by K. E. Rocha
“Yude?!” Spencer cried in disbelief, then clapped a hand over his mouth.
B.D. eyed him questioningly.
“He’s so . . . mean,” Spencer said quietly, trying to explain himself. “He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Yude isn’t mean exactly, Spencer. He’s gruff. He’s impatient. And he’s had some painful encounters with humans that have left him suspicious and bitter. But he’s also a brilliant strategist—he has to be to have found his own way to Bearhaven. And he wants what’s best for the bears there.”
“I don’t know . . .” Spencer shuddered as he recalled Yude’s anger in the council room.
“It’s sad, actually, that Yude’s never been able to fully understand how good and kind Mark and your parents are.” The bear paused for such a long moment that Spencer thought the conversation might be over.
“You know, Spencer, I consider them my family, too—your mom and dad and your uncle.” B.D.’s gaze returned to the window. “They saved my life,” he said a moment later, as much to the tunnel beyond the window as to Spencer.
“What? When?” Spencer asked carefully. He didn’t want to break whatever spell B.D. seemed to be under.
“Before Bearhaven.”
Before Bearhaven? How was that possible, unless—
“Were you—?”
“One of the first,” B.D. said quickly. “One of the mascots.”
“From Gutler University?”
B.D. nodded. “I was sold to Gutler with my brother and sister when we were young. They wanted us for mascots, to parade us around at sporting events, but they treated us terribly. The handler—Margo Lalicki, whom your uncle’s told you about?” Spencer nodded. “That woman drugged us and kept our teeth and claws filed down to nubs so we had no natural defenses. It made eating painful, not that there was much to eat. They kept us in a cage half the size of this train car, and let us starve.” B.D. shook his massive head, as if he was trying to shake the memory away. “Dora was my older sister,” he went on. “She protected my brother, John Shirley, and me whenever she could. Even when her own ribs showed, she’d share her food with us. She was smarter than my brother and me, too, and tough.” B.D. turned back to Spencer. “Dora would’ve done well at Bearhaven.”
“What happened to her?” Spencer asked, remembering what Uncle Mark had said about the female bear being recaptured at Gutler.
“Dora never made it out.” B.D. paused. “Your parents and Mark staged a rescue . . .” He hesitated again before continuing, and when he did, Spencer could tell that the bear was choosing his words carefully. “It was the first rescue, for all of us. Things were bound to go wrong. Dora was the last to be brought to the truck, but before she made it, guard dogs and floodlights surrounded us. We had to leave her. It was the only way any of us would have gotten out.” B.D.’s voice was filled with regret. “We knew Dora would’ve been hurt and angry that things didn’t go as we’d planned . . . that she was left behind . . . So at the first opportunity, your mom and dad went back for her. They searched, but couldn’t find her. It was like she’d disappeared. All they found was a scrap of her Gutler football jersey.”
“Her what?”
“Gutler made us wear green-and-gold jerseys during their football games. We fly the scrap we found from her shirt on the flagpole in Bearhaven, to always remember what we’ve sacrificed, and what we’ve gained. And to remember Dora.”
Spencer looked down at his hands. He remembered that flag from his tour of Bearhaven, but he never imagined it could mean so much. “And what about your brother?”
“John Shirley? He’s out there.”
Spencer counted twelve tunnel lights flash past the window before B.D. spoke again. “Bearhaven was never going to be home for John Shirley. After what we’d been through, he wasn’t interested in communicating much with humans. He appreciated the rescue and what your family did for him, but he didn’t want a lifestyle that too closely resembled theirs. Many bears feel that way.”
Spencer nodded, but didn’t really know what B.D. meant. Seeming to sense this, B.D. added, “For many of us, Bearhaven is a safe community, but for some, it’s a reminder of what we’ve suffered.”
“Do you ever see him? John Shirley?”
“Every now and then,” said B.D. “Not often, and I never know which time will be the last. We know how to find each other, though, in case we need to . . . In case either of us finds Dora.”
Spencer leaned back in his chair as they lapsed into silence. B.D. understood what it meant to miss your family, to want to save them from something.
