Bessica 2 - Bessica Lefter Bites Back

by Kristen Tracy

  Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

  Cameron Bon Qui Qui left faster than she’d arrived. I hardly had a chance to catch my breath before Lola came racing up.

  “Pronto! Pronto!” Lola said. “Get to the upstairs girls’ bathroom.”

  “Is this an earthquake drill?” I asked.

  “No. Annabelle wants to talk to you alone in the second stall.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Go!” Lola said, giving me a shove.

  I moved very fast because Lola had made this bathroom meeting feel like the most urgent thing ever. I pushed open the wood door and immediately started looking under the stalls at people’s shoes. All the stalls were empty. Then I heard the door open and I turned around and it was Annabelle. She looked furious!

  “Hi,” I said, waving. “How are you?”

  Annabelle didn’t answer me. She just walked to the second bathroom stall. She pointed her finger at me and then at the toilet. Which I assumed meant that she wanted me to join her in the stall. So I did. Once the door was shut I wasn’t sure who should start talking first, so I went.

  “How did things go with Jasper?” I asked.

  Annabelle narrowed her bright eyes and held back tears. “He thinks I’m a crazy dweeb.”

  “No,” I said. “There’s no way. Why do you think Jasper thinks that?”

  Annabelle pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned it on. I didn’t bother telling her that phones weren’t allowed in school, because I sneaked mine to school too. Annabelle scrolled down through her text messages. There were a lot from Jasper.

  “Wow!” I said. “You two really hit it off.”

  Annabelle scowled at me. “Read this,” she said, shoving her phone in my face.

  Jasper: You are a crazy dweeb.

  It was shocking to see that Jasper had texted Annabelle such a rude message.

  “What a creep!” I said.

  Annabelle closed the message. “He is not! I still like him.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You can’t,” I said. “After somebody is a jerk like that, you have to get over them right away.”

  “Don’t you understand?” Annabelle said. “I wanted Jasper to be my boyfriend.”

  Tears spilled down Annabelle’s cheeks. This was going to be a much harder conversation than I’d thought.

  “After he texted you that, did you text anything back?” I asked.

  Annabelle sniffled. “I sent him a message that said, ‘No, you’re a crazy dweeb.’ ”

  While that sounded reasonable under the circumstances, I was pretty sure that was not the best way to get Jasper to become her boyfriend.

  “How did you two even start texting?” I asked. “You’d never even spoken to him until a couple of days ago.”

  Annabelle sniffled more. “The conversation in English went really well in the beginning. But then things turned terrible.”

  When she said the word terrible she burst into uncontrollable tears. I really wished I’d remembered to call her and ask about the Jasper situation closer to when it had happened. Because I felt very confused getting things piece by piece.

  “Did you see him today?” I asked.

  “He’s absent,” Annabelle said. “He thinks I’m so crazy and dweeby he doesn’t even want to come to school.”

  “Maybe he’s just sick,” I said. “He’s been sick before.”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “My grandma once told me that there are always two ways to take something: the good way and the bad way. Don’t take Jasper’s absence the bad way.”

  This seemed to make Annabelle feel a tiny bit better. “But what about his text?”

  I didn’t have a good answer for that one. So I decided to open up to her about my own texting mistakes. “Once, I got into a war of texts with my best friend.”

  “Sylvie?” Annabelle asked.

  I didn’t really want to admit who I’d been in the war of texts with, but I also didn’t want to lie.

  “Yes,” I said. “Sylvie texted me something that I didn’t like. So I texted her something mean. Back and forth. Back and forth. Until I texted Sylvie that she had ugly ears.”

  Annabelle gasped.

  “The mean texts kept getting meaner, and I basically let them ruin my friendship with Sylvie. So I know exactly how you feel.”

  Annabelle threw her arms around me and almost knocked me over. “That’s exactly what happened with Jasper. Our mean texts got meaner. He texted something dumb about our English teacher, Mrs. Flako, and it really bothered me, so I texted him something dumb about his brother.”

  “Ooh,” I said. “It’s always a bad idea to text people rude things about their family members.”

  “It was a joke!” Annabelle said.

  The buzzer rang. Lunch was over.

  “One of the things I looked forward to most at school was seeing Jasper. Now I sort of never want to see him ever again,” Annabelle said. “But I’m also sort of dying to see him.”

  That sounded very complicated. I was glad that wasn’t how I felt about my gorgeous neighbor, Noll Beck.

  “Should I start texting him apologies?” Annabelle asked me.

  “Don’t touch your phone,” I urged.

  “But I have to do something,” Annabelle said. “I need closure.”

  “Just be nice to Jasper next time you see him,” I said. “There’s got to be a way to fix this situation.”

  I didn’t necessarily believe that. But I wanted to improve Annabelle’s mood.

  “What are you going to do to fix things with Sylvie?” Annabelle asked.

  Sylvie. Why did friendship have to be so hard? How could sending a bunch of texts end this badly?

  “I’m going to wait things out,” I said.

