by Beth Vrabel
“Great,” she said.
“Great,” I echoed.
“So, okay. I’ll see you later, cub.”
“Cub?” I growled.
Rina shrugged. “It’s newspaper speak for ‘new reporter.’ You don’t like it?”
“No,” I grunted. “I do not like it.”
Rina sipped her coffee. “Fine. I’ll stick with Noah.”
As she walked away, I had to admit that, yeah, having lunch with her might be better than resuming my usual seat alone next to the trash cans in the cafeteria.
People stared and whispered for the first minute or two that I sat with Rina at lunch, but then they lost interest. Rina had a lot of ideas for what do add to the newspaper—different features she wanted and interviews she thought we should do.
“How are you going to fit all of these on one page?” I asked.
Rina smiled. “We’ll have to make more pages. I’m this close”—she inched her forefinger and thumb together—“to getting Miss Peters to agree to be our adviser. Then Mr. Anderson would have to make the Gazette a true school club—”
“And you’d get carte blanche to use more paper.”
Rina tilted her head at me.
“Carte blanche. It means blank check,” I said, making her laugh.
CHAPTER TWELVE
That Monday, I got to life science just before the bell, since I stopped by the library to check the sites for Bucket Bear sightings. Internet is shoddy at Jeff’s house and I had spent most of the weekend cleaning up the yard and helping out at the Shop, so I hadn’t been able to check on her sightings. On Saturday, someone had posted a pic of her a half block away from Jeff’s house. The photo was blurry, but she was clearly still stuck. The bucket was dented all around. Another person wrote that they had chased her, wanting to yank the bucket off her head, but she ran too fast. Black bears can run up to thirty miles per hour, even with something jammed on their head. Rina told me she had seen a sign with “Save the Bucket Bear!” on a telephone pole. She posted the pic to Tumblr.
I wrote down the names and areas sighted for when I called the DNR later that day. Ron didn’t seem to enjoy our calls any more than I liked hearing he still hadn’t saved the bear. “We’re getting closer, Noah,” he had grumbled that morning. “Yesterday we caught a female and cub in the live trap behind the school.”
“How is that getting closer?”
“It’s a bear, isn’t it?” Ron had snapped.
So I barely made it to class on time, something Mr. Davies was sure to notice. I slipped in the door, and quickly saw I didn’t have to sweat it. The entire class, including Mr. Davies, was crowded around the windows.
“What’s going on?” I asked, leaning around Rina to see what the big deal was. Her hair tickled my nose. It smelled like spearmint.
“It’s Bucket Bear!” Rina pointed toward the tree line, where a DNR officer squatted. “She was through here earlier. The officer’s looking for tracks.”
He must’ve found some, too, since he got out a camera and snapped a few pictures. “How do they know the tracks are for the right bear?” Brenna asked, in a bored voice. “You know, there are other bears in the world.”
“They estimated how old Bucket Bear is based on its size in the pictures people have posted. It clues them in about how big her prints should be. That, and she’s been sighted hanging around here.” Everyone turned toward me.
“I didn’t know he could talk!” I heard a new kid whisper to Landon, who rolled his eyes.
“All right, all right, class.” Mr. Davies clapped his hands together. “Back to your seats.”
Mr. Davies droned on and on about natural selection. “So when a species’ phenotype, or observable trait, gives that organism an advantage, it’s going to flourish. Negative phenotypes will diminish.” But no one paid attention; everyone’s eyes kept going back to the window, like Bucket Bear would come charging through the woods any second.
“Guys, guys!” Mr. Davies snapped. “This is a cornerstone of biology! Pay attention! Right now, I’m observing that looking out the window is a negative phenotype that will lead to this particular species of students failing their next quiz!”
A few people chuckled. I rested my head on my fist, so the view of the window was covered. “Natural selection explains adaptation,” Mr. Davies continued, and started talking about karyotypes and chromosomes. I wrote the date at the top of my notebook—October 12—and tried to take notes, but too late realized I was sketching Bucket Bear in my notebook. Too late because Mr. Davies’s shadow covered the drawing.