Poor Dora, Spencer thought. After all she’d done to protect her brothers at Gutler, she’d never seen them again. He wondered where she was, if she was even still alive. He turned to B.D. but found the bear asleep, his empty mug resting between his paws.
“A bear in pain is a very dangerous animal,” Uncle Mark said, consulting the long list of things that he needed to brief Spencer on before their arrival in Stantonville. Spencer nodded. All morning he’d been careful to keep an expression of total focus on his face, but inside, his mind was racing. His first rescue mission!
The mission would be dangerous, and a huge test, but Spencer still couldn’t help thinking how cool it all was. A week ago, he’d been worried about homework and whether or not Evarita would let him order pizza again for dinner. Now, he was a Bearhaven operative.
“Ro Ro and her cubs may have had their claws and teeth removed, which means they could be in a great deal of pain,” Uncle Mark went on. “And that’s just the normal level of risk on a rescue, Spence. We might be up against something bigger with this one. We don’t know yet how the bears are affected by the implanted microchips.”
Spencer sat across from Uncle Mark at a table in the first car. On the tour, Uncle Mark had shown Spencer that the first car of the train was split in half. The front half housed the engine room and control panel for the TUBE, and the back half was outfitted as a small dining room.
Marguerite had just served Spencer and Uncle Mark each a heaping bowl of oatmeal, brown sugar, and berries. Spencer was happy to see something so human and so delicious, but also surprised. Since arriving in Bearhaven, he’d eaten well, but everything had been made from ingredients that the bears could gather themselves, like fish, honey, and plants from the forest. The food had never involved anything like oatmeal or brown sugar.
Uncle Mark winked at Spencer as he dug in. Oatmeal was Uncle Mark’s favorite breakfast.
“Do you bring your own oatmeal?” Spencer asked incredulously.
Uncle Mark smiled and made a show of taking a huge, satisfying bite. “Never underestimate the comforts of home, kid.”
Marguerite glided over to check on them. “Do you like it, honey?” she asked Spencer. He nodded and gulped down a mouthful of oatmeal. “Good. There’s plenty more where that came from. Mark’s got quite the supply socked away on this train.”
Spencer watched Marguerite make her way down the car to check on B.D., who was sitting alone at another table.
If he didn’t know the bear any better, Spencer would have thought B.D. might have a crush on Marguerite. The large bear had been watching her all morning as she moved around the car, acting almost goofy every time she approached. Spencer looked away; maybe a girlfriend was just the thing to make B.D. a little happier and a little less grumpy . . . “—is already there, doing a preliminary sweep of the grounds,” Uncle Mark was saying. “So at least we’ll have more information going in.”
“Wait, what?” Spencer had missed something important.
“The other operative is already there.” There was another operative? It wouldn’t be just him and Uncle Mark going in to get the bears? He pushed away his disappointment. He had to admit it made sense for them to have the extra backup, since B.D. wouldn’t actually be in the field with them, unless his physical strength became necessary.
“Who is it?”
A sly smile crossed Uncle Mark’s face. “I’m go
ing to let you find out for yourself. Now, back to business. We should be on-site by three o’clock, and the bear baying starts at five. First step is locating Ro Ro and her cubs as quickly as possible. We’re not anticipating that the cubs will be involved in the bear baying, but we know that there’s also a petting zoo on the premises. It’s likely that the cubs will be there. It’s your job to confirm that.” Of course, Spencer thought, I’m on cub duty.
“Ro Ro’s in the most danger, and we’ll have a limited amount of time before they take her in for the five o’clock show, so we’ll need to get her out before five. Once Ro Ro is safely in the rescue vehicle, B.D. will be with her to calm her down and explain what’s going on, then our other operative is going to make a scene. She’ll pretend to discover that the bear is missing and rile up the crowd, convincing them a dangerous bear is on the loose.” She? The other operative was a girl? “In the midst of the commotion, we’ll get the cubs to the rescue vehicle.”
“We’re just going to walk them to the vehicle? Because everyone will be freaking out?” This might be Spencer’s first mission, but even so, that didn’t exactly sound like a foolproof plan.
