The Bear: A Novel (3 page)

Stick cries
so much. I call Daddy and Momma and my throat feels like the deck at the cottage that gives me splinters in my foot. No one is coming. I don’t like splinters and I don’t want one in my throat. This is bad. This must be how we do time-out when we are camping. It’s not like a normal time-out in Toronto or when I am at the cottage. I don’t sit on a step or on the porch. Here I sit inside Coleman. But I haven’t talked and I stayed still and I was quiet for as long as the time-out and still Daddy won’t let me out. I try to stick my eyes out Coleman’s mouth but my forehead is still too tall. I see stars and the wind is not breathing. I call Daddy and Momma again and no one. I listen and I can hear other breath, not wind or Stick’s nose. The noises are Snoopy breathing. Mrs. Buchanan has given Snoopy a bone. I am not allowed to but Mrs. Buchanan lets me hold the bone out and Snoopy takes it. He does it gentle with his lips back so that I can see his teeth aren’t going to bite me and he keeps them far away from my hand. When he is done with the bone for his dinner he gives me a wet kiss on the cheek and I smile.

Snoopy is eating the bone and I can hear the snap snap snap of his jaws on the bone. His nose is snuffling because he is a pig when he eats and doesn’t stop to breathe. I am supposed to stop to breathe even when I am so so hungry. Snoopy doesn’t stop because he is a dog. His teeth go scrape on the bone and I hear it pop. I think Snoopy has broken the bone and he’s not supposed to do that. It can get stuck in the roof of his mouth and he has to go to the dog hospital. It happened once but I wasn’t there. Mrs. Buchanan told me. Snoopy cried at the vet and got a needle to make him sleeping so they could get the bone out. And the sounds outside crack crack snap and I know that Snoopy has broken the bone but Mrs. Buchanan is not stopping him. Maybe she is sleeping because it is nighttime for her.

“Snoop,” I call out of Coleman’s mouth.

He doesn’t listen. He keeps eating.

“Hey, Snoop!”

I say it louder. Behind me I feel Stick twisting. He puts a knee in my back but he is quiet and maybe having a snooze. I don’t want to wake him up because he stopped whining after so long.

“Snooooopeeee,” I whisper.

The chewing stops and I hear Snoopy sniffing.

The sniffing gets louder. Snoopy is coming to see me. I stick my fingers out to say hello because I have one hand that isn’t holding Gwen. There is a bad smell. I pull my fingers in to plug my nose up because my nostrils don’t like the smell. Snoopy needs a bath. It smells like the rotting leaves under the cottage and when there were fish guts in the boat. Yuck. Snoopy comes and I see his big nose sniffing in the crack but his smell is wrong and it gives me the shakes and I don’t know why except the smell of fish. I don’t like fish to eat. The crack goes dark and there is hair coming in the crack. It is not like Snoopy’s. It is more prickly hair and fills up the crack and turns out the lights and I can’t see. And Stick starts to cry because it is dark and we get jerked. Stick pushes into me and I grab Gwen and Coleman shakes and it is still dark and I call Daddy. We shake harder and I hear huff and it stinks. I cover my mouth because I don’t want to breathe in the smell and Stick is crying and then I am too and we shake more and we flip. I roll back and my head goes clunk on Coleman. There is growling and a sound like Momma is making lunch and using the top of Coleman to cut apples with a knife. But it is not Momma because her hair is yellow and she always gives me a piece of apple first. It is louder and more like there are ten Mommas cutting apples but that is too many and they wouldn’t fit. And it is dark flashing on and off and I can see Stick on his side crying and I need Daddy because it isn’t Snoopy and I am not supposed to talk to strange dogs because we don’t know them. I’m on my back and Stick gets shoved into me but I don’t mind and I grab his arm and pull him and Gwen in and we cry and scrape scrape scrape. I see the fur and hear too much breath and squeeze Stick and Gwen and my eyes shut tight and we cry.

My tears are gone when the scraping stops. Coleman stays on his back with the rock in his mouth. The black dog is not scratching Coleman. He goes back to his sniffing and huffing and then he starts cracking his bone. Stick and I are huddled in tight. Stick’s head is heavy like a bowling ball and it makes my arm go fuzzed and he snuggles in. It is so dark outside Coleman and no Daddy or Mommy and after a while I watch the lids of my eyes close down like jaws.

