kirby whispered, poking her head out from behind the birch tree.
“Yeah, the bear really came out of nowhere,” Spencer said carefully. “Luckily, I think it was just a cub.”
“Luckily?” Kirby gasped. “Don’t they teach you anything in Boy Scouts? If there’s a cub, there’s probably a mother bear nearby, and everybody knows that mother bears are fierce when it comes to protecting their cubs. As soon as I get photos of the bear prints, we should get out of here.”
“Oh. I don’t think … I don’t get the feeling there’s a mother bear around here. We should be okay.” Spencer suddenly realized it wasn’t just Kirby who might have seen Kate’s BEAR-COM. He cast a sideways glance in the camera’s direction. What if it had caught everything on film?
“What do you mean, you don’t get the feeling?” Kirby followed Spencer’s eyes. A second later she stepped out from behind the tree. She glared at Spencer. “You knocked my camera over when you tried to grab it!” She yelled. “Look! It’s pointing up into the tree! The footage will be of leaves, and that’s not going to do me any good! Not when there was a real bear right here.”
“You knocked my hand against the camera when you attacked me!” Spencer shot back.
Kirby stomped over to the tree and retrieved the camera. Spencer held his breath. It seemed too good to be true. Kirby fiddled with the camera. She groaned, confirming that she hadn’t recorded Kate. “I would’ve gotten video of that cub if it wasn’t for you.”