“I know it sounds too simple, but sometimes a simple plan works better than a complicated one. The operative on the ground now is getting a handle on Grady’s Grandstand—the operation, the layout—she’ll know more, and she’ll have what we need when she picks us up.” Uncle Mark looked at his watch, then called to Marguerite. “Are we running on time?”
Marguerite stood up quickly from B.D.’s table and straightened her vest. If bears could blush . . . Spencer thought, looking from Marguerite to B.D., who was suddenly captivated by the inside of his bowl.
“Yes, absolutely. On time,” Marguerite gushed. “Two fifteen p.m. arrival as planned. Anything else?” But before anyone could answer, she scooted over to the farthest table in the room, as though the flowers there needed to be rearranged immediately.
Uncle Mark looked at Spencer and rolled his eyes. Spencer only barely stopped himself from bursting out laughing. “All right, then. We’ll get back to the briefing, but for now, we are much too good-looking for a rescue mission.”
The wardrobe car turned out to be just as cool as the rest of the TUBE. One of the closets was for women and the other was for men, but both were huge, as big as five of Spencer’s closets at home, and stuffed full of the craziest mix of clothes Spencer had ever seen. There were trunks full of hats, wigs, even fake facial hair. There were racks upon racks of shoes, all worn in just enough to not seem too new.
Spencer pulled open a drawer and quickly slammed it shut. It was filled with rows of . . . noses? He opened the drawer again, slowly. Yes, noses. They looked so real. Pulling open the next drawer, he found ears, and in the one below it, chins. Uncle Mark laughed when Spencer poked an ear, then picked it up, wrinkling his nose, and turned it over in his hand.
“They’re prosthetics,” Uncle Mark explained. “Like they use on actors.”
Spencer returned to the nose drawer and picked one out, fitting it over his own nose. It was rubbery against his skin and way too big, but when he looked in the mirror, it looked natural enough to be creepy. “Can I wear one?”
Uncle Mark laughed. “Not this time. Takes too long to put on properly. We only go that far on advanced missions. This mission should be pretty straightforward.”
Spencer returned the nose and browsed through the clothes that hung, tightly packed, from wall to wall. It was like hundreds of strangers had each sent in a complete outfit from their own wardrobes. Why does Uncle Mark always wear jeans and a leather jacket when he could wear any of this? Spencer wondered, reaching for a black-and-white-checked velvet jacket.
“Do the bears have a wardrobe closet?”
“No.” Uncle Mark started pulling things out for his disguise. “If we need to hide the bears, it usually takes more than a few pieces of extra-large clothing. That’s what the special vehicles are for.”
To Spencer’s disappointment, the new outfit that Uncle Mark had put together looked like the most boring thing his uncle could have picked. “Out you go,” Uncle Mark said. “Time for my transformation.” Reluctantly, Spencer left the closet.
When Uncle Mark emerged, he looked like someone else completely. Not only had his uncle disguised his real identity, adding a weirdly natural-looking goatee and a dirty white baseball cap with a dried sweat ring around the band, but he looked totally unremarkable. Spencer wished his uncle had come up with something a little more exciting, like the police officer’s uniform that Spencer had seen, or a suit that would make him look like James Bond, but he understood why Uncle Mark had chosen the outfit he did. Dressed in slightly baggy, worn blue jeans and a tucked-in gray T-shirt with a white logo for Rusty’s Crab Shack, Uncle Mark would completely fade into the background. Spencer laughed. “Where’s your pickup truck?”
“Very funny.” Uncle Mark tossed a bundle of clothes to Spencer. “Let’s see how good you look undercover.”
Spencer quickly laid everything out in front of him on one of the makeup tables, excited to see what his own disguise would look like. There was a plain white T-shirt, a lightweight plaid flannel shirt, and a navy blue baseball cap with yellow writing: Sonny’s Express.
“Wow, cool,” Spencer said sarcastically.
“Not a lot in your size in here, Spence. I didn’t know you’d be joining us, remember?” Uncle Mark winked, then started toward the door. “Change up. We’ll be pulling into the station in fifteen minutes. Oh, and mess your hair up a little under the cap.”
