by K. E. Rocha
For Emma Dryden, Lorin Oberweger, and Elizabeth Grojean, for believing in wanmahai.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Property of Spencer Plain
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright Page
Roooaaaaaarrr!
Spencer Plain raced through the forest, his heart pounding. He dodged trees and skidded across patches of slick moss, trying desperately not to fall. Now was not the time to fall.
There was a bear behind him.
Spencer had taken one look at the bear, heard that ferocious roar, and set off running as fast as he could, but the huge animal was gaining on him. The ground was shaking and the thundering growls were getting closer.
With his eyes locked on an opening in the trees ahead, Spencer stumbled on a gnarled root and nearly lost his balance. Keep running, he told himself fiercely.
He had a feeling that if his uncle Mark were there, he’d be yelling at Spencer to stop running. But Uncle Mark couldn’t tell Spencer to stop running, because Uncle Mark had left Spencer to the bears. Literally.
Crack!
A sharp sound echoed through the forest. A branch? A whole tree? He didn’t dare look back to see what the beast had pulverized in its pursuit.
Spencer had never run so fast in his life, but he wasn’t superhuman. He wasn’t even fast enough to steal a base on his school’s baseball team! His legs couldn’t keep this up forever.
The path narrowed, and the opening in the trees that Spencer had been running toward was suddenly hidden behind more trees. Spencer started to panic.
Do bears eat humans? He searched his brain as he forced his body forward, his lungs burning. Do bears eat humans? Why couldn’t he remember?
Spencer knew about bears. When he was little, his parents had told him ursine facts instead of bedtime stories, and sometimes he’d still recite those facts to himself when he couldn’t fall asleep. He knew that black bears have forty-two teeth, that sun bears have the longest claws, and that brown bears can snatch jumping salmon right out of the air with their mouths. But do bears . . . eat . . . humans . . . ?
Spencer started to gasp for breath as he sensed the animal’s massive body just behind him. And that’s when he fell.
And kept falling.
He tumbled down a steep hill, kicking dirt up into his eyes and knocking against rocks and roots. He slid on his belly, awkwardly grasping for anything he might hold on to as he flew past, until finally the hill flattened and Spencer bumped to a stop.
He lay flat on his back, catching his breath and listening for signs of the bear. He didn’t hear anything besides the sound of his own heavy breathing.
His whole body hurt. His parents had told him that if he ever took a bad fall, he should lie still and make sure nothing was broken. Now that he thought of it, wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you saw a bear in the wild—go totally still? He didn’t think Mom and Dad had ever told him that, but then again he didn’t think they’d ever told him to run for his life, either. “I should’ve just played dead,” Spencer muttered as he assessed the pain in his body. “It would have been easier.”
Spencer had gotten away. That’s what mattered, he reminded himself. But just as he started to sit up, a huge black mass flew through the air and landed beside him with a ground-shaking crash.
The bear was back.
Snorting, it thrust its broad tan muzzle into Spencer’s face. Terrified and frantic to get away, Spencer tried to get to his feet, but a massive paw landed heavily on his shoulder. He was trapped.
“Spencer Plain,” the bear growled. “We have been expecting you.”
Earlier that day . . .
Spencer was out of bed and dressed for school an hour before his alarm was set to go off. He was supposed to video chat with his parents over breakfast, and he had something important to talk to them about.
Too anxious to play video games or work on the computer that he’d taken apart and was supposed to rebuild from the pile of metallic rubble on his desk, Spencer picked up his laptop and went to the kitchen to find Evarita.
“Somebody’s up early,” Evarita said from behind a big mug of steaming tea as Spencer walked into the room. “Looking forward to seeing your parents?”
“Yup.” Spencer set his computer down on the table. “I want to be ready when they call. Yesterday I only got to talk to them for a few minutes.” He went to the fridge to pour himself a glass of milk. Evarita put down her mug and slid off the stool she’d been perched on. She opened and closed cabinets, pulling out bread and peanut butter for Spencer’s breakfast.
Spencer liked Evarita. She was his parents’ assistant, and she always stayed with Spencer when his parents traveled. He was too old for a nanny, but Evarita was more like family. She was funny and nice and was teaching Spencer to play the guitar while his parents were away, but he wished that she didn’t have to take care of him so often. He wanted his mom to be the one making him peanut butter toast, and his dad to be sitting in the kitchen to greet him in the morning, not a million miles away in some hotel.
Spencer’s parents had been gone for ten days already and hadn’t told him when they’d be coming back. Usually they tried not to be away for more than a week at a time, but lately their trips had been getting longer. They were bear activists, which meant they knew everything about bears, but it also meant they had to travel around the world for their foundation, Paws for Peace, trying to make sure that no bears were being abused or mistreated.
Spencer knew that their work with bears was really important, and lots of kids at school thought his parents’ jobs were cool, but sometimes Spencer wished that being an activist for bears meant that you just stayed home and wrote books about them.
