by Mimi Thebo
Jem really doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s walking ahead of us and can’t see Tony holding my hand. He says, “Oi, Infante, be nice to my little sister.”
Tony kind of smiles and then says, “If you insist,” and squeezes my hand again. My heart is so hot I think it might melt my shirt.
It’s a good feeling.
—
The last days whip by. Before I know it I’ve got two suitcases and a backpack in the car, and Mum is driving me past the sign that says LEAVING YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.
I undo my seat belt. Mum makes a small disapproving sound. I twist in my seat, looking out the back window at the trees and the mountains.
I can’t believe how much it hurts to go.
It’s not just my family I’m leaving behind. It’s part of myself. Or maybe I’m not leaving part of myself behind. Maybe the wilderness has become part of me. Maybe I’ll carry this place with me, wherever I go, just like I carry Mum and Dad and Jem.
I can almost see down into our valley from here, and farther than that is the meadow where she died.
I’m not going to be the same. I’m never going to be the same.
I have to catch up on my exam work and do nearly two years of study in one. I’m going to miss my family horribly. I’m in love with a boy who will be three thousand miles away. But none of that seems too difficult to handle.
I strap myself back into the passenger seat. Mum gives me a look, but she doesn’t tell me off. Before, she would have given me a lecture on car safety. I guess, after everything that’s happened, I’m probably not going to hear many more of her lectures on car safety.
I remember the day I set my bear free, and I wonder if Mum will feel that horrible empty feeling too, when she waves me through security at the airport. I wonder if she used to feel it when she said good-bye to Dad, when he went off on army missions, or the day she first watched Jem snowmobile away through an icy forest.
I say, “Don’t worry. I’ll always wear seat belts properly. I’ll look after myself.”
She keeps her eyes on the road and nods. “Good,” she says briefly. And I feel all the other things she’s not saying and all the tears she’s not crying. She says, “You’ll be all right.” Because that’s what we say, in my family.
—
I’m asleep on the transatlantic flight. I can feel the jet rumbling underneath me, flying through the night, under a thin coating of cloud.
I fly out of the jet, and go back, back. I am running through a meadow with a giant bear. The bear chases me, tackles me, pushing me down into the tall, soft grass. The bear wraps her arms and legs around me, and we roll, over and over.
In my arms the bear grows smaller, lighter, thinner, until she is a cloud of a bear. I suddenly find it hard to breathe. I lie in the grass, gasping, and the bear swims into my open mouth and disappears inside my body.
I wake up, into that strange combination of noise and quiet you get on a long-haul flight. My ring is cold and solid on my finger, like an anchor that holds me in my body. It’s also like a warning to the whole world that I might be only small and thin…but there is a bear inside me.
Author’s Note
When you live in grizzly country, you think about bears. You think about them when you go for a walk in the woods. You think about them when you plan a picnic. You think about them suddenly when you’ve run out of the house at night to get something from the car and hear a rustle in the dark….I lived in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for six summers and one winter, and I thought about bears the whole time.
When bears climb into your mind, I don’t think they leave it again. I still dream of bears.
The bear in this book is based on Bear 134, a grizzly whose territory was next to the hotel where I worked. I saw her hundreds of times. I even watched her teach her cubs to fish. If she hadn’t been sleepy the day I almost stepped on her head, I might not be here today (wild strawberries—neither of us could leave them alone). I saw her mate get cross and charge a line of cars and cameras. I saw her swim. I saw her gnaw on a half-frozen elk carcass. I scanned for her with a zoom lens and fell over backward when her huge teeth filled the viewfinder.
And one day, more than twenty years later, she was suddenly there for me again, just when Darcy needed her.
I hope she’ll always be there for you, too. I hope you dream of bears and take the bear inside you, to remind you of your own strength and beauty.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank everyone at Wendy Lamb (especially Wendy Lamb and Dana Carey) and all at Random House Children’s Books. Their editing has been exquisite. I’m also indebted to Oxford University Press and all the amazing people there.
My agent, Sophie Gorell-Barnes at MBA Literary Agency London, has represented me for many years, and I owe her many thanks for her patience and kindness.
The Lighthouse Writing Group—Tanya Appatu, Emma Geen, Susan Jordan, Sophie McGovern, Peter Reason and Jane Shemilt—are all talented writers and share their writing lives with me. I can’t tell you how warm and wonderful that is.
Bath Spa University and the Royal Literary Fund have supported me during the writing of this book. I am extremely grateful to them for providing me work that allows me to support my family and still pursue my craft. I’m also very fortunate to have amazing writers as my daily colleagues.
And finally, I have to thank all my friends and family for putting up with my neglect, especially Joan, Sue, Annemarie, Sam, Alison, Deidre, Kim, Hope, Barb, Bryan, Mom, Andy, and Libs. Thank you for not giving up on me when I go deep into my cave.
About the Author
Mimi Thebo is an American writer who lives and works in England. This is her first book for young people to be published in America. Her work has been translated into twelve languages, adapted for film by the BBC, and illustrated in light. The London Times called her work “empathetic and humane” and described her style as “spare, yet poetic.” She thinks good fiction can change the world.
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