by K. E. Rocha
Beside Jo-Jo and Winston sat Fitch, who introduced himself as Professor Weaver’s protégé-turned-son-in-law, an introduction that prompted various comments from the others.
“Pro-té-gé?” Jo-Jo piped up. “Nice try with the fancy talk, Fitch. I thought you were just dad’s lowly assistant.” Winston jabbed Fitch in the belly, joining in his brother’s teasing.
“And unless I missed the wedding, you’re nobody’s son-in-law yet,” the bear with a white heart-shaped patch of fur on her chest chimed in from beside Fitch. She winked at Spencer. “Hi, I’m Lisle,” she said. From her size, Spencer assumed that she was around the same age as Aldo, maybe a little older, but while Aldo’s fur was black and tan like Professor Weaver’s, Lisle’s fur was more like Bunny’s, silver and glossy.
“Lisle and Fitch are engaged,” Kate whispered to Spencer.
“It’s not a secret, dear,” Bunny said from her seat beside Professor Weaver at the head of the table. She lifted her cup to toast. “It’s wonderful to have you with us, Spencer. Welcome.”
“Thanks!” Spencer reached for the massive clay mug that one of the Weavers had set in front of him and lifted it with both hands to cheers. He clunked his mug against Aldo’s and Kate’s, unable to reach anyone else’s across the large table, then raised the mug to his mouth to take a sip.
“Mmm . . . best bug blood of the season!” Winston exclaimed just as the liquid hit Spencer’s lips. He coughed and sputtered, spraying the drink onto the table. Jo-Jo and Winston let out streams of boisterous chuffs.
“Boys . . .” Professor Weaver warned in a low voice. Lisle shot Spencer a sympathetic look.
“Don’t mind them,” she said. “It’s just spring water.”
“Oh. Good!” Spencer blushed and wiped the water off his face. He took a sip to show that he’d recovered.
Aldo leaned a shoulder into Spencer. “Let’s get it out of the way now, little man,” he said conspiratorially, and then pointed to a platter on the table. “That’s not monster larvae, it’s honey-covered salmon.” Pointing to another, he said, “That’s not poison ivy, it’s mixed spring greens. And so is that one, and that one, and that one.” Now that Aldo mentioned it, Spencer realized most of the platters were heaped with salad. “Oh,” Aldo went on, “and in the salad, those aren’t dead ants, just regular old nuts.”
Spencer stole a glance at Jo-Jo and Winston, who were watching sourly as Aldo ruined their fun.
“And this isn’t guts.” Kate raised a pitcher filled with something that Spencer could have easily been fooled into thinking was guts. “It’s smashed raspberry dressing.”
“And this isn’t—” Aldo started, pointing to the last unidentified platter.
“Okay, okay!” Lisle broke in. “As appetizing as this little game is, I do actually want to eat some of this food.”
“Thank you, dear,” said Bunny. “Spencer, that last dish is dandelion mash. Dig in, everyone.”
Aldo and Kate took turns piling a little of each dish onto Spencer’s plate, and he wound up with his plate heaped with food. Not that he minded. He was starving.
The Weavers carefully speared their food with their claws or lifted handfuls into their mouths, but Spencer picked up the fork and knife that had been set out for him. Mom probably left a spoon, too, he thought, remembering his messy breakfast. As if reading his mind, Kate eyed the silverware suspiciously. After a moment, she shrugged and motioned for Spencer to start eating. He took a bite, then ate ravenously.
Everything was delicious. The salmon was sweet and crispy. The salad had leaves in it that Spencer had never seen before, but was bursting with flavor, sticky from mouth-puckering raspberry dressing. Even the dandelion mash surprised him, creamy and fragrant. Spencer shoveled the food into his mouth, and then looked up to find that at a table full of bears, he was the only one eating like an animal.
“Don’t they feed you humans?” Kate giggled. Spencer gulped down a big bite of salmon.
He smiled sheepishly, then realized that this was his chance to change the direction of the conversation. “Aldo, you just joined the Bear Guard, huh?” he asked.
