by Justin D'Ath
‘Hey, do you recognise this guy?’ he said.
There was a bison’s head on the label. It looked exactly like the one we’d met on our way across the farm. But what was written on the label was even more interesting.
TOBY’S FARM
Homemade Boysenberry Conserve
Now I knew who Toby was.
‘What’s conserve?’ Sally asked.
‘Jam,’ I said, my mouth watering. The barn was a jam factory and the loft where we were trapped was the storage area. ‘E.J., does your pocketknife have a can-opener?’
We opened three cans and, using our fingers, began shovelling boysenberry jam into our mouths. Delicious!
‘Someone’s coming,’ E.J. said with his mouth full.
He was right. I could hear a car. I paused, a handful of jam halfway to my mouth, wondering if it was the police, or maybe a park ranger with a dart gun to tranquilise the bear?
We listened to the crunch of wheels coming up the gravel driveway. They stopped. There was the sound of doors opening and closing. Then I heard children talking. It must have been the family who lived in the house. Below us, the grizzly turned its broad, furry head in the direction of the voices.
‘They should stay in the car,’ E.J. whispered.
‘They shouldn’t even be here!’ I said. ‘I told the lady on the phone what was going on.’
We were all watching the grizzly now. It was standing up, facing the barn door. Luckily the door was closed.
‘Maybe they haven’t got a cell phone,’ said E.J. ‘Or the battery’s flat.’
Shishkebab!
‘Then they don’t know about the grizzly!’ I said.
‘Should we shout and warn them?’ asked Sally.
Too late. The door rattled open and a man walked into the barn. He must have seen the lights and come to investigate.
‘Holy smoke!’ he muttered when he saw the broken cartons and the dented cans scattered all over the floor.
Then he noticed the grizzly, half-hidden in the shadows beneath the loft. He started backing towards the door.
Sally let out a gasp.
A little girl, about two years old, had followed the man into the barn. He didn’t know she was there. He was about to trip over her.
‘LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!’ I yelled.
But instead of looking behind him, the man looked up at me.
‘What the –?!’ he muttered.
The little girl looked up, too. She saw the three of us peering down from the loft and came trotting around the man’s legs for a better view. He still hadn’t seen her! And the girl hadn’t seen the bear! Eyes screwed up against the glare of the overhead lights, she came toddling across the barn floor.
Straight towards the grizzly.
24
GRIZZLY TRAP
There was a rope and pulley at the far end of the loft, probably for hoisting the cartons up. Wiping my sticky hands on the front of my T-shirt, I ran to the rope and swung down to floor level. I landed right behind the bear. It swung its head around and looked at me with its small black eyes.
The little girl had seen it now and stood rooted to the spot in the middle of the barn, halfway between the bear and the man.
‘Grab her!’ I said, and started walking towards the grizzly.
I didn’t have any plan other than distracting the bear long enough for the man to rescue the little girl.
‘C’MON, BEAR!’ I shouted, waving my hands in the air. ‘PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!’
The grizzly made a chuffing noise and turned to meet me. Behind it, the man was running towards the little girl.
‘Cop this!’ said E.J.
A can of Toby’s Farm boysenberry conserve hit the grizzly on the shoulder. The huge angry bear spun around, snapping at the air, spit spraying from its jaws.
The man reached the little girl and picked her up.
Another can flew down. The grizzly batted it away like a tennis player.
The man was running towards the door with the little girl in his arms.
I started running, too. In the direction of the canning machinery on the other side of the barn. The grizzly came after me.
A jam tin bounced past me and clanged against one of the big stainless-steel tanks. I darted around the tank and squeezed through the gap between it and the wall. The grizzly was hot on my tail. I heard its chuffing breath as it pushed its head into the narrow gap. I was behind the jam-making machines now. There were pipes and hoses everywhere. I wormed my way further into the maze, then crouched in the tiny space behind a wide stainless-steel chute, hoping the grizzly was too big to follow.
For a few seconds nothing happened. My teeth rattled. My heart hammered. I tried not to breathe. Then I heard a slight noise right above me. I looked up and saw a big wet nose. The nostrils quivered, sniffing my scent – whoof, whoof, whoof, whoof! The grizzly had climbed across the machinery. It was forcing its way down between the chute and the wall.
I wriggled along the floor behind two big vats. From behind me came the scrape of claws on metal as the grizzly forced its way through. It was unstoppable!
I reached the end of the machinery and peered around a stack of wooden crates. The barn door was only a few metres away. Where was the grizzly? I could no longer hear it following me. Lying on the concrete halfway between me and the door was the prong-end half of the pitchfork.
