The Bear: A Novel (11 page)

I need
to pee so I go out of our tree fort and I sit near the stump. My pee isn’t very much. I kick dirt over it and go back to the fort. Stick is under the tree and it stinks now so I look in and he has peed a little inside.

“Stick!” I yell so mad.

“What?”

“That’s my spot.”

“Nana?”

“You peed in my spot.”

He looks at his little pool of pee but it’s like he doesn’t care. I am getting sick of Stick because he thinks all his problems are my problems because he just stares at everything and won’t do anything. I get so mad that both my hands are in fists and I go grrrr.

“Get it out,” I yell.

He looks at the pee and it’s like he doesn’t even think he put it there. He is making me do everything and he just sits like a stump and then he sticks out one finger like he is going to touch it. I almost tell him no but then I don’t care. He puts his finger in the pee and then pulls it back because he knows only after he sticks his finger that it is gross and wipes it on his pj top.

“Use dirt and put it over on top,” I tell him. I have to have every idea as if I’m the momma. He looks at me and then looks to the side of our fort and sees the tree that I dragged to make a wall. He pulls on it and breaks off only a tiny stick and pokes that in the pee. He stirs it around like that is going to get out of my spot. I am so mad I feel like my head is so red it will be a volcano explosion off the top of my neck.

“You are too stupid to cover up pee,” I yell at him with my scary voice. I take a rock and I use it like a shovel and I put dirt over the pee so it is down lower in the floor of the fort. “You are stupid stupid stupid.”

I have to scrape the needles out with a flat rock to get the pee all disappeared and it is so gross that I feel barf in my neck. It comes up almost but not all the way.

“Stupid Stick,” I yell and finally the pee is gone so I can sit again. And Stick’s eyes are wet and I see a tear leaking out but I don’t care.

But then his bum is dirty and he stands up and shows it to me.

“Help me, Nana,” he says.

“Arrrgh,” I scream in his face and he shrinks back like he is scared and that is good because he better be because arrrgh and I am bigger and can punch him anytime I want. No one is here to stop me. I stamp out and stamp over and tell him to sit down outside the fort. He tries to bring his inside dog and walks up on his hands and knees with his head down and his tongue out but I don’t care. He smiles like we are friends but we aren’t. He stinks and I really hate having a brother ever. He tries to give me a paw and even does a few barks but he sees that I don’t want his inside dog and I don’t care. He whimpers more and goes off to sit in the fort.

“No,” I shout. “No going in the fort. Bad Sticky.”

His eyes look sad and I don’t care either.

I need to watch for the black dog and I keep looking around. I want to know when he will be back. I don’t know but I better get my weapons ready because dust for fairies is not big enough for the power. I wander around looking for the right stick and finally after a long time I find it. It is big enough to hold in my hand like thicker than my thumb and almost as big as my wrist. I find another that is bigger like almost thicker than my leg but I have to use two hands to pick it up. That is no good because it would be hard to sneak up on the black dog and I will be right there before I could stab and if I made a mistake he can just reach and bite me. Instead I need a stick that I can throw like a spear and that’s how I know the right stick is exactly right. I try to throw it a few times and it hits the dirt and bounces off and lies on its side. I try again and the same thing happens and so that’s how I know I need to make the end into a pointy. It will stick into the dirt and into the black dog.

I have a flat rock and that is good because I can scrape the stick on it to make a point. I wish I had a big long knife because then I could put it on the end and already have a point because I start scraping and my arms burn fast. But I don’t want black dog to come when I am not ready so I keep scraping. I find a flatter rock with an edge and pick it up and yuck it is the pee rock and I say grrrr at Stick who is sitting near the fort and ignoring me. I wipe my hands on the ground and find another rock and it is better so I use it to scrape the point and it works. I put the stick between my feet to hold it and sit on the needles and I scrape and then little shaves of wood come off the stick. In a long time and I have to take breaks but then I get a good point again.

I test it and it sticks a little bit more into the ground. I see Stick sitting there like a lump on the ground. He has two small sticks that are no good even though he thinks they are cars. If they are cars they don’t go fast. I do a big roar and Stick turns around and his eyes are puffy but they still go big and he looks scared and all he does is cry. Stupid Stick. He will be no good when black dog comes it will be all up to me and everything is up to me. I turn away and stab at the ground and I find a softer part where I can stick in the stick and make it stay and I practice. Over and over I roar like a daddy and I pretend the spot is black dog and he is scared and I get him dead. And I am the queen of the land and no one else can be.