“Yes, he did, and we’re so proud of him.” Bunny beamed at her son.
“Cool!” Spencer said. “So what does it take? You know, to make it.”
Aldo took a swig of water. “Well, it’s pretty tough. You train for a year. Then there’s a test, and even after the year of training, not everyone passes.”
A year? “What’s involved in the—”
“What’s on the test?” Kate practically shouted, cutting Spencer off. Spencer almost choked on his salad. That wasn’t very sneaky!
“Oh, you know, lots of physical stuff. Gotta be strong to be on the guard.” Aldo flashed a toothy grin. Jo-Jo and Winston snorted. “Bear Stealth, boulder rolling, tree climbing, that sort of thing,” Aldo went on. “Then there’s the tech test, to make sure we can run the security systems.” He cleared his throat. “Top secret stuff, you know. We’re also tested on Bearhaven history. Oh, and Rescue Ragayo.”
“Rescue Ragayo?” Spencer squeaked. No wonder bears needed a whole year to learn everything!
“That’s right.” Fitch answered for Aldo, whose mouth was full. “Many of the bears outside of Bearhaven speak a simple form of Ragayo. During rescue missions, our operatives have to be able to communicate fluently with them, but it takes a bit of training, if you are used to speaking Ragayo in Bearhaven.”
“Or if you’ve never spoken Ragayo before,” Professor Weaver added, and smiled at Spencer. “Your parents speak Rescue Ragayo, you know. And Mark.”
Oh, great. That means it’s definitely required. Spencer and Kate exchanged an uneasy look.
“So your Ragayo isn’t the same one other bears speak?” Spencer asked.
“It is and it isn’t,” said Fitch. “Ragayo is rooted in the sounds that bears make, growls and grunts and so on. Most bears use those growls and grunts in a more basic way than we do because they only need simple words for life in the wild. Here in Bearhaven, though, we’ve created more words so that we can discuss more complicated things.” He motioned to the room around them. “Our language has gotten more complex as our environment has.”
“It’s similar,” Lisle said, “to the way a human toddler can speak compared to the way a human adult can.”
“Can I take Spencer to see the fireflies?” Kate suddenly exclaimed, surprising everyone. Clumsily, she pushed her empty plate away, then did the same with Spencer’s half-full one. “We’re done eating.” Spencer opened his mouth to protest, but the cub kicked him under the table.
“Please?” he asked the Weavers, sounding as cheerful as possible as he massaged his shin. This had better be good.
“Would you hurry up, already?” Kate whispered urgently from the door of Spencer’s bedroom. Spencer pulled on a sweatshirt. Bunny had insisted that he put on warmer clothing if he was going to see the fireflies, but he had a feeling that Kate’s abrupt request to leave dinner didn’t have anything to do with fireflies at all.
“All right, let’s go,” he said, rejoining Kate. The cub took off down the hallway and up the stairs. As soon as they hit the path outside the Weavers’ house, she started to explain. “I remembered at dinner,” she said as they rushed down the path toward the center of Bearhaven. “Aldo always had Friday night sessions when he was training for the Bear Guard! Reggie and I followed him once to see what it was like, so I know exactly where we can hide.”
Instead of following the path through Bearhaven’s center and down to the river’s edge, Kate turned right at Raymond’s Café and led Spencer out toward an open field. Lanterns were just being lit around the field, illuminating the open space. Kate suddenly picked up speed. “Hurry! They’re about to start!”
Spencer raced to keep up with Kate, following as she darted into the woods on one side of the field. Crouching together behind a tree, Spencer poked his head around one side and Kate poked hers around the other. A group of at least twenty
bears jogged onto the field.
“Whatever they do, you do, got it?” Kate whispered.
“Okay,” Spencer whispered back. His pulse was racing with excitement. “But what are they going to do?”
“I have no idea . . .” Kate didn’t take her eyes off the Bear Guard recruits. The bears fanned out along one end of the field, then each of the recruits turned and disappeared behind a boulder. “Uh-oh . . .”
“What?” Spencer hissed. He’d thought those boulders were just the far wall of the field . . . Why were they suddenly moving? And where had the recruits gone?
