by Justin D'Ath
‘The barn!’ I said.
But there was one major problem with my idea. The barn was round the front of the house and so was the grizzly.
Or was it?
I held my breath and listened. The chained dogs had stopped barking. What did that mean?
A board creaked just around the corner ahead of us. Next came the sound of skidding claws and the Doberman went flying past.
Clever grizzly. It was coming around the house in the opposite direction to us.
‘Back the other way!’ I hissed.
We went racing back the way we’d come. The chained dogs started barking again as soon as we came into view. Behind them was the barn, a bulky square shape against the evening sky.
Bent forward under E.J.’s weight, I staggered down the steps behind Sally. We crunched across the gravel towards the barn. The dogs were going crazy. I thought it was because of us. Then I heard another sound – whuff, whuff, whuff. Uh oh. I glanced over my shoulder. The grizzly came lumbering along the verandah, knocking the tricycle flying. It leapt down the steps in a single bound.
We weren’t going to make it to the barn.
The horse trailer stood at the edge of the driveway. Toby’s Limo, it said on the side. The door was wide open.
‘In there!’ I puffed, swerving up the ramp.
Sally shot in ahead of me.
E.J. grabbed the door as we went past and swung it closed behind us.
BANG!
A split second later there was an even louder bang as the grizzly hit the door from the outside. The trailer rocked on its springs.
‘Shoot!’ gasped E.J. ‘That was close!’
But the danger wasn’t over yet. The door latch had to be worked from outside, so we couldn’t lock ourselves in. All we could do was hang onto the iron framework on the back of the door to stop it coming open while the grizzly tried to bite and claw its way in. Luckily the enormously strong bear hadn’t worked out that it had to pull the door to get it open, not push it.
After a few minutes, the grizzly gave up and tried to find another way in. Toby’s Limo was fully enclosed, so it couldn’t climb in over the top. But there was a small window at the front for the horse (Toby?) to look out. When the grizzly looked in, we were plunged into complete darkness. None of us moved a muscle as it pressed its big furry head to the window. It tried to bite through the perspex, but the surface was too flat and smooth for its teeth to grip.
Finally the grizzly returned to the door and began sniffing at the crack, only centimetres from our hands. At one point it stuck its claws in. Realising the danger, we all pulled hard on the door frame and the bear’s claws got stuck. With a snort of anger, the grizzly tugged itself free. It snuffled around outside for a while, then we heard it softly crunching away across the driveway.
We waited about ten minutes, not talking and hardly even daring to breathe. Toby’s Limo smelt of hay and another smell that I recognised from my grandparents’ farm in Australia. It was a cattle smell. Maybe Toby was a bull?
It was silent outside. The dogs had stopped barking. I tiptoed to the front of the trailer and peered out the window. The sensor light at the house had gone off. I couldn’t see anything except a few stars scattered across a patch of purple sky. I went back to join Sally and E.J. by the door.
‘What are we going to do, Baloo?’ Sally whispered.
I wished she wouldn’t call me that – it made me feel like I should have all the answers to our problems, and I didn’t.
‘We’ll wait here till the people come home,’ I decided.
‘What if they don’t come home?’ E.J. asked. ‘What if they’ve gone away on vacation?’
‘Their dogs are here,’ I said. ‘Nobody goes away and leaves their dogs to look after themselves.’
We were silent for a while. Someone’s stomach rumbled. It was seven or eight hours since we’d eaten anything, but hunger was the least of our problems.
‘I hope Dad’s all right,’ E.J. said softly.
I was worried about him, too. And about Mum and the others. It was so frustrating. We’d come all this way, survived so many dangers, and finally got to the farm – only to become trapped in a horse trailer. ‘Akela will look after him. She used to be a nurse.’
‘He needs to be in hospital,’ E.J. said.
I knew he was right. Mum and Will probably needed hospital treatment, too. But what could we do? The house was locked. Nobody was home. And the grizzly could be lurking anywhere, waiting for us to leave the trailer.
Suddenly there was a ringing sound.