“Fine.” Mr. Davies slapped his hands against his thighs. “Let’s talk about this bear.” The classroom buzzed, kids shifting in their seats and goofing off. I glanced over at Landon. He slumped in his seat, twirling a pen around in his fingers, not looking at anyone.
“Did you see the signs around town?” Brenna asked. “‘Save the Bucket Bear?’ You don’t think they’re going to confuse people who want to do the ‘Bring Back the Bruins’ challenge?”
Rina’s sigh cut across the room.
“So this bear.” Mr. Davies’s booming voice dampened the buzzing. “If this isn’t an example of natural selection, I don’t know what is.” He smirked across the room at us, eyes catching mine. “Anyone hear about the Darwin Awards?”
Rina whipped around in her seat to face me. She shook her head slightly, like she was warning me not to do something.
“Anyone?” Mr. Davies asked again.
Landon half-raised his hand but didn’t wait to be called on before saying, “Aren’t they given to people who die in stupid ways? Like being too stupid to live?”
“Right!” Mr. Davies clapped. “If we believe that natural selection allows us to weed out those traits that make us weaker, the awards are a way to thank the people who have improved our chances by not breeding.” He laughed, a mean huh, huh, huh.
“Oh, I’ve heard about this!” Mike said from the back of the room. “Like the guy who got into a fender bender while picking his nose, jamming his finger through his brain.”
A few more laughs sprang out across the room. Mr. Davies, his face shiny as my red sneakers, pointed to Mike and nodded. “Exactly!”
“The editors gave one to a boy who buckled himself to a shopping cart and then had his friends launch the cart with him in it into a lake.” Mr. Davies chuckled and shook his head.
“Is it, like, an actual award? Because the people are dead … so it probably doesn’t mean much to them,” Brenna mused. Rina sighed again.
Mr. Davies ignored her. “Another one went to a teenager who climbed the fence of a tiger enclosure to pet the pretty kitty.” Huh, huh, huh.
“That sounds more like a mental illness at work than stupidity. I mean, is this whole topic even appropriate?” Rina asked. She was booed from a dozen directions.
“What’s this got to do with the bear?” Landon’s deep voice quieted the anti-Rina movement.
“Everything!” Mr. Davies threw out his arms. “Here we’ve got a bear so stupid it shoves its head into a bucket. Think about the effort at play there, to wedge that on its head so deep. Now it’s tromping through the woods, away from anyone who might be able to help it. If that isn’t a sequence of genes that shouldn’t multiply, I don’t know what is.”
“Shut up.” I said it softly, but he heard. Everyone heard.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Davies asked. His eyes narrowed.
“It’s not the bear’s fault,” I mumbled.
Huh, huh, huh. “Who else could be to blame, Noah?”
My words squeezed through gritted teeth. “We took over their habitat, didn’t we?”
Mr. Davies crossed his arms and nodded, glaring at me but smirking at the same time. “Yes, we did. But adaptation should have them fearing humans. Not approaching us.”
“But sometimes they can’t help it,” Rina spouted out. “Just last month, a huge bear was run over by a tractor trailer. She was probably running from one human when she g
ot smacked by another!”
“Maybe,” Mr. Davies said. “Or maybe she failed to adapt to her surroundings, so nature took its course.”
“I think you have a terrible idea of what nature is all about.”
“Who is the science teacher here, Rina?”
“Isn’t your degree in teaching social studies?”
Mr. Davies ignored her. “Animals who adapt survive. Animals whose instincts kick in and keep them from us flourish. Those who don’t, don’t.”
“Even if we’re the stupid ones who leave buckets filled with sugary drinks in our backyards? I mean, we practically baited her,” I spit out.
The new kid’s jaw dropped.
Mr. Davies cocked an eyebrow and motioned for me to continue, even as the room rocked with boos.
I felt something in my chest ignite, and soon I erupted. “You really think that this whole stupid thing of filling a bucket with sugary water and then tossing it in a yard isn’t baiting them? I read about bears. They have the best sense of smell in the world. Why wouldn’t they go after a quick meal? Isn’t that adapting?”