“Boulder rolling,” Kate answered. Her voice sounded grave. Oh.
Silently, Spencer and Kate watched the boulders roll toward them. Some of the boulders rolled more quickly than others, and some recruits seemed to struggle to get their boulders moving at all at first, but inch by inch, the recruits and their boulders approached. When they were close enough that Spencer could hear the bears straining behind the enormous round rocks, his heart sank. I have to do . . . that? A muzzle bumped his shoulder. Kate motioned for him to follow her deeper into the trees.
“Okay,” she said slowly, once they were far enough from the field not to risk being overheard. “First, we need a boulder—”
“Kate!” How did she expect him to roll a boulder when bears had trouble doing it?
“You can do this, Spencer Plain!” Kate yelled. Then she clapped a paw over her BEAR-COM. “Let’s find a boulder,” she continued more quietly, scanning the darkening wooded area around them. Maybe she’s right, Spencer thought. Maybe I can do this. He didn’t have to be a bear to be good at Bear Stealth, so why did he have to be a bear to be good at this? He didn’t have a bear’s strength, but he’d find his own way . . .
“Aha! That one looks perfect!”
Spencer followed Kate’s gaze. Between two trees sat a round boulder, smaller than the ones he’d seen the recruits using, but bigger than he’d hoped, and he wouldn’t call it perfect.
“Maybe it’s too late for boulder rolling after all,” he said, faking a yawn. “It’s getting pretty dark anyway.” How could he roll the boulder anywhere if he wouldn’t be able to see it in another five minutes?
“Wait here.” Kate scooted back the way they came, leaving Spencer alone with the boulder. He walked over to it. The top of the boulder was above his knees, and he knew it was going to be heavy.
“Might as well try while no one’s looking,” he muttered. Spencer pushed against the boulder with all his strength. His sneakers slid through the dirt and his legs threatened to fly out from underneath him, but he kept pushing. The boulder didn’t budge. Suddenly, the trees around him were illuminated in a bobbing yellow light. Spencer spun around.
Kate had the handle of a lantern in her mouth, the light shining brightly. Lifting onto her hind legs, she stood as tall as she could to hang the lantern on a nearby tree limb.
“Where’d you get that?”
She grinned and dropped back to all fours. “I borrowed it! Some guards they’ll make—I swiped it right out from under their boulder-rolling noses!”
Spencer sighed. Now that they had plenty of light, there were no excuses left. He turned back to the boulder. Pushing hadn’t gotten him anywhere. There had to be some other way . . . A way that didn’t depend on his muscles alone.
Spencer circled the boulder. What would Dad do? Or Uncle Mark? Together they could have this boulder rolling in minutes, Spencer was sure of it. He loved watching Dad and Uncle Mark work together. Especially when they were working in the garage on the car that would one day be Spencer’s. A year ago, when Spencer’s grandfather died, he’d left a 1965 Mustang behind. It didn’t run, but Dad and Uncle Mark had it towed to the Plains’ garage. They’d taken the whole thing apart—just like Spencer had done with his computer project—and piece by piece they were putting it back together. They were going to make it drive again, and when Spencer turned eighteen, it would be his . . . as long as he didn’t spill the beans to Mom, who didn’t like fast cars and thought the Mustang was for Uncle Mark.
Whenever he could, Spencer sat in the garage with Dad and Uncle Mark while they worked on the car, studying everything they did. Spencer searched his memory for any piece of information he’d learned in the garage that might help him now.
Kate interrupted Spencer’s thoughts. “Well? Are you going to try?”
“Yes, I’m going to try,” Spencer muttered, wishing that the boulder was perched on the edge of a steep hill. Then, he got an idea. Scanning the ground, Spencer grabbed a flat rock. Kneeling in front of the boulder, he used the rock as a shovel, digging into the ground to create a small hill. Rolling the boulder downhill would be a whole lot easier than rolling it across flat ground.
“Spencer, I don’t think—” Kate started.
“I just have to move it, right?” Spencer dug deeper.
