The Whole, Entire, Complete Truth

by Caroline Rennie Pattison

  Bears customarily walk on all four legs. Their hind legs are slightly longer than their front legs. They walk flat-footed. They are able to stand and even walk on their hind legs only. Bears’ paws have five non-retractable claws. They are very strong.

  Each fall, bears must eat large amounts of food in order to gain sufficient body fat to live off of during their winter hibernation. Bears hibernate in dens. Dens tend to be in caves, under overturned trees, under piles of debris, or in excavated holes.

  Black bears usually live in forests, but they can also be found in habitats ranging from swamps to desert scrub. Female bears tend to stay within a small, defined living range throughout their lifetime. Males tend to wander throughout a large area, somewhat less predictably.

  Needless to say, Dad, I was having quite an emotional day. First I had to deal with Roy’s antics in the gym by the basketball team posting, then I had a disappointing interview with Mr. Stedman, and finally I watched Mindi lose it at Cori. Sure, don’t get me wrong, I thought Cori deserved it, but judging by the look she gave me before running off after Mindi to beg forgiveness, I was the one who would be blamed for Mindi’s outburst. One more reason for Cori to hate me. Sigh.

  As if that wasn’t enough, the day continued to go downhill from there. After school, I tried to sneak off on my bike before Mom noticed and enforced your stupid chaperon rule, but I wasn’t fast enough, and Roy was told to go with me.

  You guessed it, we went to the farmhouse.

  CAUGHT?

  DATE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

  (CONTINUED)

  LOCATION: THE FARMHOUSE

  As soon as we arrived, Mindi and I immediately went about the usual routine of cleaning stalls. Mindi got Roy to fill the horses’ water buckets. You should have seen him. He complained the whole time: the buckets were heavy, he slopped water on his pants, and so on. What a wimp.

  “You guys do this for fun?” he asked, grunting under the weight of the sloshing water bucket he was carrying.

  “It’ll build up the muscles in your weak little arms,” I retorted.

  He set down the bucket and made a big show of flexing his tiny biceps. “Who’s got weak arms?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows at Mindi.

  She giggled. I was getting worried about her. She was really getting taken in by this joker. I planned to have a little chat with her later to set her straight.

  When we were done our chores, Mindi and I saddled up Ginger and Candy. We were going to ride down the trail again. Roy continued to be a pain.

  “So what am I supposed to do while you two are riding the horses?” he asked. “Last time you took forever.”

  “You could come with us,” offered Mindi. “Thunder would love some exercise, wouldn’t you, old boy?”

  At the mention of his name, Thunder whinnied and tossed his head up and down as if saying “yes.” We all laughed.

  “No thanks,” said Roy, eyeing Thunder, who kicked the side of his stall in agitation. “You told me before that he wasn’t a good horse for a beginner. Believe me, I’m a beginner.”

  “Well, I guess that’s that,” I said with a shrug.

  “So I’m just supposed to sit here?” asked Roy with a scowl.

  “Well, if you’re bored ...” started Mindi. “Nah, you won’t want to.”

  “What? What can I do?”

  “You see these?” She pulled some leather bridles down from their hooks in the tack room. “These really need to be cleaned, and I know Colin hasn’t had time to do it. He’d really appreciate it.”

  “You want me to sit here and clean leather straps?” He didn’t look thrilled. I had to laugh at the thought of Roy doing manual labour — something he generally avoided like the plague.

  “Only if you want to,” assured Mindi. She was too nice. Didn’t she know that Roy would rather sit around doing nothing but thinking about himself than do work?

  “Look,” I said. I was starting to get impatient with Lazy-Boy. “Here are your choices: a) ride Thunder and come with us; b) make yourself useful and clean the bridles while you wait; or c) sit here and do nothing but be a waste of skin. What’s it going to be?”

  Roy looked at Mindi and sighed. “All right, how do I clean these stupid straps?”