Crawling out of my hiding place, I jumped to my feet and raced for the door. There was a clatter of toppling crates behind me and a familiar chuff, chuff, chuff!
From high in the loft, on the other side of the barn, came a loud scream:
‘LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU, BALOO!’
I didn’t need to look. I knew what was there. Three hundred kilos of charging grizzly. Lie down and cover my head? No way, E.J.!
Scooping up the pitchfork, I spun around and faced the bear. It was better to die fighting than to lie down and be eaten.
The grizzly’s claws scraped across the concrete as it skidded to a halt. It had already been pricked by the pitchfork once, so now it was wary. Its eyes followed the fork’s prongs as I waved them in its face.
I started backing towards the door. The grizzly followed. Its nostrils twitched and snuffled. Why bother with my scent when I’m right here in front of you? I thought.
My foot bumped one of the tins E.J. had thrown and suddenly I realised what the grizzly was sniffing. The jam I’d wiped on my T-shirt.
I glanced over my shoulder. We were nearly at the door. All the lights were on in the house. I hoped everyone was inside. The sensor light shone in my eyes, but I could see the outline of Toby’s Limo halfway between the house and the barn.
Snuff, snuff, snuff! went the grizzly’s nose as I led it out into the night.
‘You’ve got a sweet tooth, haven’t you?’ I said.
I gently tapped its nose with the pitchfork. The grizzly squinted its eyes nearly all the way closed and drew back. It was facing the lights, relying more on its heightened sense of smell to know where I was, rather than its eyes.
Holding the fork in one hand, I quickly peeled the T-shirt over my head and free arm. Then I changed hands and yanked it all the way off.
Up at the house behind me, a door banged. The man shouted from the verandah: ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY, SON, SO I CAN GET A CLEAR SHOT!’
He was going to shoot the bear.
My hands were shaking as I jabbed the fork’s spikes into the T-shirt. Then I dangled it in the bear’s face.
‘Follow me, if you want to live,’ I said, and started backing in the direction of the house.
Once it got a close-up whiff of the jam, the grizzly didn’t need any encouragement. Nose in the air, it came lumbering after the dangling T-shirt like an oversized puppy being offered a bone. But this was no puppy. One slip and I’d be dead. So would the grizzly. I could see the man standing at the top of the steps, aiming a rifle in our direction. But he couldn’t shoot as long as I was in the way. I ran straight towards him, ho
lding the pitchfork with E.J.’s T-shirt on it behind me. The grizzly was gaining speed. The faster I ran, the faster it ran. This was crazy!
‘WHAT IN BLAZES ARE YOU DOING?’ yelled the man.
He soon found out. When I reached Toby’s Limo, I rushed up the ramp as if I was going inside. The grizzly came rushing up after me. At the very last moment, I leapt sideways and tossed the pitchfork and T-shirt in through the open door. The grizzly brushed past me into the trailer, following the irresistible scent of the jam.
In two seconds flat I had the door closed and bolted, trapping the bear inside.
The man came walking down from the house carrying his rifle.
‘That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,’ he said, checking that my grizzly trap was properly locked. Then he looked at me and smiled.
‘And also the bravest.’
25
ROCKY
Mr Wakelin said it was a hundred miles to the nearest hospital, so if E.J.’s foot wasn’t hurting too much, would we mind spending the night at Toby’s Farm and driving there tomorrow?
E.J.’s foot was wrapped in a bandage. ‘It feels okay,’ he said.
He, Sally and I were freshly showered and wearing clothes loaned to us by the Wakelins. Mine were too big, but it was nice to be dry and comfortable.
‘Thanks for going to all this trouble, Mr Wakelin,’ I said.
‘Yeah, thanks,’ said Sally.
We were all a bit distracted by what was happening in the next room. Mrs Wakelin had just gone in there to answer the phone. We could only hear half of the conversation, but it sounded like the news we’d been anxiously waiting for.
She came back to the lounge room, grinning from ear to ear. ‘That was the police,’ she said. ‘The emergency services have found the others.’
‘How’s Dad?’ E.J. asked nervously.
‘He’s going to be fine. He’s on his way to hospital right now in a rescue helicopter.’
‘What about Will and my mum?’ I asked.
‘They’re in the helicopter, too,’ Mrs Wakelin said. ‘Your mother wanted to pass on a message. I don’t know what it means, but she said to tell you, “Baloo rules!” ’
I laughed. ‘Sally and E.J. rule, too,’ I said.
