by K. E. Rocha
“I’m afraid not, Spencer,” B.D. answered right away. “Our Bear Guard has had enough contact with your parents to identify their scents immediately.”
Spencer swallowed hard, trying to ignore the huge lump in his throat. Uncle Mark is leaving to find Mom and Dad as soon as this meeting is over, he reminded himself.
B.D. pressed on. “We have three situations to deal with now. First, there has been a lead in the search for Jane and Shane Plain: the photo Mark showed us. Second, a cub, Kate Weaver, has disappeared from the woods outside Bearhaven, and third, two unidentified humans in addition to Kirby have been smelled at the perimeter. Mark will be departing shortly on a solo mission to continue the search for Jane and Shane. As for Kate’s disappearance, I’ve already dispatched a guard member to find Kirby and watch for any signs of her involvement. We will work to find more clues about who the two adult humans are, what their intentions for being here were, and what they’ve done with Kate.” Bunny growled again.
Spencer looked down at the council table. He didn’t want to think about what two unknown humans would have done with Kate. The most likely option was the most terrifying. He shook the thought away. There weren’t hunters in the woods outside Bearhaven. There couldn’t be.
“As for the threat of a security breach that the unidentified humans pose … ” B.D. rose onto his hind legs. He towered over the council. “Bearhaven is on lockdown. Effective immediately.”
Spencer stepped out of the Lab and into the pitch-black night. Bearhaven was dark. Much darker than he’d ever seen it. The lights that usually illuminated the Lab were off; so was the lantern that lit the head of the path back to Bearhaven’s center.
“Aldo,” Spencer whispered into the dark, afraid to break the silence that seemed to have fallen over the entire valley.
“I’m right behind you, little man,” Aldo answered, then stepped up to Spencer’s side. Spencer could just make out the bear. “Welcome to lockdown mode.”
“All the lights go off?” Spencer asked.
“The outdoor lights do. This is a Level Two Lockdown. Bears can keep the lights on in their houses, and there is a curfew; everyone is supposed to stay inside after dark. Come on, we should get home.” The bear hurried toward the path that would take them back to the Weavers’ house. In the dark, Spencer could barely see where they were going. He broke into a jog to keep up with the shadow he knew was Aldo.
Bearhaven seemed deserted. It wasn’t until they passed the glowing windows at Raymond’s that Spencer saw any proof the bears were still here at all. The dining room was illuminated, but the tables were mostly empty. A few bears were sitting in front of platters of half-eaten food, deep in what looked like worried conversation.
“Aldo, how did everyone know to go into lockdown mode?” Spencer asked.
“A message came through our BEAR-COMs. You were still in the council meeting. I guess since B.D. made the decision, the council heard it directly from him.”
“Oh, yeah.” Spencer wondered what the council was discussing now. Their meeting was still going on in the Lab, but Aldo had been right. Everyone felt like Spencer had already done enough. They did not want his help. Instead, they had dismissed him, sending him back to the Weavers’.
Aldo hurried up the Weavers’ front path and pushed open the front door. He stepped inside and swung his head from side to side, sniffing rapidly. Spencer could tell the bear hoped his younger sister had returned while they were gone.
She hadn’t.
Spencer stepped into the honey-colored living room and closed the door behind them. Lisle was standing beside the fireplace. She glanced at Spencer but looked away without saying anything.
“What’s going on?” she asked her brother. “The lockdown message said there were humans at the perimeter.”
“Three humans were smelled in the woods right outside Bearhaven.”
“And Kate?” Lisle asked.
“No sign of her.”
“That’s all the information?” Lisle asked. “Kate’s still out there all alone?”
“So far,” Aldo answered. “I looked at footage from all the surveillance cameras myself. There’s nothing there.”
“Lisle, I—” Spencer wanted to apologize for the part he’d played in Kate’s disappearance, but Lisle cut him off.
“Let’s just focus on Kate’s safe return, Spencer.” Lisle’s voice was quiet. She seemed exhausted and barely looked at him when she spoke. She tried to cover a yawn.
“You should get some rest,” Aldo said. He moved to stoke the fire. “I’ll stay up in case Kate comes home.”
“Wake me if you hear anything?”
Aldo nodded. Lisle padded toward the stairs, heading to the room she shared with Kate.
After a moment, Spencer spoke up.
“I think Kirby can help us,” he said, sitting on the couch facing the massive stone fireplace. “I know she’s technically a suspect, but she didn’t do anything to Kate. She was with me when Kate ran into the woods. She could have information the Bear Guard doesn’t. She has her own cameras and surveillance all over the woods. She spends all her time watching the forest, Aldo. She must have seen something.”
“Did you tell this to B.D.?”
“I tried.” Spencer shrugged. “He doesn’t want to listen to me right now. Nobody does … ”
Aldo paced. “Okay. I’m listening.”
Spencer took a deep breath and sat up straight. “Let’s go to Kirby. You and me.” Aldo stopped pacing and stared into the fire. Spencer rushed on. “There’s no way I’ll be able to sneak out of Bearhaven again by myself, especially with the lockdown. Besides, it takes way too long and they’re going to be watching me and the security cameras more carefully than ever. The only way is if you take me up over the bridge in the trees.”
“I could lose my cuffs,” Aldo said without turning around.
“You could save your sister,” Spencer said.