  “How long will that take?” Annabelle asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  I hated thinking about T.J. the Tiger and how he wanted to facebomb me. And I hated thinking about missing Sylvie’s disco/jungle party. But more than anything, I hated Willy’s Winnebago and how it sat in our driveway with Grandma inside it.

  “How are five people going to fit in your car?” I asked my mom. “It’s going to be uncomfortable.” I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get to Bear Galaxy.

  “There will be six people,” my mom said.

  “What?” I asked. Then I wondered if maybe we were taking the Winnebago. Which seemed dangerous. Because a bear would attack anything with food inside it and Willy’s Winnebago had a refrigerator.

  “Our friend Alma is coming and we’re taking two cars,” my mom said.

  “When did Alma become our friend?” I asked. Because the last lady who worked at the podiatrist’s office had never become our friend. She filed everything wrong and made my mom’s life harder. And until she got let go we all complained about her a lot.

  “She’s been wanting to go to Bear Galaxy since she moved to the area,” my mom explained. “She doesn’t know a lot of people yet.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled.

  “So have you decided which car you’re riding in?” my dad asked.

  I hadn’t. Because the whole Alma thing had just been sprung on me.

  “I’ll go with Grandma,” I said. Because I really wanted to see bears with her.

  “Okay,” my dad said. “Looks like they’ve got a full car.”

  That was when I did some math in my head and realized that four people would be traveling in Alma’s car and two of them would be people I didn’t really like all that well: Willy and Alma.

  “I don’t want Willy in our car,” I said.

  “Shhh,” my mom said. “Don’t say that.” Then she did some looking around to make sure nobody had heard me.

  “You can’t boot Willy,” my dad said. “He and Grandma are a couple.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “You’ll have a lot of fun in that car,” my mom said. “Alma used to work in a veterinarian’s office. She knows a lot about animals.”

  Knock.
Knock. Knock.

  And then I couldn’t believe it. Alma didn’t wait for us to answer the door. She walked right into our house.

  “Ready to roll?” Alma asked. She was wearing jeans and a red jacket that looked like it was made out of plastic.

  “We’ve figured out seating arrangements,” my dad said. “Looks like Bessica will be traveling with you.”

  “Wonderful!” Alma said.

  “Hold the phone,” I said. Then I ran to my mom’s side and so I wouldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings, whispered my new preference. “I think I want to travel with you and dad. And I want to roll the window down just enough that I can stick my phone outside and take bear pictures.”

  My mother sighed and whispered back, “You can ride along with me and your dad, but you can’t roll down the windows. It’s against park rules.”

  And then we all buckled up and headed off.

  As we drove to Bear Galaxy my parents had a very boring discussion about the laser jammer.

  “I can’t believe you brought it,” my mom said.

  “But I don’t even have it plugged in,” my dad said.

  “It’s illegal,” my mom said.

  “Technically, radar scramblers are illegal. And radar jammers are illegal. But laser jammers are still okay in every state except Minnesota.”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “Boring!” I called from the backseat.

  My mother turned around and looked at me. “And what would you like to talk about?” she asked.

  I sat straight up and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. “I want to know how many bears you think we’ll see today.”

  My dad laughed. “Black bears or grizzly bears, or do you want me to group them together?”

  “Group them together,” I said. Because I loved big numbers.

  “I bet we see seventy bears,” my dad said.

  My heart was beating very fast. “Holy crud! I was thinking we’d see twenty.”

  “They’ve got a lot,” my mom said. “Plus all the cubs.”

  My stomach flipped. I’d forgotten about the cubs.

  “Plus we’ll see some wolves,” my dad said.

  “I love wolves!” I said. Even though I’d never seen one before. Because last time we went to Bear Galaxy they didn’t have the wolves yet.

  “Look!” my mom said. “We’re here.”

  I stared at the big wooden gates for Bear Galaxy. The road leading to the entrance was pure dirt, and a cloud rose around our car as we drove.

  “Is Grandma still behind us?” I asked, twisting around to look out the back window.

  Through the dirt puff I could see Alma’s car. All three of them were sitting in the front seat. Yuck. I’d hoped Willy would sit in the back. I waved to Grandma while my dad rolled down the window and paid the entrance fee.

  “Do you have any food in the car that might attract the bears?” the man asked.

  “No,” my father said.

  “Okay,” the man said. “Here’s a pamphlet to familiarize yourself with Bear Galaxy and our rules.”

  “Thanks!” I yelled from the backseat. I did not want this guy to tell us more about Bear Galaxy. I wanted to drive through the gates and experience it.

  “Enjoy your adventure,” the man said.

  “Okay!” I yelled.

  Driving through the gates was very thrilling. They were the tallest gates I’d ever driven through in my life. The wood posts went up nearly as high as telephone poles.

  “This is awesome!” I said.

  My dad drove very slowly as we approached wires in the road. There was a big yellow sign that said we should not straddle the wires or we could risk electrocution.

  “Why do we have to drive over these wires?” I asked. It seemed very dangerous.

  “The first section of the park is where they keep the grizzly bears. They have to electrify the perimeter or they could escape or attack the cars.”

  “What?” I said. It was scary to think that a bear might attack our car.