“Adapting? To what?”
“To us! To us being stupid enough to think something like that is a good idea!”
“Did you just— Did you just call the Bruins bucket fund-raiser stupid?” Brenna gasped, her overly glossy mouth a perfect O.
Again, Rina shook her head at me.
“Yes!” I stormed. “Of course it’s stupid. It’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of! Dumping a bucket of Gatorade over your head like you just did something awesome, made some great save! Like it means anything!”
“Just what are you saying, Noah?” asked Mr. Davies, still smirking at me.
I realized I was standing. I waited for the lava to stop gushing up and out of me, but I couldn’t stop it. “I’m saying it’s our fault. We made the mistake! We should pay for it! Not her!”
“Not who?”
“Not the bear!” Who else could I mean? “We can’t bait them and then let them suffer!”
“So you’re blaming this not on an animal’s stupidity but on … efforts to bring back the Bruins?” Mr. Davies said.
“Yes!” I yelled, realizing too late that I was the one being baited.
“And your solution?”
“I don’t have one,” I blurted. “I mean, who cares? It’s just a stupid football team.”
Everyone was freaking about bringing back the Bruins, but that’s not what they wanted, not really. Brenna wanted the identity she had as a cheerleader. Landon wanted to see the crowds and feel like he had a family. I wanted to be part of something. But a fund-raiser and donation to MADD wasn’t going change what happened. It wouldn’t turn back time and make our team again. November fifth was about three weeks away, and whether they filled up that bucket with a big donation or not, whether Mom came home or not, nothing would ever be the same. My mouth opened and closed to put these thoughts into words, but nothing came out.
Landon stood up so fast his seat fell over. He rushed me, nose half an inch from mine. He didn’t say anything, just glared at me so I felt his hate stronger than my anger.
“Back to your seats, boys,” Mr. Davies said.
Landon backed up, still facing me but a few inches farther away. Mr. Davies nodded at Landon, and then turned his back to us, erasing notes from the whiteboard.
“Let it go, Noah,” Rina said softly. “It’s not worth it.”
“You’re right,” I whispered back to her. Here’s the thing: I knew what Rina meant. The argument wasn’t worth it. Trying to make my point wasn’t worth it.
But I also knew what Landon heard. That she was saying the Bruins weren’t worth it. That the time before the championship game—before Mom drinking again, before Micah falling—wasn’t worth fighting for.
“You’re going to pay for this,” he hissed.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Didn’t he know I already was paying for it? Every. Single. Day.
And then Landon slammed into me.
The two of us flew backward, and I couldn’t brace for the fall with my hands since my arms were wrapped around Landon. We smashed into the edge of the desk behind me, my back taking the brunt of the impact just below my shoulder blade. I pushed back against Landon, and maybe it was just the momentum from the shove or maybe he threw himself into me again, this time pulling us to the side. He hook punched me in the ribs, his knuckles cracking into my ribs just under where I had hit the desk. I fell with a thud against the back wall, Landon’s knees smacking down to the take the impact, so when I hit the ground, he hovered over me, his face twisted and eyes streaming.
Mr. Davies’s hand clamped on Landon’s shoulder, yanking him backward and to his feet. “What is going on here?”
Around us, the class was silent, mouths hanging open. Everything happened so fast no one had even had time to get out their phones, though a few were doing that now. I wiped at my face with my forearms, then planted my palms against the ground to hoist myself up. My back seized, but I kept my face smooth. “I slipped,” I said.
“You slipped?” Mr. Davies’s mouth hung open and he shook his head. “You expect me to believe that?”
I nodded. Mr. Davies’s head swiveled to Landon. “And you?”
“I, uh, tried to catch him.” Landon’s chin popped upward. He rubbed at his fist with his other hand.
Mr. Davies shook his head again and looked to the class. Everyone had the same something-crazy-just-happened look on their faces—eyes wide, mouths hovering somewhere between a smile and a grimace, cheeks pink. Everyone except Rina, whose head was bowed over her seat, her hair masking her face. But I could see her trembling, her shoulders quaking and her hands clenched under her desk.