I open
my eyes and it is light outside Coleman now and I can see Stick’s crying face all red and squishy. He cries for Momma. I tell him to shush. He keeps crying. His belly is squishy too. It looks like a ball and is round like his cheeks. His face is like a bad tomato because he is crying so much. It is wet and he has snots all over his nose. It is very noisy inside Coleman because of Sticky and I’d like to get out.

I call Daddy and Momma and no one comes. I try to have a peek outside. I can see a line of sky that is blue. The trees reach out and they don’t look like claws anymore. I put my hands over my ears because it is so loud from Stick crying and I squint my eyes too. It is still loud but I can see darker lines down my eyes. I open them and the lines are gone. I shut them and they come back. The lines are attached to my eyes. I touch and they are my eyelashes. I thought they were skinnier but they look furry. In the mirror there are a lot of eyelashes but with my squinty eyes there are gaps in between. I can still see out. The tree branches look furry not like claws. Like the needles are the eyelashes of a tree. And they are furry in the same way. When I squint. It is too loud and my hands on my ears barely block all the noise.

After a while Stick’s crying stops and I take my hands off. Stick is only breathing through his spit. He is curled up on his side of Coleman and just staring at the blank wall. It is hard to lift my head so I put it back down and listen. I hear nothing except then I do. I hear a sniff.

The sniffing is closer. I think of the black dog I saw through the crack. I don’t think Snoopy is here. Snoopy would listen and be nice. Mrs. Buchanan would call Snoopy because she doesn’t like him to be very far away. I hear more sniffs and I don’t hear Mrs. Buchanan. I think it is the black dog and I feel scared. I was scared of Snoopy too. The black dog might not be bad. I keep my fingers away from the crack because you are not supposed to make your fingers look like carrots.

The sniffing is close and something bumps Coleman. He wiggles and then stops. Sniffing and another bump. The black dog’s nose comes to the crack. It is wet so the black dog isn’t sick. It is big. It looks shiny like the chair at my grandpa’s house. Grandpa loves to sit. He says his “old bones” need a chair and there is a handle that I pull on the side. I am only allowed to pull the handle when Grandpa is ready for his legs to kick up. My grandpa is very nice when I do things his way and so I do. The chair is black and sometimes the cleaning lady rubs a cloth on it so much that I can nearly see my nose. Not my real nose but like a shadow of my nose. Rose. That is the cleaning lady. She smells like lemons and wears an apron that I think should have lemons too. Instead it is pink flowers that are more floaty. Rose came after my grandma died and my grandpa missed her so much he got Rose to do her jobs. When I pull the handle on the chair a small toadstool appears from the bottom of the chair and picks up Grandpa’s feet until he is lying down like a bed. Except it isn’t a bed. It’s a black chair. Shiny and smooth with dimples. Like this nose.

The nose sniffs and I watch the nostrils go in and out. Stick is quiet and I only hear him make a small squeak but I don’t want to lift my head because the nose is looking at me. It keeps breathing in my air like it’s saying hello like Snoop does. Except it’s not hello. It’s more like who are you? I don’t want to talk and I keep my head flat and I feel Stick is moving like he is trying to get away. There is nowhere to go inside Coleman. Stick is wiggling and I want him to stop. I push to get him over more on his side again. His head comes up near mine and our feet are curled together. The nose keeps sniffing around the edge of Coleman’s mouth and I take my hand and put it over Stick’s mouth like when we hide from Daddy. Not enough to make Stick mad or tight so he can’t breathe but I don’t want the black dog to know us. Stick’s stomach sucks in like he is going to scream and he changes his eyes to look at me. I say shh and I can feel his lips flap open to yell at me but his eyes blink once and he is quiet. I put my hand on him and we are quiet and we watch the nose sniff sniff sniff.