‘What’s that?’ asked Sally.
‘A phone,’ I said.
We listened to the phone ringing. It was loud.
‘It’s coming from the barn,’ E.J. whispered.
Sally was on the other side of the trailer. ‘No it isn’t,’ she said, pressing her ear to the wall. ‘It’s in the house.’
I cracked the door open a couple of centimetres and put my ear to the gap. They were both right. ‘There are two phones,’ I said. ‘One in the barn, and one in the house. They must be on the same line.’
The ringing stopped.
‘Shoot!’ said E.J.
I knew what he was thinking. So near and yet so far. I made a decision. ‘I’m going to look for the phone,’ I said.
Sally gripped my arm. ‘You can’t, Baloo! The grizzly’s out there.’
‘The barn’s close. I can get there in five seconds.’
E.J. gripped my other arm. ‘Don’t risk it, Sam.’
I shook myself free and rose to my feet. ‘Akela sent me to get help,’ I said, ‘and that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘But the grizzly might be waiting,’ whispered Sally.
‘The barn might be locked,’ said E.J.
‘Close the door after me,’ I told them, and slipped out into the night.
21
YIKES!
I was only two steps from the trailer when the sensor light snapped on, capturing me like a rabbit in headlights. Uh oh! So much for sneaking to the barn under the cover of darkness. I glanced over my shoulder.
The Doberman was halfway up the stairs. That’s what had triggered the motion sensor. Behaving more like a frightened pup than a guard dog, it slunk off along the verandah and disappeared around the corner. That told me one thing: the grizzly wasn’t up by the house.
So where was it?
The quicker I reached the safety of the barn, the better. But I had to be careful. If I was going flat out, and the grizzly came out of the shadows in front of me, I might literally run into it. So it was safer to walk rather than run, and keep my eyes peeled.
The sensor light threw my shadow ahead of me. When I crept past the chained dogs I didn’t hear a peep out of them. They were hiding at the back of their kennels – not from me, but from the grizzly. Wherever it was.
E.J. had been worried that the barn might be locked, but the door was wide open, gaping like a huge black mouth in the front of the building. It gave me a really bad feeling.
What if the grizzly’s inside the barn? asked the little voice in my head.
At that moment, the sensor light went off. Suddenly I could no longer see the barn, much less inside it.
I nearly chickened out. Nearly turned around and raced back to the trailer. E.J. and Sally wouldn’t blame me. Neither would Mum. She’d sent me to get help, not to get killed. How many times in the past had she said to me, ‘Don’t take unnecessary risks, Sam’?
Somewhere inside the barn, the phone started ringing again. Ring ring, ring ring. It seemed to be calling me.
I took a deep breath and forced my feet to start walking. Into the gaping black mouth of the barn. It was so dark that I couldn’t even see my hands stretched out in front of me. I was like a blind person, feeling my way ahead with my shuffling feet. The phone kept ringing. How long before they’d give up and think no one was home?
Get a move on, Sam! My outstretched hands brushed against a rough wooden pillar. I
felt my way carefully past it, guided by the sound of the ringing phone. It grew louder and louder. I was really close. One of my knees bumped a chair, my hands fumbled across a bench.
Found it!
‘Hello,’ I gasped into the receiver.
There was a pause, then a woman’s voice said, ‘I’m sorry, I think I have the wrong number.’
‘No, you’ve got the right number,’ I cried. ‘Don’t hang up!’ Then I told her who I was and what had happened.
The woman was the sister of the lady who lived on the farm. She sounded nice. ‘I’ll get help,’ she said. ‘You and your friends stay put. Lock yourselves in Toby’s trailer until someone gets there.’
I thanked her and hung up. Because I was in a such panic about the grizzly, I’d forgotten to tell her about Mum and E.J.’s dad and the other cubs. What an idiot!
I picked up the phone again and tried to dial 000. It was really hard in the dark because the numbers didn’t light up. Then I remembered where I was – the USA, not Australia – and that the emergency number was 911. That was even harder to dial in the dark than 000.
