by Dan Bar-el
C.C. stared at Magic without blinking for several seconds before speaking. “Is that it?”
Is that it? thought Magic. Is that it? I think up an amazingly scientific reason to check on Boo and she asks me, “Is that it?” But out loud, Magic said, “I think it makes Boo super amazingly smart. Like owl smart.”
C.C. ignored the compliment. “Does Boo eat the plant’s flower or its leaf ?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” replied Magic.
“How long for the plant to take effect?”
“Couldn’t say,” replied Magic.
“What does the plant look like?”
“Don’t know,” replied Magic.
“Where does it grow?”
Magic simply shrugged.
Another long, silent pause ensued in which C.C. stared wearily at Magic, and Magic stared unblinkingly back at C.C. with the sweaty, forced confidence of someone who didn’t work out her make-believe story as thoroughly as she’d thought. But in the end, C.C.’s scientific curiosity took sway. “I suppose I should investigate,” she agreed.
Phew! thought Magic. And I mean, really! she added.
When it came to luring Handsome, Magic put her theatrical skills to the test. “It was horrible, Handsome! It was as if Boo had just given up on her fur. Sob—it was matted and dirty. It looked ever so dull. I think I even saw—sob—food crumbs lodged within it.”
“Oh, I think I feel dizzy and need to sit,” said Handsome, gasping for breath. As you can imagine, such news hit him hard. “I have shared all my grooming tips with Boo, yet this should happen? She is still so young. To give up on fur hygiene is not right at her tender age.”
“Exactly!” said Magic, pouncing on the opportunity. “You need to get over there and straighten her out.”
“Indeed. I will fetch my things and mentally girdle myself for an intervention.”
Magic was relieved to see that this was going much more smoothly than it did with C.C., when all of a sudden Handsome stopped and turned to Magic with a suspicious gaze. “Wait one minute here. Duane once lured me to a ‘hair emergency’ that turned out to be a hoax. This smells oddly similar to that incident.”
Magic put her theatrical skills to another test. She held her ground and stared back at Handsome with a hurt yet defiant expression. “Am I the type of fox who would deceive you like that? I mean, really.”
Handsome’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Magic with so much intensity that it made her tail twitch in nervousness. But then in an instant, Handsome relaxed. “I apologize. I must admit that I am not a good judge of character, as I tend to look down on everyone.”
So with all her friends on board, with the exception of Duane, whom she’d given up on, Magic gave them precise directions to Boo’s forest home and an agreed time to meet. She warned each of them that in order not to startle Boo, they must remain totally silent with absolutely no talking. This had the added advantage of not allowing them to share their very different concerns as it related to Boo’s terrible illness or puffin betrayal or scientific discovery or fur catastrophe.
13. THE WEASEL GLOATS AS DUANE TRIES TO PREVENT A DISASTER
ALL THIS TIME, DUANE had no clue what Magic was up to. He had been kept out of the loop. While all his friends were making their way over the mountain ridge and down the other side, across the meadow and over to the forest, he was in his cave thinking polar bear thoughts.
I do like to sleep, he pondered, and sometimes, I sleep a lot. And when I sleep, I often dream. But how do I know whether I’m asleep now? How do I know I’m not dreaming about sitting here thinking about sleeping and dreaming? And come to think of it, how do I know I’m a real polar bear and not one being dreamt up by someone else? Duane rubbed his eyes with the heels of his paws because thinking was making his head woozy.
When he lowered his paws, there was the weasel, who just stood there, smiling up at him. It was not a pleasant smile. It was a smug and arrogant smile, and it was making Duane uncomfortable. “If you’re still looking for your food scrap, I haven’t seen it,” said Duane. “If you would prefer some of my food, I would be happy to share.”
The weasel continued standing and smiling. “Naw, I’m good,” he finally said. “I saw your friends a while ago.”
“Oh?” replied Duane cautiously. “Which ones?”
“All of them. They were heading over to the caribou’s place.”