I scrub
my hands on the ground because something is wrong with the skin. I wait for the sun to come and warm me up and it won’t. And I was sitting on my sharpening rock and I found a bubble between my fingers. I think the black dog spit on me and made my skin go on fire and now it is melting off. Sometimes skin is itchy when it melts and it feels really bad. There are a few more bubbles that I find up my arm. I rub them on the ground because maybe if that part of the skin comes off faster with rubbing it would feel better. My skin gone will make me sad but there is always skin underneath like a scab. Maybe I will get blood and this would be worth a Band-Aid even if there was no blood and I think Momma would say yes. Or she might say it is the one that needs air. When I am sure it is a cut that needs a Band-Aid and Momma often says no it’s one that needs air. I see Sticky out of the corner of my eye but I don’t feel like talking to him because I am so itchy itchy itchy.

“Nana?” Stick says. I can tell by the way he stands back and says my name that he knows I am still mad about the pee.

“Nana?” he says again.

“What?” I don’t look at him. I am looking at my hand. One of the bubbles has popped so that will feel better. There is not blood but instead it is yellow blood that is running from the bubble to my arm. It is gross and yuck. I hope it will feel better because it is popped and running and still too itchy. Stick comes right in front of me and looks too.

“Band-Aid?” he asks.

We both always wonder when we get Band-Aids.

“I don’t know.”

“Owey.”

“What?”

He turns and doesn’t take his pants off because his pants are gone. On his bum is red and bubbles all over. The black dog has spit on him very much all over.

“It’s spit.”

“Owey, Nana.”

“Bubble bum,” I say.

“Not fat.” He turns and puts his eyebrows down at me.

“You have bubbles on your bum. The black dog spit on you with his gob and it is eating your skin off your bum.”

“Eeeeeee. Bitchy,” he says and he reaches behind to his bum to scratch.

We both feel really itchy on our skin and inside our whole bodies and we try to scratch and Sticky starts to cry. I wish he didn’t because I want to cry too. I am a big girl and even though I always cry when Momma tells me to stop I can’t. I cry when we pick up Daddy because I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Momma says don’t cry when someone hasn’t seen you because all they remember is that you cry. Not as much that you smile. I still cry and Momma says that she knows we have hard things and she has hard things too. But she says that Daddy is coming and we will all be better now. She says that if you go past the things that are hard you can be so so strong.

Stick lets out a little noise but he doesn’t cry and we sit under the tree. I am so cold a bit shaky but kind of hot and I don’t feel so good. Stick doesn’t either and he doesn’t say because no English in his brain worms but he goes on his knees and crawls closer to me. He puts his head in my lap and I remember I peed my pants because of the black dog and it stinks but Stick doesn’t care. He lies down and whimpers again like Snoopy and shuts his eyes and I put my hand on him like Momma would.

“It’s okay,” I say.

I am so so hungry. I hope it is like that day when we woke up and it was Daddy Day because Momma started to get things ready at the cottage to make a cake and she let us lick the spoon. And Momma let me lick the spoon because we made cake and Daddy was coming to the cottage to be in our family. Maybe it was a mistake that we left him by accident. And we were going to eat the cake. But not the beaters because she doesn’t have a beater at the cottage where you pop out the silver part and lick it. She just stirs with her arm. I got sad about that but then I got to lick the bowl and only give Stick a few dips with his finger so I felt better. We made the cake and I wanted a piece but we had to wait and then I was sad again. But then we got to go swimming in the lake to wash off because we had chocolate on us and all on our faces. Stick had it on both cheeks and some on his forehead even from when he tried to stick his head in the bowl and I stopped him because only a few finger licks. But maybe he snuck around my back because there was even chocolate on his ears and I don’t know how it got there. We duck into the lake and it was cold and the sun was warm and it felt nice. The lake scrubbed us off and we put on just T-shirts over our bathing suits because Daddy will want to swim so we are already ready.

“Hungry, Nana,” says Stick.

I pat his head so his inner dog feels nice. “Me, too, Stick.”

I am hungry. I remember I saw Daddy’s paddle lying on the beach and broken. I don’t know how to fix a paddle. It is on the beach on the island and I don’t even know where that is anymore. I saw it from far away. Momma tied on our life jackets and we got to sit in the very front of the boat in a seat that is squishy but there was a crack that bites my leg so I put Stick on that side. When I sit the life jacket goes up nearer my ears but on Stick it puts him in a headlock and he has to have a strap that goes under his dingle and I’m glad I don’t have that anymore. I love the smell of gas so I sniff it when the boat starts and Stick puts his arms in the air and yells “Yay” because he loves the boat. Stick looks the wrong way so I punch him and point to the dock and he yells and tries to stand up but he’s not allowed. I pull him back to the seat and he tips over because a life jacket is stuffed under his chin.