Sally, E.J. and I exchanged high fives.
Mr Wakelin rubbed his hands together vigorously. ‘Well, since it seems everyone’s okay, let’s go and eat!’
Mrs Wakelin and her eldest daughter, Helen, made a big stack of pancakes and heated up some Toby’s Farm homemade maple sauce. The smell was enough to make you drool. We all squashed around the Wakelins’ dining table. As well as Mr and Mrs Wakelin, there were their four daughters, whose ages ranged from about twelve down to two. Tyler, the youngest and the one I’d rescued, insisted on sitting next to me. Helen tried to sit on my other side, but Sally got there first.
‘It must be nice to be so popular,’ Mr Wakelin teased, and I felt my face turn red.
Mrs Wakelin smiled at me. ‘Eat up, Sam. You must be famished.’
I was famished, but suddenly I couldn’t eat. Neither could Sally. Across the table, E.J. was picking at his food, too.
‘Hey, what’s up with you guys?’ Helen said. ‘Don’t you like our cooking?’
E.J. looked at me, then at Sally. We were all thinking the same thing. E.J. put his fork down. ‘It doesn’t seem right to be eating pancakes,’ he said, ‘when Cave Boy and his mother must be starving.’
‘Who’s Cave Boy?’ asked Helen.
Fifteen minutes later, the Wakelins’ big Jeep Cherokee four-wheel drive bumped across the flattened gate at the top end of their farm. Toby, the farm’s mascot, had followed us part of the way down the hill from the broken fence, but then he’d turned around and gone galloping back to his paddock. Now we saw why. Several sets of eyes glowed in the headlights. They melted into the forest as we got nearer.
‘Doggies!’ said Tyler.
‘They’re wolves,’ Helen corrected her.
Mr Wakelin stopped with the Jeep’s headlights trained on the bear trap. He explained how the national parks service were trying to catch a troublesome grizzly, nicknamed Rocky, that had been raiding farms in the area for the past six months.
‘Probably the same one you trapped in Toby’s trailer, Sam. They’re coming in the morning to take him to a national park up near Canada.’ He paused and rubbed his chin. ‘Maybe we should let them deal with this trap, too.’
‘There’s a boy in there,’ Mrs Wakelin said.
‘But there’s a wolf, as well.’
‘It won’t hurt us,’ I said, cracking my door open.
Everyone got out and cautiously approached the trap. Mr Wakelin carried his rifle. Mrs Wakelin had Tyler on her hip, and the other three Wakelin girls followed her. Sally and I led the way, supporting E.J. between us as he hopped along on his good foot. We heard growling from inside the trap. Also a soft whimpering sound, like a puppy crying.
E.J. leaned close to me. ‘Let him go, Sam,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t want the reward money anymore.’
We’d been talking about it in the car. Mr Wakelin said it wasn’t right for a boy to live with wolves. Mrs Wakelin said he was an orphan and the wolves were his family now. I didn’t know who was right.
Mr Wakelin leaned his rifle against a tree. The others stopped and watched while he and I approached the trap. I reached into my pocket. Before we left the house, Mrs Wakelin had given me a left-over pancake wrapped in foil.
‘What do you want to do?’ Mr Wakelin asked me.
‘Help me open the door, please,’ I said.
One on each side of the trap, Mr Wakelin and I lifted the heavy door. Before it was even halfway up, a grey blur shot out between us and disappeared into the darkness.
The boy came out slowly, a few seconds after the mother wolf. He stopped in the mouth of the trap, blinking in the glare of the Jeep’s headlights. He looked scared and confused.
‘Here,’ I said, handing him the pancake.
The boy sniffed the pancake, then stuffed it into his mouth and chewed ravenously. It was all gone in ten seconds. He licked the maple syrup off his fingers and looked to see if I had more.
I showed him my empty hands. ‘All gone,’ I said.
An eerie howl rose out of the forest about fifty metres away.
The boy peered into the darkness. ‘Mwaa mwaa,’ he said.
I pointed at Mrs Wakelin, holding her two-year-old daughter. The boy had been about Tyler’s age when he went missing. He must have known some English.
‘Another mwaa mwaa,’ I said slowly. ‘Another family. They live just over that hill.’ I made the shape of a hill with my hand, then did a walking motion with my other fingers to show someone climbing it. ‘Go to them if you ever need anything.’
The boy seemed to understand. Stepping forward, he wrapped his arms around my waist in a brief, tight hug.
‘Daa daa,’ he said, smiling up at me.
Then he darted off into the forest to join his pack.