Spencer was putting the milk back in the fridge when he heard the chirp of an incoming call from his laptop. He raced toward the table.
“Your parents can’t wait to talk to you, either!” Evarita said, jumping back as Spencer barreled past her and into his seat. He clicked on the “accept call” button, and his parents’ faces filled the screen.
“Hey there, early bird!” Spencer’s dad said, smiling.
“Good morning, Spencer,” his mom chimed in, leaning closer to the camera, a few strands of her sleek blond hair falling out from behind the glasses she’d pushed to the top of her head.
“Hi!” Spencer answered happily. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw E
varita duck out of the kitchen, leaving him alone with his parents.
“Got your breakfast?” Dad asked. He looked tired, his face shadowed by stubble.
Spencer took a big bite of his toast. “Yup,” he answered through a sticky mouthful. “Do you?”
Dad’s arm reached out of the frame and then returned with a piece of peanut butter toast in hand. He answered with a big bite of his own.
“Cheers!” Mom tipped a glass of milk in Spencer’s direction. As she lifted her glass to take a sip, a thin gold bracelet slipped down her wrist, and the familiar gold bear charm dangled into view. She’d worn that bracelet for as long as Spencer could remember, and while sometimes she stacked other bracelets around it, the one with the bear charm never left her wrist. He reached into the pocket of his cargo shorts and checked for his own lucky bear. He always carried it with him.
Spencer’s bear wasn’t gold like his mother’s, and it wasn’t a charm. It was a smooth, black jade figurine of a bear standing on its hind legs. His parents had given it to him three years ago on his eighth birthday, right before they’d started traveling so much. They’d explained that a bear on its hind legs was better equipped to be brave and strong because it could see, hear, and smell best that way.
Mom shuffled through a stack of papers with one hand and passed the glass of milk to Dad with the other. “What do you have going on today, Spencer?” she asked.
Spencer filled his mouth with toast, then gave a quiet, garbled answer. “I have to climb the rope in gym again.”
His parents knew that he’d tried and failed, twice, to get to the top of the rope in gym class, but he didn’t like to talk to them about his problem with heights. They wouldn’t understand; his parents weren’t afraid of anything.
“Well, third time’s the charm, right, cub?” said Dad.
“I guess.” Spencer shrugged and changed the subject. “I have to present my computer project on Monday. That’s four days from now, and I’m not even close to done. I think I need you to help me, Dad.”
“Four days, huh?” Dad leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, the smile fading from his face. “You don’t think you’ll be able to get it into shape by then?”
“I don’t know. It’s really hard. I wrote everything down as I took the computer apart, and I drew diagrams, but I don’t know . . .”
“Why don’t you call Uncle Mark?” Mom asked, sliding her glasses back into place on the bridge of her nose and scanning one of the pages she’d been sorting.
Spencer didn’t reply. If he asked, his uncle Mark would help him with anything. And his uncle was really good with gadgets and mechanical stuff, but that wasn’t the point. He answered carefully, not wanting to sound like a baby. “I just want Dad to help me.” He looked at his father. “I could do it better if you were here, Dad.”
“I know, buddy, but we’ve got a few more days on assignment . . . It would be cutting it close—”
“You know we want to be there, honey,” Mom cut in, “but the bears here—”
“Are more important,” Spencer interrupted.
“Spencer! That’s not at all what I was going to say!”
“It’s not true, either.” Dad leaned forward, putting his hands on either side of the laptop, as though by touching his computer he could touch Spencer.
“I have to leave for school,” Spencer said abruptly, and disconnected the call. His laptop immediately began to chirp again, and for a moment Spencer hovered the cursor over his parents’ incoming call. He’d be in trouble for hanging up on them, and he knew that he should apologize. Instead, he closed the screen.
Evarita poked her head into the kitchen. “Ready to go?”
“Almost.” Spencer quickly reopened the laptop. A rotten feeling was already creeping into his stomach. He wanted to talk to his parents again, to apologize.
His laptop showed a missed call. He tried to reconnect, but his parents were already gone. He couldn’t apologize even if he wanted to. Spencer slammed his laptop shut again. Maybe they didn’t deserve an apology after all.
“Spencer!” Ramona practically shouted in Spencer’s ear.
“What?” He turned his attention back to his two best friends, Cheng and Ramona, who were standing next to a row of lockers, both dressed in khaki-and-white school uniforms, staring at him. Was it that obvious he hadn’t been listening?
“Are you nervous about rope climbing again?” Ramona sounded impatient. Spencer had known Ramona his whole life. She wanted him to get to the top of the rope as much as he did, even if it was just so they could all stop worrying that he would never pass sixth-grade gym class.
“I guess so.” Spencer shrugged. He’d been dreading the climb since he’d gotten to school, and now that they were only minutes away from the start of gym class, his dread was getting way worse.