“Can you get him, Anna?”

I know Momma meant I should watch Stick in the boat. I tipped him right way up and I looked back and Momma was smiling and she said “Thank you” and looked so pretty and happy. I knew that she loved me so much and that I found Stick by the dock when he was lost. And that’s how we remembered to get Daddy.

“Go home,” says Stick.

I want to go home too. I want to eat cake. I want to look out and see Daddy standing on the dock. He is not in two pieces he is in just one piece and his eyebrows and darker skin than me and big white teeth and smile that makes me warm. I know that Stick thinks Daddy just stands on the dock waiting for us the whole time. That’s why Stick was watching the lake. And he thinks that Daddy stands behind the garden gate waiting until dinnertime when he comes back through to see us and eat. But when I look at Daddy standing from far away on the dock I think I don’t know how long he has been standing there and it might be a really long time. Even though we didn’t let him in the car he found a way to get to the dock and that’s why his smile is so big. Maybe he came before the nighttime and was standing there and the cottage only has one phone and postcards from Grandpa. When Grandpa calls on the phone I am supposed to say to him that Daddy is not there or he is working but not that Daddy is not in our family. It is a secret. He is still in our family he is just not there because of a break and Grandpa doesn’t need to know. And maybe if Stick is right and Daddy was standing for too long on the dock he got scared in the night standing there but he didn’t know we would find him but we did and so everything is okay.

I want to go home. Momma pulls the boat away from the dock really slow after we make cake and lick spoons and wash off to be clean. We got through rocks and past Mr. and Mrs. Henderson’s house and they are sitting on their dock with books and they both look happy and wave. When the lake gets bigger we speed up but it’s not as fast as Daddy goes so I am happy we are getting him. When I see Daddy on the dock he has work clothes on but except he has taken off the shirt and put on a T-shirt for the cottage. His hair looks more shaggy and I think he changed but not too much. His briefcase is at his feet and that makes me worry because I know inside is papers that will make my momma huff and glasses that make Daddy huff when I touch them. Also my pens and special pocket for paper so when I need to do work I have it there and can reach it but not other things because they are too important. I look at the dock and Daddy is still waving and now I see he has the biggest smile and many teeth show out loud on his face because he is really happy that we remembered. And he likes cake and maybe he knows it is chocolate. Daddy doesn’t like to be away from us but we forgot him.

“He is at work,” I told Stick because I know that’s what he will believe and even though he was gone from us for longer and I’m not allowed to tell Grandpa or Stick or the summer friends even though I knew he was gone.

Daddy sees us when we are still far away and that is because Momma drives the boat slow because she always does and because we are near the marina and you are not supposed to make super waves to knock all the boats around. This is stupid because the funnest part is the big waves that make Stick and I go whoa whoa. But I am not allowed to say stupid so I don’t say it I just look up and see Daddy. He has a big smile on his face and an arm over his head that is going back and forth to say hello. It is so far away I don’t know if it is Daddy and then I know it is because sometimes I can just tell and Momma yells over the motor “Can you see your dad?”

“Home, Nana,” says Stick.

Stick looks so sad and my heart drips again. I have worry that we didn’t forget Daddy this time. He went away on his own and isn’t here because of different things. Maybe he is standing on the dock and waiting with a big smile but we are not coming for him because we don’t have a boat and I don’t have Momma near me. I can’t get Daddy and so we are not together and it is my fault. The paddle is broken and I don’t know where it is.

“Don’t worry, Daddy,” I whisper with my hand on Stick’s head and under the tree and near the fort but nothing else that I know where it is. “We are coming.”

I see Momma on the dock and Daddy grabs the rope and they hug for a really long time. They kiss and I start to cry and I don’t know why but it is my heart dripping. Stick tries to climb out of the boat for hugs. I have to pull his life jacket because he can fall into the crack between and get into the water and smooshed by the boat. I pull him back and he screams at me to stop. He wants to hug Daddy. I want to hug Daddy and Momma too but they are hugging each other and Daddy is saying things to Momma’s ear and I don’t want them to stop because then maybe we are always together even though I want a hug soon. I look at them and it is our family with two parents and two kids and we are supposed to be like that. We went and got Daddy and it made everyone so so happy again. We were four.