  Mindi and I took the same route as we did the last time we rode the horses down the trail, wordlessly tying the horses up at the same trees. This wasn’t preplanned. It just happened. It was like our minds were synchronized. We skirted around the field through the forest towards the forbidden barn. The coast was clear so we dashed out to our makeshift doorway.

  “Follow me, partner,” I said, and pulled away the loose boards.

  Mindi’s eyebrows rose when she saw the larger opening I had created. It was now a lot easier for us to get inside the barn than it was for me to get out the other day. She squeezed in behind me and carefully pulled the boards back into place as best as she could to cover up the evidence of our entry.

  We were immediately immersed in the musty odour of bears. I stood for a moment allowing my eyes to adjust to the relative dimness after the bright daylight. I was determined to get a much better look around than I did during my previous visit. I led the way and we began to shuffle along behind the row of cages, our backs against the rough barn wall. Mindi was wide-eyed as she took it all in.

  As we made our way behind the cages, the bear in front of us swung his massive head in our direction, eyeing us curiously. Mindi froze and stared back at him. I knew how she felt. It was easy to forget they were in cages when you were this close.

  “Keep moving, Mindi,” I instructed, giving her a gentle pull.

  Finally, we turned the corner, shuffled past the last cage, and emerged into the middle corridor of the barn. We stood there and gazed down at the long rows of cages on either side of us.

  “I can’t believe it,” whispered Mindi. “I mean, I believed you when you told me, but this is incredible. These poor bears.”

  “I know.” I started to walk down the middle of the corridor. It was a whole lot easier to do this when it wasn’t so dark and you had someone beside you. Strength in numbers, I guess. “Walk quietly,” I instructed, “last time I was here, the bears went ape when I made noise.”

  Mindi giggled nervously, making me giggle. So far the bears weren’t paying a whole lot of attention to us. As we walked I looked into each of the cages to look for any signs that the bears were being tapped for bile. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure of what I was looking for — tubes and vials, I supposed. We travelled all the way to the other end of the corridor and were standing in front of the door that led to the small front room when we heard them come in.

  We froze — like deer caught in headlights. I wanted to run but had no idea where to run to.

  “I told you that I require appointments. I can’t have you and Mr. Cheng just showing up here whenever you feel like it,” said Mr. Braemarie’s irritated voice from the front room.

  “We like to keep tabs on our investments and make sure they are being well taken care of,” explained another voice. “And about that other matter, we don’t understand why it’s a problem. We were under the impression that we could easily make the necessary arrangements for shipment.”

  “Mr. Gorely, like I already explained, I’m running a small operation here. To supply the number of bear galls and paws that you’re asking for and to have them prepared for delivery by next Saturday is just impossible for me.”

  Mindi and I looked at each other with wide eyes.

  “There should be no problem, Mr. Braemarie. I’m getting the impression that you’re stalling on making good with your delivery. I have buyers waiting and they’re getting impatient,” said Gorely.

  Mr. Braemarie continued, “All I’m suggesting is that you take about half of your shipment next week. The other half will only take me another two to four weeks to pull together. No problem. If you give me the names of your buyers, I can deliver the goods directly myself.”

  “No,” said G
orely in clipped tones. “Our buyers work only through us, and like I said, they are getting extremely impatient for these bear parts. I will not wait any longer; either you deliver the full order next Saturday or we don’t have a deal.”

  We heard a shuffling sound and a thud, and the door in front of us trembled as if with an impact. We jumped back and clutched each other’s hands.

  “I’m telling you now,” said Gorely in his steely voice, “and believe me when I say this: I am not a patient man. And as you can see, Mr. Cheng is also not a patient man. We’re used to having things our way, and anyone who denies us is soon ... out of the picture, so to speak. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  “I got it,” gasped Mr. Braemarie. “Now, tell Mr. Cheng to let me go. There’s no need to get rough.” We heard more shuffling.

  “Consider this a friendly warning, Mr. Braemarie.”