  “These bears are dangerous, so they’re kept behind the electric fence,” my mom explained. “Once we get to the black bear section there won’t be any electric fences. Black bears aren’t as dangerous.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So a black bear has never killed a person?”

  “It’s rare,” my dad said.

  “So a black bear has killed a person?” I asked.

  “Let’s not talk about this,” my mom said. “Let’s watch the grizzly bears.”

  That was a good suggestion, because there were dozens of grizzly bears sleeping in the grass.

  “Oh my heck!” I said. “They’re everywhere!”

  My dad slowly followed the car in front of us as we rounded corners and saw fluffy brown bear after fluffy brown bear.

  “They don’t look ferocious,” I said. “They look zonked.”

  “They can flip into attack mode on a dime.” My dad gripped the steering wheel. “Never trust a bear.”

  Then our car approached another set of wires.

  “We’re leaving the grizzly bear area,” my dad said.

  “Really?” I asked. Because that seemed to go by pretty fast. “Can you drive slower?”

  “Sure thing,” he said. “Time to cross over the wires again.”

  “Would we really get electrocuted if we straddled them wrong?” I asked.

  “Yep,” my dad said.

  “That’s terrible!” I said. “I can’t believe they electrocute bears here.” Because I was a mascot bear and had recently been locked in a cafeteria, I began to feel very sympathetic toward my fellow creatures.

  “Relax,” my dad said in a calm voice. “They only shock the ones trying to escape.”

  “That’s cruel!” I said. “Because how is a bear supposed to know that it’s not allowed freedom?”

  Seeing all these bears stripped of their right to be bears made me think a lot about my own bear duties at games. When I cheered against the tiger, I needed to show all the fans that bears were ferocious beasts that deserved to live in the wilderness and be as terrible as they wanted to be.

  “What are you thinking about?” my mom asked me.

  “My duties,” I said.

  I watched all the bears sleeping by the side of the road. “Isn’t this exciting?” my mother asked.

  I shrugged.

  “They’re so big that moving around must make them tired,” my mother said.

  I frowned at this. “I know a lot about bears and I don’t think that’s true. They’re bored. And depressed. How do these bears even get here? Do they capture them from Yellowstone?”

  “No, no, no,” my father said. “They don’t capture them. Most of them are born here. Look at that one. It’s walking around like a crazy, wild bear.”

  I watched a black bear mope in front of our car and sit down.

  “Don’t hit it!” I said.

  “I’m not going to,” my dad said.

  But our car was still moving a little bit.

  “Stop!” I said.

  So he did.

  “I think you’re supposed to nudge it to get it to move,” he said.

  “That’s a terrible idea,” I said. Because that was basically almost running over a bear, and I knew we weren’t allowed to do that. Even though we’d paid a bunch of money to visit the preserve.

  “We’re supposed to honk our horn,” my mom said.

  So my dad blared the horn. But the bear didn’t even look at our car. The beast stood looking at its paw. And licking it.

  “Don’t honk at it!” I said.

  I couldn’t believe that my dad didn’t have any respect for bears.

  “I’m supposed to,” my dad said. “This bear is causing a traffic jam.”

  I looked behind us. There were a lot of cars stopped in a line. Things were pretty backed up. I could see Grandma and Willy and Alma in the car behind us. They were chatting and looked thrilled. Apparently, they didn’t understand that we were experiencing a bear-jam situation.


  My dad honked again. This time for longer. That was when I started freaking out and reading the information packet.

  “Stop with the long honks!” I said. “You’re supposed to give your horn three quick beeps!”

  “A bear can understand that?” my father asked, sounding impressed. “Wow.”

  So my father tapped on the horn, and within seconds a preserve ranger came running out toward the bear.

  “Is he going to shoot the bear with a tranquilizer and drag it away?” I asked. Because I’d seen that happen on a nature show once and it was very dramatic.

  “Maybe,” my dad said.

  “No,” my mom said. “He’s brought a tub of food.”

  I watched as the man waved the small yellow tub at the bear.

  “Come here, Regina!” the man yelled.

  “That bear’s name is Regina!” I said. I loved that the black bear causing the traffic jam was a girl bear.

  Regina rolled over onto all four of her legs. But she didn’t leave the road.

  “Do you think I should honk again?” my dad asked.

  “No!” I said.

  “I agree,” my mom said. “I think the ranger has things under control.”

  The man held the food container up in the air and shook it a little.

  “What do you think is in there?” I asked. I pictured all sorts of terrible things, like fish guts and intestines and raw kidneys.

  The ranger took some of the food and threw it on the ground in front of him.

  “Looks like dog food,” my dad said.

  This was crazy! It did look like dog food! The bear slowly moved off the road and started eating the pellets. I was disgusted. Because in addition to taking away all the bears’ freedom and allowing them to get honked at by cars, Bear Galaxy was feeding them dog food. It seemed like this place should be illegal.

  “Isn’t a bear’s natural diet fish and berries and tubers and nuts and mountain goats?” I asked.

  I remembered reading that after I’d looked online for bear information after I became the mascot.