“Can anyone back up that this was just a slip?” Mr. Davies called out. “That in the few seconds it took me to erase notes from the whiteboard, Noah Brickle slipped backward, taking Landon with him?”
“Why do you do that?” I cut in. “Always use my first and last name, but only use Landon’s first.”
Mr. Davies’s face flushed. “Is that relevant?”
“I think so.” I crossed my arms, even though it hurt like crazy to move my arms. “How come Landon gets to be on a first-name basis and I’m always ‘Noah Brickle’ or ‘Mr. Brickle’?”
Mr. Davies tilted his head, then shook it again the way a dog would to get rid of a fly. “It’s a sign of respect.”
“Is it?” I repeated. Funny thing, after Landon slammed into me, all the fury filling me spilled out and away. Yet now, all that spewed-out fury pulled back, gathering like pieces of liquid metal to a magnet, pooling together and back up through my toes and up my legs. Even though I wanted to slump, even though I wanted to rub at my ribs or rest on that cot in the nurse’s office, I walked steadily to my desk. I straightened it. We must’ve hit that, too, when I slipped. I lowered into the seat, keeping my face straight and smooth. Landon stared at me. I jerked my chin toward his empty seat. Still rubbing his fist, Landon slumped into his seat.
Mr. Davies shook his head again. All around us, kids picked up their pencils and straightened. I knew it was to protect Landon, not me, but I was grateful anyway.
“Okay,” Mr. Davies said after a long pause. “Phenotypes …”
“What’s going on?” Jeff asked that night.
“Nothing.” I chewed the last bite of my grilled cheese and took my empty bowl of tomato soup to the sink.
“Then why are you walking around like an old man?” He shook a cigarette out of the box, getting ready to go to the back yard for a smoke.
“Why do you go outside to smoke? It’s your house,” I said, trying to distract him.
“Because it’s your house, too.”
“For now,” I muttered.
“What?”
“It’s my house for now,” I repeated louder.
“Noah, what are you talking about?”
I thought of the Shop calendar, the x’s crossing out half of Oct
ober. Two more weeks until Jeff would flip the page to November. Four more days after that and everything would change. FREE! “What’s going to happen when Mom gets out?”
Jeff rubbed at the stumble on his chin with his knuckles. “Well, we’ll bring her home.”
I stared at him, not saying anything, but feeling, for a second, like I was flying through the air again, about to slam into the wall.
“And we’ll figure out what’s next, together.” Jeff rolled the cigarette between his fingers. “Listen, Noah, I’m not going anywhere.”
I smirked, feeling like Mr. Davies for a second. Maybe he wasn’t going anywhere, but were we—me and Mom? Where were we going? When she got out, she’d be in charge again. It’d be up to Mom to decide what I did and where I went, even though she had checked out on me. I swallowed. He didn’t know what was going to happen, either. He couldn’t promise me.
I turned my back to him, reaching up to grab his lighter from the top of the fridge. I wanted him to know it was stupid, these halfway attempts at being a parent, like smoking outside and hiding the lighter. But instead, I accidentally showed him a couple inches of my back as my shirt pulled up.
“What the hell!” Jeff was at my side in a second, the forgotten cigarette rolling across the floor. He lifted up my T-shirt. I twisted, looking over my shoulder, seeing the dark bluish-black bruises snaking across my back.
“It’s nothing.” I handed him the lighter.
“Noah.” Jeff’s voice was scary calm. “This isn’t nothing. What happened?”
“I slipped in science class. Fell against a desk. And a chair. No big deal.” What was the point of telling Jeff what happened? He’d just feel sorry for me. Or disappointed.
Jeff stared at me for a long minute. Then he picked up the phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the school.” He punched in the numbers from memory. “Science class?” he asked me as he dialed. “So Mr. Davies?” I heard the recorded voice of Mr. Anderson guiding Jeff through making a staff selection and focused on that instead of the rush of emotion that Jeff not only had the school number memorized, he also knew exactly who my science teacher was.