Another woman answered and I quickly told her what was going on.
‘I need to know where the bus accident happened, Sam,’ she said calmly.
I realised I didn’t have a clue. ‘I’d better get E.J.,’ I said, feeling like even more of an idiot. ‘Don’t hang up.’
The woman promised to wait. It was a cordless phone, so I took it with me and started feeling my way back towards the open barn door. Because it was lighter outside than inside the barn, I could see the doorway ahead of me, a large pale rectangle with a scatter of twinkling stars at the top.
Something else was there. In the bottom half of the doorway. Coming towards me!
Shishkebab! The grizzly!
But a grizzly doesn’t have two heads.
‘Baloo?’ said one of the heads.
‘Sam?’ said the other.
It was Sally and E.J. She was piggybacking him.
‘I told you guys to stay in the trailer,’ I growled, helping E.J. down off Sally’s back.
‘We got scared,’ she puffed.
I remembered that she and E.J. were only nine years old. Who could blame them for being scared?
‘We’re going to be okay,’ I said, quickly telling them about the phone calls. I handed the phone to E.J.
‘Explain where the bus crashed,’ I told him.
While E.J. described to the 911 woman where his father had turned off the highway, Sally and I dragged the barn door closed. Now I felt safe.
‘See if you can find a light switch,’ I whispered to Sally.
I began feeling along the wall near the door for a switch. My hand bumped against the curved steel prongs of a pitchfork. I grabbed it by the handle to stop it falling over.
‘Found it!’ said Sally.
I heard a small click. All along the rafters high above us, neon tubes sputtered into life. Next moment, the barn was filled with light.
‘Yikes!’ said Sally.
22
MOVIE POSTER
Here’s a picture that’s burned into my memory like a movie poster you’ve seen a hundred times and will never forget.
The scene is the inside of a barn. There are big stainless-steel tanks and canning machinery along one side, and a kind of office on the other. Above the office, a shadowy loft runs the length of the building. It’s stacked with cardboard boxes. A blue tractor is parked down the far end. Next to it is a yellow quad bike. Even though the lights are on, you can see it’s night-time because of the shadows in the corners of the building, and the shadows cast by the people.
There are two people in the picture – a boy and a girl. The boy wears a cub uniform but he only has one shoe. He holds his bare foot just clear of the ground, and leans against the ladder leading up to the loft. He has a phone to his ear, and there’s a startled look on his face, as if he’s just seen a ghost. The girl wears a cub uniform, too. Her eyes are bulging like the boy’s and her mouth is wide open. It looks like she’s about to scream.
There’s another person in the barn but you can’t see him, only his shadow on the floor at the bottom of the picture, and the prongs of a pitchfork he’s holding out in front of him like a weapon.
At the very centre of the barn, exactly where the pitchfork is pointing, stands a huge grizzly bear.
23
SHOWTIME!
The grizzly blinked its eyes as they adjusted to the sudden light. I reckoned we had about two seconds before it charged.
‘Go up the ladder!’ I cried.
E.J. dropped the phone and began awkwardly climbing the ladder, compensating for his injured foot by crabbing up the rungs on his right knee. But Sally hesitated. The grizzly was on the other side of the ladder. To reach the ladder, she’d have to run towards the bear.
So would I.
If someone made a list of the world’s top ten scariest things, running towards a grizzly would be on it.
I rushed past Sally, and past the ladder. With the pitchfork extended like a six-pronged spear.
Attack is the best means of defence.
The grizzly saw me coming and reared up on its hind legs. It was huge. It looked about two-and-a-half metres tall. As I approached it, I slowed to a walk, waving the pitchfork back and forth.
‘Sally, go up the ladder,’ I said over my shoulder.
The grizzly dropped onto all fours and came to meet me. It moved warily, its eyes fixed on the sharp points of the pitchfork. I stopped and waited for it. The bear seemed to sense I didn’t really want to take it on, and it grew in confidence. Suddenly it growled and took a swipe with one forepaw. My reaction was too slow. Before I could get the fork out of the way, one of its prongs buried itself deep into the pad of the bear’s paw.