  Mr. Braemarie cleared his throat. “I don’t like threats, Mr. Gorely, but I will try to find some way to come up with the full order. You want five live bears, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “You see, that just complicates the delivery arrangements somewhat ...” More shuffling noises. “... but I’ll figure it out,” Mr. Braemarie croaked.

  “I knew you’d be able to make things work for us, Mr. Braemarie,” crooned Gorely. I could almost hear an evil smile as he spoke. “We’ll expect everything to be ready next Saturday, at dawn. We’ll need an early start. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

  We listened as the men left. My body sagged with relief and Mindi slumped to the floor. The sound of Mr. Braemarie’s voice made us freeze in horror once again. We had thought he left with the other men.

  “Pleasure doing business, my ...” he mumbled from the front room.

  Mr. Braemarie’s chair squeaked. A drawer was opened, then shut. We heard the quiet beeps of a cell phone being turned on.

  “Colin here,” he said curtly, after a moment. “Yeah. Gorely and Cheng were here. Just showed up, no call, no nothing. I didn’t even have time to get my gun. This is getting out of hand, they got a bit rough. And listen to this, they want more than we were prepared for ... Uhhuh. Plus five live ones ... No, I can probably arrange it, but ... No, they wouldn’t give me any of the buyers’ names ...” A longer pause followed. “Okay. That’ll work. Yes, next Saturday at dawn .... Right ... That’ll do.”

  I stole a glance at Mindi; her eyes were like saucers. Mr. Braemarie muttered to himself and his chair squeaked again.

  “It’s dinner time!” he yelled, and footsteps swiftly approached the door that was hiding us from him.

  What happened next outlines the real beginning of Roy’s involvement with the bears. Mindi and I never planned to tell him that we were working together to clear Mr. Braemarie’s name, but you know Roy, he tends to do the unexpected. The way I see it, none of us was really to blame. Let’s face it, Dad, if you hadn’t created that new rule about me not biking alone, then Roy would never have been near that farmhouse in the first place. He never would have gone there on his own. So I guess it was kind of your fault that Roy got involved.

  It’s another way of looking at it.

  CAUGHT!

  DATE: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

  (CONTINUED)

  LOCATION: BARN AND STABLE

  So there we were, inside the forbidden barn, frozen right behind the door that Mr. Braemarie was about to walk through. Scared to death. Unable to move. We’d be caught for sure. That realization was like a starting gun in my head.

  Blindly, I shoved Mindi into the dark corner on our right, behind the first cage. She quickly caught on. Mr. Braemarie banged into the room just as we hunkered down into the shadows, making ourselves as small as possible. He didn’t look our way as he headed straight for the supply cage. He pulled the wheelbarrow upright, loaded it up with buckets full of slop from the smelly pig slop barrels, and grabbed a tub of stinky chicken and fish from the fridge. Then he pushed the wheelbarrow, laden with buckets, out into the corridor. My heart was jumping around in my chest as if on a trampoline. I clutched Mindi’s shoulder tightly. I was actually thankful for the dim natural lighting, thankful for the shadowy corners.

  “Hey old guys,” Mr. Braemarie crooned, “are you hungry?”

  To our horror, the bear in the cage we hid behind lumbered over towards our corner, sniffing the air. Mr. Braemarie noticed and turned back, a playful smile on his lips.

  “What are you sniffing at? You know I can’t keep the mice out of here,” he chuckled. “You’re just going to have to get used to them.”

  I held my breath. Mindi and I tried to be absolute statues. I was thankful for my black jeans and dark shirt. Without moving my head, I shifted my glance to Mindi. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her hands were clenched under her chin as if in prayer. It reminded me of the old game I used to play with Roy when I was a little kid. You know the one: No one could see you if you couldn’t see them. All you had to do to hide was shut your eyes.

  The bear gave the air one last sniff then jerked its head away with a grunt and lumbered over to the front of his cage.

  “Did you scare those big bad mice away?” laughed Mr. Braemarie. To my alarm, he actually reached into the cage and rubbed the bear’s head. “I’ve got you some food.”