“Well, I guess so.” Kate stepped closer to watch. After a few more minutes, Spencer sat back on his heels. Now the ground in front of the boulder sloped downward into a hole. He didn’t have the strength to roll the boulder far, but if he just got it moving a little, it would roll as far down as the slope he’d dug. Spencer got up and ran to the other side of the boulder. Throwing all of his weight against the rock, he pushed it toward the slope. Nothing happened.
He needed a tool, something to help him get leverage to push the boulder. Something like a crowbar . . . Spencer thought back to the garage again. “Really, it’s just a lever,” Dad had said, before drawing a diagram of how a lever worked.
Spencer saw a thick broken tree branch lying in a pile of leaves and dragged it to the boulder. He scooped out another shallow hole under this side of the boulder with his digging rock and then managed to jam one end of the branch into the hole. He grabbed a larger rock and positioned it next to the boulder, sandwiching the branch and holding it in place. The whole thing looked like a seesaw, with the boulder weighing down one end of the branch and the other end sticking up into the air. Please work.
Spencer knew if he could push down on the end of the branch that stuck up into the air, it would cause the end of the branch that was sandwiched under the boulder to lift up, causing the boulder to tip over the edge of the slope he’d dug. It’ll roll downward from there!
“So, are you . . .” Kate started.
“Just wait.” The branch stuck up into the air in front of him, the lever he needed to push down. Its highest point was right at his chest. He grabbed onto it with both hands.
Spencer pushed down on the lever. He could feel it straining under the weight of the boulder, and pushed harder. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boulder start to move. He threw all of his weight into pushing the lever. “Come on!” he yelled through gritted teeth.
Crash! The branch smashed to the ground and Spencer fell on top of it.
“You did it!” Kate cried. Spencer sat up. The boulder had moved! It was sitting a foot away, at the bottom of the slope he’d dug. The lever had worked. He’d done it.
“Push it, Plain!” Fred Crossburger shouted. Spencer stood waist deep in the river, swinging one arm over his head and lifting his opposite knee out of the water in what Fred called a “vine climber.” He switched sides and shot an annoyed look at Kate, who pretended not to notice as she followed along with the other bears in the water.
Kate had rushed him out of the Weavers’ house at the crack of dawn, assuring him that there was an early Saturday morning Bear Guard workout that they couldn’t miss. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he’d followed the cub down to the riverside, but rather than the Bear Guard’s sunrise swim, they’d found Fred Crossburger preparing for his first water aerobics class of the day.
“I thought they met right here . . .” Kate had said, swinging her head from side to side. There were no recruits to be found, just half a dozen groggy bears wading into the river.
“Look at this,” Fred Crossburger had cried as he strode out onto the dock. “Some brave rookies, ready for a
workout! You’ll have to show them how it’s done!” He’d motioned Spencer and Kate toward the water as his class cheered, encouraging them not to worry about the chilly temperature. Kate tried to explain her mistake to the trainer, but it was no use. Into the water they’d gone.
Now, Spencer felt ridiculous as he shimmied around in the river in his jeans, “scooping salmon” and “reaching for treetops” as best as he could.
“The recruits are probably doing the same stuff, anyway,” Kate whispered to Spencer. “It’s conditioning!”
Just then, a group of bears came into sight. Walking along the riverbank, a few had towels slung around their necks and some paused to shake water out of their fur. The recruits from last night! Spencer jabbed Kate with his elbow. They watched the recruits pass, then disappear through a break in the trees.
“Come on!” Spencer dashed out of the water with Kate close behind. He grabbed his shirt and shoes and socks from the riverbank, and tugged them onto his soaking wet body as quickly as he could. Ignoring Fred’s loud demands that they never give up on their fitness goals and get back in the water, Spencer and Kate slipped through the trees.
After a few minutes of searching, Spencer saw the bears up ahead. He ducked behind the closest tree and watched Kate do the same nearby. The recruits stood in a group in the middle of a small clearing, waiting for something. All of a sudden, a whistle blew. Spencer leaned out from behind his tree to get a glimpse of the next training exercise.
It was worse than boulder rolling. Way worse.