The rock is still stuck in the side of Coleman’s mouth. The front of Coleman has the metal tooth that Daddy pushed in to make us stay. The nose finds Coleman’s metal tooth and pushes on it. The nose lifts up and a big tongue jumps out. I see a black lip and a tooth that is very white and long. The fur is a little bit wet and there is pink juice on it. I once had a juice box with tomato juice at a party. That was sneaky. Usually it would be apple or orange or fruit juice and this was tomato and I did not like it at all. I spat it out and Daddy said it was a mess. But he wanted me to put the mess in my stomach and that was gross. So I did spit and I said sorry but I didn’t think sorry. The black dog has tomato juice on his jaw and some of it paints onto Coleman’s white lip. The tongue comes out and licks the juice and keeps licking like Coleman has yummy things stuck on his mouth.

The teeth open and I see the sides scrape along the edge of Coleman and I see little bits of Coleman turn into metal splinters. The black dog is making grunts like it is uncomfy or maybe mad. He is chewing on Coleman like he was a toy and I grab Stick in because I don’t like looking at the teeth. There is one that is really long and I start to shake. And the tooth is scraping and ducks under the metal clip and catches there. The tooth is like a hook and Coleman shakes and Stick screams and I think maybe I do too. The fur in the crack snaps back and the tooth isn’t a hook even though it tries to be. It comes right back and the mouth pushes and tries to get hooked. It pushes in and fills us with its smell. Bad bad breath. Like rotting stink. The hamburger that Momma forgot in the fridge and only found when it was brown with green fur. Like that except with black fur. Stink. The tooth comes in and looks like a sword and tries to hook. And Stick screams and I can’t stand the noise and the stink and my foot is there so I kick.

I hit the tooth and my foot is ouch and I put my foot back in a ball. There is a yelp. A low growl. The stink gets less. We hear sniff sniff sniff and less sniffs. I keep listening and the tooth is not in the crack. The nose isn’t either. I hear a scrape and a smacking of lips. The dog is chewing on something. Not Coleman but food that is closer to the lake. Like when I chew on chicken I hear scrape pop smack. The black dog is eating breakfast. It looks like Stick is listening too because his head is up nearer the crack and he turns and looks at me and lifts the front of his shirt up to wipe his nose.

I want
to get out of Coleman. We are not allowed to get out of Coleman. Daddy said. I sit still for as long as I can. I can’t anymore. Stick is wiggling.

“I get out,” he says.

“Daddy said stay,” I say in my Daddy grown-up voice.

“Get out.”

“Stay.”

I turn my shoulder and I want to get out. “Daddy!”

“Get out.”

“DADDY.”

“Dada.”

“DAAAAAAAAAAAAADY!”

Stick and I both yell. And I guess our throats hurt with splinters and after a while we stop. Then there are no sounds. The sky through the crack looks empty of everything. Only blue and one branch with fur. Even the black dog has gone away.

We are quiet, listening. Then a stink comes and I think the black dog has come back. I wave my hand to put the air back outside the crack. It’s like the air has stopped coming in. Or Stick has hogged it all. I can’t get the air in my nose—it is too thick and full of stink. The air has trouble getting down my throat and I pull up my pj top to try and breathe its air. I put Gwen to my nose to sniff but she is getting clogged too.

“Stick?”

He doesn’t answer. He never does.

“Did you poop?”

“Yep.”

“DADDY!”

Daddy is gone again.

I kick at Coleman’s metal tooth that hangs down the middle of his mouth. He is biting hard and he won’t let go. Coleman’s metal tooth is pointing to the sky because he is lying on his back when the black dog pushed. I wiggle around to put my mouth up to it and try and bite like the black dog. It is hard to reach and I have to put my knee on Stick’s stomach that squishes. Coleman’s tooth tastes like metal yuck and I can’t even hook my tooth because it is too short. I punch up with my hand and it gives me a red line on my knuckle. Daddy will be mad if I try to get out but the stink is too bad. I punch with my shoulder up and that hurts. Coleman’s tooth hooks around a metal thing that looks like his nose on the outside. I put my fingers outside the crack and try to reach the nose and it feels like I am trying to pick it. I hope Coleman doesn’t have snot and I laugh. But I can’t reach the nose and it hangs on to the metal tooth very tight.

I need to get out of the stink. Gwen will get it on her and she will not smell right. I squint my eyes to make my brain see if Coleman has any other teeth or noses but I can’t think of any. Stick starts to kick me away from his stomach and I tell him to move.

“Stop,” he says and pushes me.

“I want to get out of your stink.”

“Get out,” he says.

“I’m trying.”

