The Bear: A Novel (10 page)

My head
feels fuzzy like my tongue and I can’t think what I am doing lying under a tree and it is dark and we aren’t supposed to be in the forest with no Momma or Daddy and this far from the cottage except when we go in the canoe and then the tent is like the cottage and not too far from that but it is not here. Stick is like the fire. But just warm not so hot for cooking marshmallows so Gwen and I snuggle into him. He fits against my chest and his little bum is against my legs so I hope that he doesn’t pee. More important he is warm. I wish I was allowed a marshmallow. I put my arm around him so Gwen is near my shoulder and Sticky is like a big Gwen. His big clunky head is rattling around and he puts it on my arm to rest like a pillow. I wish I had one. He stops wiggling and it is a little bit warmer. Best would be a blanket and more food and really big marshmallows that were as big as Stick’s head so it would take all night to eat. I could eat the middle and then curl up inside it and be so so cozy. I think do princesses sleep in marshmallow and they probably do.

I hear eeeeeee and I hate that sound. It is by my ear and I can’t see but I know because I’ve gotten lots of bites before that it is a mosquito. They like my blood a lot. I use my hand to thump and I try to smoosh it against my ear. The eeeeeee stops and I think ha-ha! I close my eyes again and then nothing and then eeeeeee. I want to call Momma in to turn on the light and smack it. She is the best smacker in our family and can do smacks even in the dark or in a tent and she puts her finger and just goes squish on the top. It is gentle and nice like they are lucky that they got smacked by the tip of her finger only. My daddy won’t use hands he uses a flyswatter because he says he doesn’t want their bodies on his hand. Sometimes if they had bitten there is blood too and that is gross. I think so too so it’s better when the swatter or Momma does it but now it’s my hand and no light to see it. I feel it touch my cheek like a little tickly feather and I smack my face but still eeeeeee. I don’t like it and I thought Momma said no more mosquitoes for the year. I remember the time my eye got a bite on the top and it got puffy so I looked like someone punched me in the face but they didn’t. A mosquito stuck a straw into my skin to drink from me like a juice box. And then spit in poison like putting your spit back into the juice box. That is gross if anyone else wants a sip. The spit made my eye puff and I could almost not see except I could see pink skin that was puffy and hanging down a bit into my eyeball. When I touched it I could see my fingertips there but the skin didn’t feel like mine.

I make my hand go back and forth fast by my ear because sometimes you can fan a mosquito and they can’t stay on the air they mean to and go sideways instead of forward. Like if someone picked up the sidewalk I was walking on and wiggled it up and down so I fell off like by accident. I think it is going over near to Stick and it stops and everything is quiet again. I didn’t smoosh it and I don’t know if I fanned it away. I think it might be sticking a straw into Stick and that is better than me. He is so soft and cushy that he is probably the best juice box a mosquito can find and I bet that little fella mosquito is pretty happy and soon I hear eeeeeee. But it is slower and I picture him carrying a tiny juice box that is full of Stick’s blood and he is holding with his feet and having to flap his tiny wings really hard. They are so thin they look like paper except paper that you could see through like you use to wrap a present. Eeeeeee eeeeeee and then it gets quieter eeee and a little tiny piece of time and buzz and it goes away and I can’t hear it. Phew.

I curl my legs up more around Stick and his skin is cold but the bones inside are warm so I stay really close. I think he is asleep but not yet which is good because I am lonely. When he falls asleep and we share a room and it’s always him falling asleep faster than me. Momma says I take longer to turn off my brain and it would be nice if I could have a switch like I use to turn off the light and just go click. That’s what Stick does because the switch is on his eyelids so he closes them and click. I lift my head a little to see if he has flicked his eyeballs shut. I bang my head on the tree. I have never had a tree sticking across my bed before so I forgot it was doing that. I lift my head more slowly until it just rests on the tree and I remember the spicy that I like. I can see Stick’s eyes are a little open and a little shut. He knows that I am moving and doesn’t want to get left behind. He is checking on me moving but can’t stay awake. I put my head back down and I won’t ever sleep a long time maybe forever.