Duane’s first reaction was a twinge of hurt. He was about to ask why he wasn’t invited to Boo’s home if everyone else had been. But then it occurred to him that maybe there was more to this. For one thing, he remembered what Magic had told him a few days earlier about spying on Boo, and second, the weasel was still smiling at him in a way that Duane was certain couldn’t mean anything good. Duane bent down to look the weasel straight in the eyes. “Did you do something?”
“Me?” said the weasel in mock surprise. “Me? I ain’t done nothing! But Magic, well… once you plant an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her.”
Duane’s heart skipped a beat. Something horrible was coming, he was sure of it.
“She’s convinced all your friends to pay a surprise visit. I can’t imagine it going well with that shy caribou.” The thought of it made the weasel break out in laughter. “Surprise! Ha-ha-ha-ha!” He bent over and slapped his legs, overcome by the hilarity of what he was picturing.
Duane now understood that this was a game the weasel was playing, but it was a mean game, which only the weasel got to enjoy.
The weasel stopped grinning. “I told you, Duane. Things can go bad in a snap.”
Duane suspected that things could go bad if they were encouraged to do so. Poor Boo, thought Duane. Surprising her would be like touching C.C. or pretending you saw a great black-backed gull standing behind Major Puff. It would be insensitive and unkind.
Duane walked over to his grandfather clock, standing in the corner, that ticked and tocked without hands on its face to tell the time. The clock gave Duane comfort because it could tell him the possibilities of the future. It could tell him what might happen and also what might not happen. “Magic has a good heart,” he said to the weasel. “She gets carried away, but she isn’t selfish. She isn’t mean.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” said the weasel with a shrug. “It doesn’t really matter in the end, does it, Duane?”
I cannot tell you what motivates someone like the weasel to work so hard to be hurtful. Do they do it out of anger? Jealousy? Fear? I only know that it happens. Duane was beginning to understand that too. If he did have a good life, as the weasel kept sarcastically pointing out, and if he wanted to keep it that way, then Duane would have to protect it, always.
Resolved on that thought, Duane left his cave and followed the directions to Boo’s secret home as explained to him by Magic earlier. He went there as quickly as his four legs could run. He went there not knowing for sure what possible outcome awaited. He went there without a plan or any assurance he would arrive in time to change anything. But he went there all the same, because that was where his friends were.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the edge of Boo’s hidden clearing in the woods, we find Twitch holding a pot of soup, Handsome holding a hairbrush, C.C. holding a magnifying glass, and Major Puff holding a strong suspicion of betrayal. Boo, whom they were all very concerned about, but each for very different reasons, had yet to be discovered. Magic was quietly leading them closer to Boo, using the exaggerated tiptoeing of an arctic fox very caught up in the excitement of her secret.
Then suddenly Boo’s voice sang out. It was as loud and beautiful as when Magic first heard it days earlier. The shy caribou, obviously feeling safe in her hideaway, held nothing back in expressing her joyful feelings musically. “La la-la, la la-la, la la-la la!”
The group stopped where they were and listened.
“Oooh, doesn’t sound like she’s in much pain, if you ask me,” remarked Twitch in a loud whisper. “Sounds lovely, she does, like honey to
the ears, but not actual honey, if you see my point.”
“Shhh!” said Magic, finger to her lips.
The group inched their way closer to the clearing.
“La la-la, la la-la, la la-la la!”
Major Puff was even more affected by the singing than Twitch was. “I find it impossible to imagine that such a beautiful melody, sung with such splendor, could be endured by a conniving great black-backed gull without its wickedness melting away. This is not the voice of a traitor.”
“Shhh!” insisted Magic.
The company came right up to the entrance of Boo’s hidden clearing. Now they could see Boo move as she sang. The four unintentional intruders were momentarily overtaken by her performance. Watching Boo dance so freely and with such animation was truly spectacular. Mouths and beaks hung open in rapture. But soon enough, confusion settled in, along with a self-consciousness that they perhaps shouldn’t have been there.
