A Boy and a Bear in a Boat

by Dave Shelton

The waves were like mountains now and, despite the bear’s best efforts to keep the Harriet from being buried under them as they crashed down, enough spray had splashed in that the little boat was filling with water. Then the sea picked them up. A gigantic wave rose beneath them, lifting them absurdly high and holding the Harriet teetering at its peak. They seemed to hang there for a moment, still and calm, high above the furious waves. Then the tickling foam beneath the Harriet’s hull tipped them from their perch and sent them plunging down a cliff face of water, crashing into the sea below. The impact threw the boy from his seat, out over the side of the boat. He saw the water, churning and angry, waiting to embrace him, rising to meet him in slow motion. It hadn’t occurred to him how calm he had been up until now, up until the moment he became entirely helpless. And even now he was more shocked than terrified. He gasped in the biggest breath he had ever taken and had no expectation of ever taking another.

  Then a mighty tug on his arm pulled him back, landing him back in the boat. He looked up, his arm aching, and saw the bear, still fighting the waters with one oar, the other lost to the waves as he had grabbed the boy. The bear gave the boy the briefest, smallest smile. The boy smiled back. Then the Harriet span suddenly around and the remaining oar, dug deep into the water, was wrenched from the bear’s paw. It flew free and the handle smacked the bear hard on the head. For a fraction of a second he merely looked surprised, then his eyes closed and his body crumpled as consciousness deserted him. The boy leaped up, reaching out to him, grabbing hold of one limp paw. Then the immense wave they had just dropped down began to break above them. The boy stared up at it defiantly, held on hard to the bear and braced himself. He took his next breath. And then the tower of water folded and crumbled and crashed down onto the Harriet in a mighty rush of noise and fury, and everything went black.

  Calm

  The bear awoke.

  This, in itself, was something of a surprise. His head hurt, but that seemed like a reasonable trade-off for not being dead. He was lying on his back and the sun was in his eyes. He blinked and squinted, and a hazy shadow took shape before him.

  “Hello, Bear,” said the boy, who was sitting on his stomach holding the ukulele.

  “My ukulele,” said the bear, rather groggily.

  “You’re the boat, this is the paddle,” said the boy, holding it up. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  The bear turned his head and realised that he was floating on his back in the sea (an agreeably calm sea) with something hard and buoyant holding his head up.

  “I managed to hold on to your suitcase,” said the boy. “The storm started to die down after you got knocked out and I used it to keep you afloat.”

  “That can’t have been easy,” said the bear.

  “I managed,” said the boy.

  The bear was still looking out to his side rather than at the boy. There was wreckage in the water around them.

  “Harriet,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” said the boy.

  The bear looked up at him again now. A sadness seeped into his face, softened and then ebbed away. The boy watched it come and go, much as he had expected.

  “Can’t be helped,” said the bear. “Thank you for keeping me afloat.”

  “You’re welcome,” said the boy.

  The End

  Splish, splish, splish …

  It’s quite a stretch for the boy, perched on the bear’s belly, to reach down to the water with the ukulele to row. It dips only part-way in, and every so often he has to empty out the water that accumulates inside it. They are making slow progress.

  “You know, if you played the banjo we’d be going much faster now,” says the boy.

  “Sorry about that,” says the bear.

  “That’s OK,” says the boy.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” says the bear.

  “Yes,” says the boy.

  Splish, splish, splish …

  “You could kick your feet a bit, you know, if you wanted to help out.”

  “Oh, yes,” says the bear. “OK.”

  The bear kicks his feet a bit and they move on, rising and falling together over the gentle swell of the water.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” says the boy.

  “Jolly good,” says the bear. And, after a pause, “Do you think we’re nearly there yet?”

  The boy looks ahead and away to where the sun is sinking into the sea.

  “Yes, Bear,” he says. “I’m sure we are.”

  And the boy paddles and the bear kicks his feet and, after a while, they sing a little.

  And they disappear over that flat blue horizon and on towards another.