With a bellow of pain, the grizzly lurched backwards.
I took a quick look behind me. Sally was halfway up the ladder. E.J. was nowhere in sight. Despite his injured foot, he’d made it all the way up to the loft.
‘Look out!’ shrieked Sally.
It had been a mistake to look away from the bear. Grizzlies are lightning fast. In the couple of seconds I’d been distracted, it hurled itself at me like a rugby player going for a head-high tackle. Head-high tackles are illegal. So are pitchforks used as weapons. I swung it in front of me in a jujitsu block.
CRACK!
The grizzly bit right through the handle, leaving me with half a pitchfork in each hand. Two weapons instead of one. But there wasn’t time to use them. The grizzly was too big, too close and too fast. It had me cold.
Showtime!
But the grizzly hadn’t counted on one thing – E.J.
Without warning, a big cardboard carton came flying down from the loft above us. It hit the grizzly on the neck, driving its head down almost to the floor. I whacked it with the pitchfork handle and jumped clear. The grizzly whirled around after me, swinging one paw in a vicious right hook. Its deadly claws caught the prongs of the stubby pitchfork and sent it flying across the barn. I was down to one weapon – the short length of handle. The grizzly bellowed like a bull and came at me again.
WHAP!
Another carton hit it on the head. This one exploded like a bomb. Cans flew everywhere. They rolled across the floor all around the grizzly. It was like trying to walk on marbles. The grizzly’s feet went in four different directions. It collapsed in a big, furry heap.
I saw my chance. Before the bear had time to recover, I dropped the pitchfork handle, raced to the ladder and started climbing. Then something crashed into the ladder just below me. The world seemed to tip sideways. For a second, I thought the ladder was going to fall. But I kept climbing.
I could hear the grizzly huffing and snorting as it came up after me. The ladder swayed and creaked. The grizzly’s hot breath warmed my heels. I saw Sally’s face above me. She was holding the ladder steady with one hand, and reaching for me with the other. E.J. was there, too. Holding another carton.
‘Duck your head, Sam!’ he said.
I flattened myself against the ladder as the carton whizzed past, missing me by millimetres.
But it didn’t miss the grizzly. There was a loud CLUNK below me, and a bellow of rage.
I reached the top of the ladder and Sally helped me into the loft. E.J. came hopping over with another carton. He took aim and dropped it.
THUMP!
Poor bear, I thought. But I didn’t really feel sorry for it. It had been chasing us all afternoon.
It was still chasing us. There was a creaking sound. The ladder started to rattle and shake. I looked over the edge. The grizzly was halfway up.
‘Give me a hand, Sally,’ I said.
We grabbed the top of the ladder and pushed. Almost in slow motion, the ladder started to tip backwards. Sensing what was about to happen, the grizzly climbed faster. For a moment its big, furry head was level with us. It clawed desperately at the edge of the loft, sending woodchips flying, as the ladder teetered on the point of balance. Then, with a roar of frustration, the grizzly disappeared.
CRASH!
I peered down after it. The grizzly was struggling out from under the wrecked ladder. Maybe it’s had enough now, I thought. No such luck. The bear stood up, shook itself, then picked its way through the scattered cans towards the loft. It stopped directly beneath us and looked up. Even from eight metres away, its beady-eyed stare was enough to send a shiver down my spine.
‘Do you think it can climb one of the wooden pillars?’ Sally whispered.
I shook my head. ‘I reckon we’re safe now.’
Until I actually said it, I hadn’t realised it was true. We were safe. Our adventure was over. We’d done what we had set out to do. We’d reached the farm and got help for E.J.’s dad and Mum and the rest of the Gunggari cub scouts. Finally I could relax.
But it’s hard to relax when you’re starving hungry.
‘E.J., what’s in those boxes you were throwing at the grizzly?’
He shrugged. ‘Cans.’
‘But what’s in the cans?’
E.J. hopped over to a big stack of cartons. He broke one open and brought a can back.