“Magic, I simply do not understand,” said Handsome. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Boo’s fur. Its luster is as magnificent as my own.”
“Shhh!” demanded Magic.
C.C. spoke next. “There does not seem to be any plant involved in Boo’s behavior. I am not an expert on such things, but if I were to conjecture why she is singing and dancing, it is because she is happy.”
“Hmm. Hearing each of our different concerns, it appears to me that Magic has led us here under false pretexts,” said Handsome.
The four friends stared hard at Magic with the implied expectation that an explanation was in order. Magic stared right back, but her resistance didn’t last long. “All right, fine! I made some stuff up to get you to come! But it was for your own good because you probably wouldn’t have come, and now you did. Now you got to see and hear Boo like we’ve never seen her. Isn’t she amazing?”
“Yes, she is. But we weren’t invited, dear,” said Twitch in a tone that conveyed her disappointment in Magic. “This was not for us to see.”
Magic lost patience. “Oh, come on!” she yelled in her usual overdramatic way, and then, without realizing it, she stepped into the clearing. “Wasn’t it worth it? You got to see shy Boo do this! This!”
Magic’s yelling pulled Boo out of her happy reverie. In mid-leap, she turned her head toward Magic’s voice and saw five of her friends standing there uninvited in her secret home, where she felt safe, staring at her doing something that was private, that was not meant to be seen or heard by anyone. Boo gasped in horror. Then she crumbled to the ground, mortified. She hid her face and began to cry.
Instinctually, Twitch, Major Puff, and Handsome gasped too. C.C.’s eyes darted back and forth as she searched for the definition of what she felt, but I can tell you that what she and the others felt was remorse. They were, by no fault of their own, made part of something that caused Boo injury.
Magic still had no understanding of what had just happened. “But what’s the big deal?” she said, walking toward Boo. “Right? I mean, really. We all got to hear your amaz—”
“Stay away from me!” Boo shouted, as if shouting was her only defense in the world. She backed away from Magic with terror in her eyes. Her body shook. Her voice flooded with desperation. “Please leave me alone,” she whispered. The fear and hurt and true sense of betrayal was all there in those four words.
Twitch and Handsome, C.C. and Major Puff, all bowed their heads in shame. As for Magic, until that moment, she had never considered such a response by Boo and the others. She thought that it would go so much differently, maybe a little blush or a nervous giggle, but nothing more, nothing serious.
Now that Magic saw how Boo did react, she realized she needed to fix the harm she had caused. Magic took another hesitant step forward. “Boo, I want to say I’m s—”
Before her sentence could be finished, Boo bolted deep into the forest and quickly out of sight.
* * *
Duane knew he was too late when he heard Boo’s pained shout. It had echoed through the forest as he hurried down the passageway of trees. He slowed his run to a walk. Soon he passed Twitch, Handsome, Major Puff, and C.C. heading back. No words were shared. Their embarrassed, concerned expressions said enough.
When he reached the clearing, Magic was still standing in the same place, staring in the direction that Boo had fled. Duane’s heart ached for the caribou and he hoped she would be okay, hoped too that they would be able to win her trust again. But in the meantime, there was Magic. Even seen from the back, she looked crushed, her shoulders stooped by the weight of her feelings. Magic was experiencing guilt for the first time in her life. Duane came and stood silently beside her. When eventually she looked up at him, her eyes were red and watery.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” she said, and Duane could tell by how she said it that it was not meant as an excuse but as an acknowledgment that she had indeed hurt Boo.
“I know,” said Duane. “We can’t fix it now. It will take time. But we will.”
Then he placed a gentle paw around her shoulder and led her slowly out of the woods and toward home. The weasel was waiting by the meadow, grinning. Duane shielded Magic from his view, all the while ignoring him as they passed.