  It was a miracle. He didn’t see us! I let my breath out slowly and touched Mindi gently on her arm. Her eyes flew open and I tried to give her a reassuring smile. I’m not so sure how it turned out though.

  We watched as Mr. Braemarie slowly made his way down the corridor between the cages, tossing food slops from the buckets into the cages. The bears were ecstatic, diving onto the food with grunts of pleasure. They ate like pigs, which is why, I guess, they liked that pig slop. Kind of reminded me of Roy at the dinner table.

  Mr. Braemarie then unwound the hose and used it to pour fresh water into the pails that hung in each cage. If I weren’t so scared, I would have found it very interesting to watch. Heck, even scared, it was interesting. It was like being at a zoo during feeding time. Except it wasn’t a zoo, I realized with a pang that took the pleasure out of it. If only those poor bears knew what was in store for them. At least they were being treated well before being brutally slaughtered and mercilessly sold for profit.

  Finally, chores done, Mr. Braemarie stood at the door and surveyed his bear farm — I was positive that’s what it was, even though I still hadn’t seen any tubes or complicated machinery. Mindi and I had another terror-filled moment as he did this, certain that this time we would be seen. His eyes swept dangerously close to our hiding spot, but it was pretty dark in our corner. We remained still while he left the cage-room and stayed frozen until we heard the outer door of the barn slam shut and the padlock click into place. A good five minutes of silence later, we finally dared to speak.

  “Is he really gone?” whispered Mindi, wide-eyed.

  “I think so,” I whispered back.

  “Oh my gosh! I thought for sure he’d see us!” bawled Mindi, grabbing my arm. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  “Me neither. I thought we were goners,” I agreed.

  We struggled to our feet within the tight quarters. Quickly, we shuffled down the narrow corridor towards our small hidden doorway. We were both anxious to get out of that barn. Mindi kicked out the loose boards and we crawled to freedom. I was so close behind her I could have kissed her shoe. Instead, once I crawled out and was on the grass, I kissed the ground.

  “I love you, grass!” I said, kissing the ground loudly. “We’re free!” Laughing, I rolled onto my back to look up at Mindi.

  Roy’s angry face stared down at me.

  “Uh-oh,” I murmured, then jumped to my feet.

  Mindi was standing behind him, staring down at the ground sheepishly. The best defence is a good offence, I always say.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded angrily.

  “What are you doing here?” he shot back. His voice rose to an unfla
ttering shriek. “Sarah, you promised me you would stay away from this barn. You told me you were just coming here to visit with Mindi and to ride horses, and I believed you! Now I find you sneaking out of Mr. Braemarie’s barn. The one you told me that he warned you to stay away from.” He began pacing in front of us. “I should have known I couldn’t trust you — that you couldn’t keep your nose out of other people’s business. Our deal’s off, I’m not coming here with you anymore.”

  “No, Roy, let me explain. I can explain everything,” I pleaded, grabbing his arm.

  “Sarah,” interrupted Mindi as she hurriedly replaced the barn boards to conceal the small doorway. “We should probably get away from here. Just in case Colin comes back.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Roy, let’s talk about this somewhere else.”

  Roy looked from Mindi to me, then back to Mindi again. Slowly he nodded. “Okay. Let’s go. This had better be good.”

  We made our way back to the tethered horses. Mindi gave me a leg up onto Ginger. Roy helped Mindi onto Candy. Then he walked alongside us as we plodded back to the stable.

  I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “So what exactly were you doing at the barn anyway, Roy? Planning to do a little spying on your own? Couldn’t resist seeing for yourself what was going on in the mysterious barn?”

  Roy looked up at me coldly. “You were taking forever. I finished cleaning those leather straps ages ago and I got sick of sitting there waiting by myself. So I walked down the trail thinking I’d catch you guys on your way back. Instead, I found your horses tied up to a tree. I knew right away what you were up to.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Back at the stable, we quickly removed saddles, exchanged bridles for halters, and led the horses out to the field. Then Mindi pulled the big doors shut and pulled out some stools for us to sit on. She looked miserable.