My eyes
open and my hand is in the needles patting them. I am scared and I don’t know what is happening and then my hand touches Gwen’s fur and my breath gushes out of my body. I thought she is lost but she is not. I hug her tight and sniff and I am so glad and so happy that it was not true. When you have a dream and it feels real it means you might pee the bed. I need to pee. And I shout and shout and Daddy doesn’t come. He helps me pee at night if I am scared because sometimes there can be monsters in a closet or under a bed at night and you never know. It is only Stick lying here. He rolls over and boinks me with his head. His nose breath goes in and out. We are two. I don’t want Stick I want Daddy and I miss him so much it makes my tummy feel weird. Daddy is warm and he tastes like salt on his arm. He has big eyebrows that go up when he is laughing and big teeth too. He has a temper and that means that you tiptoe when his eyebrows are down.

When Daddy’s eyebrows are down that is a very important thing and it doesn’t mean that Daddy is bad. It does mean that if I am naughty his hair will get more sticky up on his head and his big teeth show. He growls sometimes. That is not because he doesn’t love me but he is tired or hungry so it’s not just his belly that growls but his mouth too. We read a book that we both love that is about a boy named Charlie who loves chocolate like me. I like Veruca because she is a bit naughty. Daddy says it’s what you imagine sometimes comes true. I say what does that mean? He says what you have is always better than you imagine in your head so be careful what you wish. Because it could come true and that could be the worst.

I am not in bed and there are sounds like animals outside and I feel so scared. Daddy is mad and isn’t here. His face was outside the car. I was in the backseat with Stick and Gwen and Momma had her hands on the steering wheel and turning it and her face white and stone. Daddy’s seat was empty because he was standing outside and I looked at him and I wanted him inside the car. His head came closer to my window and he put his hand on my glass and I saw it big and lines like roads and the one where it means you live a long life. “I love you, Anna” he said to me and the sound is foggy because of glass. I tried to hold his hand but I can only touch the window.

I thought he was pulling his hand away and I wanted to roll down the window to touch it so I tell him to put his hand back. But I saw the driveway turn. The car was going away. His hand was still in the same place and his face looked like when he ate a lemon with no cake around it. The car goes vroom. We were going to the cottage for a long time. I told Momma to stop because we were leaving Daddy. She didn’t talk and doesn’t look and we are going down the street. I turned and saw Daddy standing only by himself all alone. I yelled for Daddy and he got smaller and smaller until he was only like my thumb. And then he was gone away.

“Momma,” I shout.

I wait for a minute and I am outside. I only see Stick. No one is there only an animal and it is so close I feel like it will come and get me. I open my eye crack and look and it is so dark. I am not in bed and the needles are pricking a part where my pj’s are sagging down my bum like always. I pull them up. It is cold and no blanket to pull to my chin. The animal is making a deep growl and I wish I already went home. I open my eyes more and the animal keeps growling like he doesn’t even want my eyes to open but I am too scared not to see him so I keep looking. When I can’t see in the dark my momma says to keep looking and my eyes will know when they have enough time to see in the dark. And my eyes start to know and I can see the tree up close to my head. The animal must see that too and won’t drag because I am in a cave so it is waiting for me to come out. I look out and it is very dark. I see the shape of a tall tree standing in the forest and there is another one. After that comes the open part where the horse was chewing.

I can’t see the animal but then maybe I can. A black shape is close to the tree and it has a low growl that goes grrrr gaaaa grrrr gaaaa to let me know that it is there. And it is going to eat me because I don’t have an army or sword except the one in my mind and I can’t find it. Gwen is by my face and very scared because she hears and the grrrr gaaaa and we both stare out to hope that our eyes will see the animal better so we can know where to run. It has a dark color and it looks round on top like a hump and it must be very big from the sounds. I can’t see the eyes and no teeth but I know from the sounds that it is showing teeth like Snoopy does at the mailman and Mrs. Buchanan grabs Snoopy under the jaw and they look at each other in the eyes and Mrs. Buchanan says “Oh, what did that poor man do to deserve such poor treatment from you?” And that’s when I know it is the black dog.

My heart rolls out of my chest and onto the ground and I can’t push it back in. I am shaking and I know I am scared but then my legs are wet and it is warm for a minute and Gwen is on my face so I reach down and it’s wet and I peed. Okay because a little warmer but then it is cold right away and I am shaking so I couldn’t help it. I don’t know how big the black dog is and I don’t know if he will drag me out from the tree. Grrrr gaaaa grrrr gaaaa it keeps going to scare me and I wish it would just bite because I don’t want to be so scared anymore. I wish I didn’t have to be under a tree and my stomach keeps rolling in and out. The shakes make it feel like my bones are going to rattle out of my body or my knees are coming apart. I stare and the black dog is just sitting like when the lions are watching the deers and waiting for them to move so they can jump and rip with claws and then bite on necks and even ride on the back of the deer when it tries to run.