By the time the TUBE pulled into the station, Spencer had adjusted the flannel shirt about a million times, buttoning it and tucking it into his jeans, then untucking it, then rolling up the sleeves, then down, then unbuttoning it, and on and on. Finally, Uncle Mark walked over.
“You nervous, Spence?” He put his hands on Spencer’s shoulders. “You don’t have to come if you’ve changed your mind.”
Spencer was nervous, more nervous than he’d thought he’d be, but he definitely wasn’t going to say so. “Just not sure how this shirt’s supposed to look,” he mumbled.
“Oh, is that all?” Uncle Mark said, stepping back and looking him over. Spencer knew he wasn’t fooling anyone, but he appreciated that his uncle let it go. “Unbuttoned, untucked, sleeves rolled up.”
As Spencer adjusted his shirt for the last time, there was a quiet pop, followed by a hushhhh, and the doors moved upward, sliding into place above the open doorways. He followed Uncle Mark out onto the platform, where they were soon joined by B.D. and Marguerite.
The station was smaller than the one in Bearhaven, and much less flashy; in fact, Spencer was surprised by how abandoned it looked. The only thing that told him they were in the right place was the elevator that opened onto the platform, identical to the one in Bearhaven.
Marguerite wished them all good luck. “I’ll be right here for the return trip. Let’s bring these bears home!”
“Thank you, Marguerite,” Spencer said, stalling. “It was great. The cocoon bed . . . the oatmeal . . . the brown sugar on the oatmeal . . .” he rambled, not sure he was ready to leave the safety of the station.
Uncle Mark cleared his throat. “Can’t do much rescuing if we’re underground.” He glanced meaningfully toward the elevator. It was time to go.
Hoping to prove to everyone, including himself, that he was ready, Spencer hit the button beside the elevator. The doors slid open, and Spencer stepped inside. B.D. and Uncle Mark stepped in beside him, and B.D. pressed a button, giving Marguerite a last little nod as the door slid shut.
The platform rushed upward, carrying them through the sleek hollow space. In the dark, Spencer reached into his pocket. This is it. He squeezed the jade bear.
As the doors slid open, Spencer’s nervousness fell away, and his excitement returned. He was a Bearhaven operative, and he was a Plain. Now it was time to prove himself.
Spencer stepped out into midafternoon sunshine and foun
d himself standing in a small cluster of trees at the side of a dirt road. He turned back to see B.D. stand up on his hind legs and vigorously sniff the air before dropping to all fours and stepping out of the hollowed tree, confirming that the coast was clear. Uncle Mark followed close behind. The door slid shut, concealing the elevator completely behind a layer of unassuming bark.
“Here we go,” Uncle Mark said, eyes locked on the beat-up white box truck that was swinging around a bend in the road.
Before Spencer could get a glimpse of the operative behind the wheel, the driver hit the brakes and a cloud of dust and gravel flew up between them. The truck skidded to a halt right in front of Uncle Mark. He took a few steps back, waving dust out of his face. A second later, the driver’s door opened. Someone jumped down, slammed the door, and strode around to meet them.
“Hey, stranger,” said Evarita.
Under ordinary circumstances, Spencer would never have run up to hug Evarita, but these were not ordinary circumstances.
“You’re an operative?” he asked after he’d let go. Evarita was definitely cool enough for it to be true, but Spencer couldn’t believe that everyone had known about Bearhaven except for him.
“Backup,” she answered casually, like it was no big deal. She waved a hand toward Uncle Mark’s outfit. “That’s a good look for you, Mark,” she teased.
Uncle Mark laughed, seeming to relax a little now that Evarita had joined them. “That’s funny, I was just going to say the same to you.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Here we go again,” B.D. grumbled.
Spencer ignored the grumpy bear. He’d been so shocked and happy to see Evarita that he hadn’t even noticed her outfit. Now, he couldn’t believe that he’d recognized her so quickly. She looked so . . . ordinary. Instead of her usual long dress and boots, Evarita was wearing a pair of jeans with plain white sneakers and a flowery pink shirt. Spencer had never seen her wear pink before. Even her usual layers of necklaces were gone. Her hair was braided neatly down her back, and her face was covered in makeup. She didn’t look like herself at all.