“Did you hear what I said?” Cheng asked. “About our game last night?”
Spencer hadn’t heard, but he could guess what Cheng had said. His baseball-loving friend had already spent every free minute of the day rehashing each play of the Cougars’ first game of the season.
“Look, it’s your uncle!” Ramona exclaimed, starting to wave.
Uncle Mark? Spencer spun around. Sure enough, Uncle Mark was striding toward them. Mrs. Stewart, the school’s secretary, charged along behind.
Spencer couldn’t believe his luck. Was he going to get out of gym class? Maybe Mom and Dad felt as bad as he did about the way their call ended and had arranged for him to skip rope climbing!
“Spence!” Uncle Mark called. “Grab your stuff. We’ve gotta go. Now.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Spencer saw Cheng and Ramona exchange a look. Was Uncle Mark just acting that serious so Mrs. Stewart would let Spencer out of school?
He gulped. He really hoped so.
* * *
Uncle Mark’s red Porsche Cayman flew through the city streets, zipping between trucks and taxis at a speed that made Spencer check that his seat belt was fastened. He’d never seen his uncle drive so fast, and he wasn’t enjoying it as much as he’d thought he would. The chance to miss school to race through the city should have been exciting, but right now his brain was too filled with questions for him to be having any fun. He’d been right that Uncle Mark’s appearance just before gym class had something to do with his parents, but he’d been wrong about everything else.
“What’s going on, Uncle Mark?” Spencer said, his voice coming out too high and a little shaky. “I talked to Mom and Dad this morning, and they were fine.” It was one o’clock now. How could so much have changed in only seven hours?
“Same here,” said Uncle Mark, slowing the car to idle at a red light. “But then I got a message from your mom around eleven, and I haven’t been able to get in touch since.”
“What kind of message?” Spencer asked. He looked out the window, trying to get his bearings, but they were stopped at an intersection in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the middle of a long stretch of brownstones. None of them offered any clues.
“Your parents made an important plan a long time ago, Spence. Your mom’s message today was that I should put that plan in motion . . .” The light turned green and Uncle Mark shifted into gear, quickly pulling ahead of a garbage truck. “So here we are. In motion.”
“What important plan?”
“I’m taking you to a safe place,” Uncle Mark answered.
A safe place? None of this was making any sense, and the unrecognizable landscape whipping by them wasn’t helping anything.
“Why wouldn’t I be safe at school? Are Mom and Dad okay?” Spencer stared at his uncle, trying to gather more information from the expression on his face, but Uncle Mark just maneuvered the car around a slow minivan, looking as cool and collected as usual.
Uncle Mark took his hand off the gearshift and gave Spencer’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sure they’re fine, Spence.”
Spencer didn’t feel reassured.
“Then why—?”
“Spence, do you know what this is?” Uncle Mark interrupted, pointing toward the center console of the Porsche. Spencer looked over.
“The emergency brake?”
“Exactly. You know when to use it?”
That’s easy, Spencer thought. “In an emergency.”
“Yes and no. If the brakes fail, you’d use the emergency brake to stop the car. But ninety-nine percent of the time you use the emergency brake once you’ve already parked the car, to make sure that it doesn’t roll away. How many cars have you seen just rolling around, crashing into things?”
“None.” Spencer usually liked learning about cars, but right now he wished his uncle would just get to the point. “Uncle Mark, why do you have to take me to a safe place?”
“That’s what I’m explaining, Spence. Ninety-nine percent of the time the emergency brake is just a precaution. This plan of your parents’ is our emergency brake, and they asked me to pull it today. It doesn’t mean anything bad has already happened, and it doesn’t mean anything bad is going to happen, but we have to follow the plan, just in case.”
Jostled by the speeding car, Spencer kept his eyes on the emergency brake, considering his uncle’s words.
“Are Mom and Dad . . . missing?” He reached into his pocket and took hold of the jade bear, comforted by the familiar warmth of the smooth figurine.
“Not missing. Out of communication is a better way to put it,” Uncle Mark said. “I’m taking you to a safe spot, and then I’m going to do what I can to get your parents home ASAP.”
Spencer gripped the bear tighter and looked out the window. Gradually, the highway they were on shed lanes until it narrowed to just two, and then became a rough local road. It seemed like they’d been driving forever. How much farther could they be going?
“What are Mom and Dad afraid of?” Spencer finally asked, breaking the silence. That morning, Spencer hadn’t thought that his parents could be afraid of anything, but now he felt like his world had turned upside down and anything was possible.
“Your parents are the bravest people I know, Spence. They’re not afraid of anything, but they also know when to be cautious.” Uncle Mark paused. “I don’t have all the info right now, but what I do know is that your parents are really good at keeping bears safe, they’re really good at keeping you safe, and they’re really good at keeping each other safe. The best way we can help them get out of whatever trouble they might be in is by following the plan they made. We’ll talk more when we get to—”