The black dog is waiting for me to move because that is when he knows I have seen him so I know the thing is that I can’t move or let him know that I can see him sitting like a black hump. Grrrr gaaaa he makes the growl but he thinks I can’t hear that because it is like breathing to him. No one thinks that anyone else can hear them breathe so I have to lie very still. Gwen and I don’t move and my pee is freezing on my leg and stink but I leave it there. My knees keep shaking and I wish I could put my hands on them to stop the top caps from coming loose but that would be moving and the black dog would know. I barely breathe I am so still because that is the only way I can stay alive. The black dog will attack if I move. So I just stay still. I don’t even move my finger.

There is
light in my eye crack and I am so cold. I listen and grrrr gaaaa and I remember the black dog and I open my eye crack. Gwen is with me. I peek out and can’t see the black dog. Only a stump with green mossy mossy and pine needles and a tree and another tree so the black dog has snuck around. Grrrr gaaaa it sounds like his breath but I look down and the sound is coming from Stick. His nose says grrrr gaaaa. He must have heard the black dog and is trying to make a sound the same or I don’t know. Maybe Stick thinks that if he makes the same noise that he will scare the black dog and it will go away because it is the scariest thing on earth so it can only be scared of itself. Or he thought the black dog would drag him away and my bones are still shaking but more from cold than scared right now. Gwen is okay and Stick’s big head is on my arm. I try to push on my arm to sit up but I can’t. I think my arm is gone and it won’t move. That’s when I know the black dog did chew it off. It is off from my shoulder.

I look at my fingers on the other side of Stick’s sleepy head and they can’t move. They are sausages. I try to wiggle and nothing. I reach over Stick’s big head and touch the sausage fingers and they are cold and look blue and were in the fridge or the freezer and is frozen and just needs to be cooked to eat so that must be the black dog’s plan.

“Sticky?” I whisper.

“Wha?” His eyes are glued shut a little and he is so dirty he should take a bath.

“My hand is eaten.”

Stick sits up and looks like he is sitting on the moon. “Momma?”

“My hand died,” I say and I am still on the needles because it is hard to move with a sausage on your body. I try to wiggle my fingers for him to show him that I can’t wiggle my fingers but he doesn’t know what I am doing because there is nothing. “I can’t move it.”

He looks at my hand and looks back at me. I know his eyes mean he is hungry and I am hungry too and maybe he means he wants to eat my hand if that is all he says about my hand and I hope not.

“Band-Aid?”

I know he wants one but only cuts with blood get Band-Aids or else Stick wanted to have them all over his knees just because he had a bang.

And then the needles on the ground start to prickle in my hand and ouch it hurts too much. I sit up and bang my head on the tree ouch. Stick jumps out of our bed to get out of the way and aaaaah my arm is being attacked by needles except now I am standing and the needles are not touching my arm but their needle eyes have laser beams because they are still poking everywhere in my hand. I can move it and I try to hit it with my other. I jump around but nothing makes the needles stop poking even invisible needles. It hurts so so much and Stick just watches because there is no blood or Band-Aids. I jump around and it feels a little better but my thumb is stabbed. And my fingers are curled around and now they can go straight. I can feel my own hand and I ask it to make a punching fist and it does. I keep moving it because I can’t believe it was cut off and now it is back on and moving like a magic trick. I stand and look at it because I thought I would be a one-arm girl forever and ever. Stick is standing watching me and he doesn’t know what is going on and all he does is let a tiny pee come out of his dingle. He is too much of a baby to tell him what happened and what I saw in the night. He would get scared and cry too much but I know. The black dog is making war.

I take Stick over to the chocolate milk water in the little pool and I drink and I use my hands to help him drink and we don’t catch a fish. It is cold and we both are tired. I lead Stick back to the tree.

“We need Momma and Daddy,” I say to Stick.

Stick says “Yes” but he looks very sad and tired and his face is more like a pudgy tomato today than it is normally. I touch his cheek and it is hot and leaves a finger mark that is white. I watch my finger mark and it stays there for a minute and then it fades but not back to normal skin it goes red.

“Ouch,” says Stick.

I look at my arm and it is the same with a fingerprint but not as strong and that might be because it’s my own finger. Not such a white mark comes. If someone else tried to make a fingerprint in me it would be whiter like happened on Stick. Except Stick’s finger is too small and so it doesn’t count and there is no one else.