14. EVERYONE IS DEPRESSED, THEN DUANE HAS A HOPEFUL BUT SCARY IDEA
IT HAD BEEN A week and still there was no sighting of Boo. She did not come to graze in the corner of Handsome’s field nor linger at the edges of their company. In all that time too, Duane received no visits from Magic. She didn’t bounce back from the incident as she might have in the past, acting as if nothing had happened and cheerfully throwing herself into her next mischief. Magic stayed hidden in her den.
A heaviness had fallen over the Very, Very Far North. The other friends hadn’t completely forgiven Magic for what she did. But it was more than that. C.C. kept herself overly busy with experiments at the Shipwreck. Whether these were experiments conducted for the benefit of all or for the benefit of giving C.C. a distraction was debatable. Handsome continued staring down into his reflection pond, but his eyes weren’t focused on himself. He seemed to be lost in thought. Major Puff had allowed his marching practice schedule to slip, and Twitch didn’t have any nervous energy to burn off. Each, in their own way, felt their world had broken somehow, just as the weasel had predicted, if not provoked. Each was adrift.
It would not be fair to say Duane wasn’t affected by this gloom. It just wasn’t in his nature to succumb to it. Something had to be done, he believed, to bring Boo back, to allow Magic to forgive herself, to help everyone come together again. Duane left his cave and went for a long thinking walk, determined to figure out what to do.
A thinking walk is different from an adventure hike. In fact, it may be the exact opposite. When Duane went out exploring, his mind was focused on his surroundings, tuned to what was out there to see or hear or smell or touch, and open to what might unexpectedly happen and be experienced. A thinking walk demanded that Duane shut out everything around him, allowing his mind and heart to go inward, to concentrate on his thoughts and feelings, to problem-solve. A thinking walk did not require Duane to pay attention to his surroundings other than to avoid walking off a cliff accidentally.
Once Duane got into his stride, the rhythm took over; his heart was beating and his mind was sharp, or at least it was sharper. Duane’s thoughts naturally glided toward his friends, about whom he was concerned.
Poor Boo, how terrible it must have been, feeling she was taken advantage of by her friends. It must have felt scary. And now Magic feels awful. Everyone feels awful. Everything is out of balance.
Duane’s eyes lit up suddenly. Yes, balance!
Duane’s thoughts quickly steered toward C.C. in her room at the back of the Shipwreck, among the many books where he learned so many new things. In one of C.C.’s books, there was a picture of a human walking along a rope high above the ground. It looked very scary. C.C. said it was part of a show. She said it was called a balancing act. That’s what we need! We need a balancing
act. We need a show for Boo in order to make things right. A show with all of us doing something scary, like it was scary for Boo, but this time she’ll watch us, to balance things out.
And there you have it. Duane’s thinking led him to a plan. He would organize an event in which everyone would take a turn doing something they found frightening. He would send an invitation to Boo to come and watch, then hope for the best.
Having an idea is one thing; turning that idea into something real is quite another. In order to do that, Duane would rely on C.C.’s help, as was his custom, so off to the Shipwreck he went, in person this time.
“Hello, C.C.,” he said shortly after swimming over and knocking politely on her door. “I would like to share an idea that I’ve just had on my thinking walk.”
The snowy owl gave Duane the kind of unblinking stare he knew would be followed by a question, which it was. “How does a thinking walk differ from your usual walk, Duane the polar bear?”
Inspiration came to Duane a second time. “Ah… well, from the outside, you would hardly be able to tell them apart,” he replied, surprising even himself with his cleverness.
The answer seemed to satisfy C.C., so Duane proceeded to tell her everything I told you. Because it was a plan involving emotions and feelings—the one subject C.C. might do poorly on during a test if such a test existed—she deferred to Duane’s expertise, as was her custom. She also saw the logic of his plan and could offer some useful suggestions. She flipped through the pages of one of her thick books until she came to the picture she had in mind. It was a wooden platform with a long curtain hanging at the back. “This is called a stage. It is used for performances such as the one you’ve described. I can instruct you on how to fashion one using materials we can scavenge off the Shipwreck.”
Duane was delighted. “I could build one of those on the Fabulous Beach. Perfect!”