I push and try to smoosh him right against the side of Coleman to get as far away from his stink as I can. He bunches up his thigh and kicks out with his foot. My chest is already sore and achy and he hits right at my heart. My breath goes whoosh out of my stomach and I hit the top of Coleman and fall to the side. My shoulder hits the back and there is a sharp tooth in it.

“Ow,” I scream at Stick.

I punch out and kick him and he screams and I don’t care. I kick more because that will make Daddy come. I kick and punch and Sticky is screaming so loud and it stinks and I am crying and the salt drips into my mouth. And my shoulder hurts a lot each time I move so I stop and lift my arm up so I can see. Stick kicks me more but stops when I don’t kick back and then just cries. I don’t care because I can see there is a red bang on the side of my arm and it is big. I can show that to Daddy when he wants to know who started it. This is Sticky’s fault. I look and there is a red mark from the rock in the side of Coleman’s mouth. Coleman is on his back and the rock on the side is pushing on my arm.

Every time I wiggle the rock pushes me in the shoulder now. I try to move away from it because I feel really tired but the rock keeps kicking me too. But then I get closer to Stick’s poo so I wiggle back again. I don’t like the rock and it’s Daddy’s fault for putting it there. Daddy made a big red hole in my arm. I start to cry but I don’t do it out loud. That way Stick won’t think he won. I hate the rock and I bang it with my arm. Daddy is bad and Momma should come and snuggle because that’s what happens next. Momma yells almost not ever except maybe one time and another and she says she tries so hard not to. I know and so I give her a hug and put my fingers on her cheek where it is soft. Sticky looks asleep because he is so small and he doesn’t care. He’s almost not a baby anymore but he still is and bugging me. Where is my snuggle from Momma if Daddy didn’t leave for a long time just short? That’s what I get a snuggle for because I am older than Stick and I know and it is sometimes my job to make Momma feel okay. And she says “I have you, Anna. You are so strong” and we stay in my bed and in the morning she is still snuggled in. Maybe Daddy isn’t gone. He will come soon if I just go to sleep. He doesn’t hate me. Momma said Daddy will come.

I can’t wait so long. I don’t know if Daddy is coming this time. This time he isn’t coming back. The rock tooth just sits in Coleman’s mouth looking stupid and bugging me in the arm. I see that the rock is more inside Coleman than outside so I put my finger under it. I can wiggle the rock. Coleman is biting hard trying to hang on to the rock but his edges are grindy and a white piece of his lip comes off when I push. I wiggle around all the way and that is hard and I put all my fingers under the rock and lift up as hard as I can. One second I am lifting and I give a hard pull and I blink and I open my eyes and there is a loud snap and it is suddenly dark.

It is dark but my eyes are open. Coleman has snapped his jaws shut.

“Nana?” says Stick.

Outside I hear a piece of metal fall and jingle bells on a rock.

“Nana?”

He says my name the wrong way round every time and no air and no crack and the stink is so bad my head is swimming because there is no extra room to breathe. I lean over to the side and then I fall down. The crack opens up and I turn to see blue. Stick and I are the eggs and someone whacked our shell against the edge and it got a line that split into more lines and now it broke. Coleman is cracked. We fall out.

Cold air hits my nose and I am so so glad to have more air in my nose. The stink is less already. I try to straighten my legs and they are all fuzzy. It feels like my legs are stumps that got tied to my body. I straighten one out and then the other and I roll out from Coleman into the pine needles that are prickles. It is warm and the sun is hitting the pine needles and they make a nice place. I lie on my back and get the air back in my nose.

I sit up and look over at Stick. He is sitting like a stump beside Coleman. I get worried that we are out of Coleman and we were supposed to stay in. That might make Daddy mad and he will stay away more. It wasn’t my fault because Coleman opened his mouth. I wonder if I should get back in. Coleman’s metal tooth has dropped off his head and is near a rock on the ground. He won’t be able to bite us back in. I feel glad because that’s not a good place to be. And I am still feeling glad that Daddy can’t be mad but then I see that Stick has a red bang on his cheek from when I punched him and I think that I will get in trouble so maybe Daddy will come back or maybe not. Stick is going to be in trouble for pooping. I don’t want to get in trouble. I want Daddy back.