We had fingerprints when we were at the cottage and it was too much sun. The sun was very hot and it reached down and made heat on my skin in a burn. I was supposed to wear a T-shirt when I went in the lake. A T-shirt swims around when I tried to swim and it floats out and was pulling me down into the water. I told Momma that I couldn’t swim with the T-shirt and so she said we had to go inside then and got mad. That was when Stick got lost at the cottage and I think she was already mad about that too and it was going to happen soon. We were playing and Momma was making dinner and she said harrumph many times because she didn’t have Daddy help. She said that I need to act bigger now and start to be a more help. I was supposed to watch Stick and play and then I said I should get Jell-O for dessert because I never got to eat it before. I found a small box that she told me is Jell-O. Jessica told me that Jell-O wiggles and it is the best. I don’t know how it wiggles because I shook the box and it sounds like there is sand I think of sand like at the beach. Momma got mad because I am saying that I am not old enough to do babysitting for money. I was just supposed to play. I got mad too because I don’t get Jell-O. I found it in the cupboard and want it for dinner and she says “I don’t trust that stuff” and doesn’t like it wiggling and thinks yuck. She really huffs and stamps off down to the bedroom and her feet are so mad they go flop flop flop in the flip-flops and she goes away. Stick has his hands on his ears and I feel sad. I wanted Gwen and she was sitting on my cottage bed and we cuddled.

But then later Momma called “Stick, Alex, Sticky, answer me, sweetie,” and Gwen and I found out that Sticky was gone. Momma was screaming at the cottage and begging Stick to come out and worried about the water and snakes and yelled and told me to yell but then she said “Don’t yell—let’s be quiet because he might be afraid.” Gwen and I whispered “Here, Sticky Sticky.” Momma got so mad and said I wasn’t watching Stick. She asked Jesus to find him.

Momma tells me not to move and so at least I don’t go away. I knew that was the first time we were two. Gwen and I sat and my feet went fuzzy and I feel scared. I wished I could be with Momma but she was looking for Stick in the closet. I think that we should pray to God and not Jesus. That was a mistake because Jesus didn’t bring Stick back to us. Momma was crying. I heard her saying about she thought he was with me. I felt sad and mad at Stick because it’s his fault and I get in trouble. I know what to do when I get lost by accident. I go to the front of the grocery store to wait for Momma or I tell a man dressed like a policeman who watches for people who are stealing from the store to find her for me. I don’t talk to strangers. The stranger will be super nice and have candy. He has a big smile that is nice. Or sometimes he has a big white van with puppies inside that I want to see except I am not allowed to say that I want to see them even if I do. The stranger isn’t the policeman or the lady who gets to push all the buttons on the cash register that counts our groceries. Stick doesn’t know anything like that.

Gwen said to me that we should go out of the cottage and we sneak out the door and onto the rock and it smells like warm and I see the water is twinkling at me and the dock looks like a tongue stuck out. I walked over to step on the tongue.

“Hi.”

“Hi, dock.”

The dock didn’t answer.

“Hello, dock!”

“Nana?”

It didn’t sound like it came from the dock if the dock could talk and I didn’t think yes. I looked down and it was almost dark and it was Stick tucked behind the side of the rock. It was a big round rock. Even bigger than his head and body. It was hard to see him because of his shirt that is like the color of the rock and everything is round.

“Is that you, Stick?”

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t say anything. He looked at me and then looked out at the water. I turned to look at the same place. All I saw was the lake and the sparkles and the trees that were far away on the other side and pointing up like arrows at their tops.

“Daddy,” said Stick.

And because I speak Stick I knew what he was doing. He thought Daddy was coming. I looked out at the lake and no boat. I didn’t see Daddy but I want Daddy and I wait to see if I can see him. I love seeing Daddy because he picks me up and swings me around really fast and like I’m going to fly into the sky but I don’t. He hangs onto under my armpits and woooo up and down and up and then big squeezy hug with both arms. He sticks prickly whiskers in my neck and hot breath and laughs and says he missed me so so much. And then he does Stick next except smaller woos because Stick got scared once and started to cry even though it was just supposed to be a happy hello. I can tell he wants a Daddy hug. He got lost because he missed Daddy and decided to wait for the boat. He must be coming soon. Even though we left Daddy on purpose and Stick didn’t know. I can’t wait to see Daddy.