Aldo looked down at the silver cuffs on his front legs. Spencer knew how proud the bear was of his position in the Bear Guard. It took a lot of training and hard work to earn the right to wear those cuffs. Kate said Aldo made sure to shine his cuffs every night before bed, and from the way they gleamed, Spencer was sure it was true.
They lapsed into silence. The sound of the fire crackled through the room. Spencer’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He tried to ignore his hunger, waiting for Aldo’s answer.
After a long moment, Spencer’s stomach growled again. He moved toward the kitchen, ready to climb up onto the bears’ stone counter and find some food. Then Aldo started talking.
“When I got onto the Bear Guard, Kate was more excited than anyone. She baked a dandelion cake just for me, you know. It was really sweet, but also a little terrible because then I had to eat it … ” Spencer held his breath. He was afraid to interrupt Aldo. The bear seemed to be thinking aloud. “Kate’s not a very good cook, even though she wants to be, but she was so excited to hear that I was getting my cuffs that she ran home from school and made a mess of the kitchen before anyone else got here.”
Spencer laughed, then stopped himself. He didn’t think the bear was trying to be funny.
Aldo turned around to face Spencer. “I ate every bite of that gross cake. It wasn’t even that bad, because I knew how happy it made Kate.”
Spencer swallowed hard. Does this mean he’ll take me to Kirby? He didn’t ask, afraid to push the bear. He didn’t have to; Aldo started talking again.
“I’ll do whatever I can to get my little sister back.”
“So you’re saying—”
Aldo cut him off. “How do we find Kirby?”
Spencer pulled the crumpled-up piece of notebook paper from his pocket. “Did they teach you how to read coordinates in guard training?”
The alarm on Spencer’s cell phone went off at six fifteen the next morning, but he was already awake. In fact, he hadn’t slept a wink all night. He turned off the silent, vibrating alarm and
checked to make sure the phone was charging. He took one last look at the open atlas on his bedroom floor and the map lying beside it. Cheng and his Boy Scout friends would be impressed, Spencer thought. He’d spent the night using the atlas to draw a path to Kirby’s house on a paper map of the area Aldo had given him. He had used Kirby’s coordinates to locate her house in the atlas, then he’d compared its location with Aldo’s map, which didn’t have the latitude and longitude marked. He’d drawn a big red X over the spot where Kirby’s house should be.
Spencer closed the atlas and returned it to his bookshelf. He was just folding the paper map and stuffing it into his backpack when there was a light tap on the door. He opened the door a crack. Aldo was in the hallway looking nervously from side to side.
“There hasn’t been any update,” Aldo reported quietly. He stepped into Spencer’s bedroom. Aldo and Spencer had agreed to go to Kirby if the Bear Council and Bear Guard hadn’t made any progress in finding Kate overnight. Now, Spencer’s excitement began to build. They were going on their own mission. They were going to help find Kate!
“Mom hasn’t come home yet, and Dad was in the Lab with her most of the night, but he just got back and fell asleep upstairs on the couch. We’ll have to get past him on our way out.” The bear turned to lead the way, but Spencer stopped him.
“Aldo, your cuffs … ” Last night, Spencer had prepared for this trip to Kirby’s by reviewing the things he’d seen B.D. and Uncle Mark do right before the rescue mission to Jay Grady’s—the only mission Spencer had ever been on. And B.D. had taken his cuffs off before leaving the TUBE. He’d said it would be too dangerous to wear the cuffs in public.
At the very least, without his cuffs it would be easier for Aldo to move through the woods unnoticed, and less suspicious if he happened to be seen. “You can leave them in here.” Spencer opened one of his dresser drawers and motioned to the soft piles of folded clothing inside. “They’ll be safe until we get back.”
Aldo hesitated. He probably hasn’t taken them off since he became a member of the Bear Guard, Spencer realized. After a moment, the bear extended a paw over the clothing in Spencer’s dresser. He used the claws of one front paw to push the cuff off the other. Spencer thought he saw Aldo flinch when the gleaming silver cuff hit the clothing in the drawer. “This better work,” Aldo said, forcing a smile and moving on to the second cuff.
I know, Spencer wanted to answer. Trust me, I know. “It will,” he said as he nestled the silver cuffs down between two piles of sweatshirts.
Spencer closed the drawer before Aldo could change his mind about leaving the cuffs behind. He slung his backpack onto his back. They set off down the hallway. All the bedroom doors were shut tight. The giant screen in the family room that was usually filled with Salmon King’s flashing fins and leaping bears was dark. Spencer had never heard the Weavers’ house so quiet.
When Aldo started to climb the stairs, Spencer realized the difference between his own silent walking that he practiced in STORM training and the silent walking of a trained member of the Bear Guard. Aldo moved his large body up the stairs without any sound at all. But when Spencer stepped onto the bottom stair, his sneaker hit the stone with a faint thud. Aldo’s ears snapped to attention. Spencer didn’t move. The bear returned to the bottom of the stairs just as silently as he’d gone up. When he reached Spencer, he lowered his belly to the floor and motioned for Spencer to climb onto his back.
Spencer wanted to protest. He didn’t need help! He could do silent walking. He’d trained for this! But he was afraid to wake up Professor Weaver. He grabbed the soft fur at Aldo’s neck with both hands and climbed onto the bear’s back. As soon as Spencer had a tight grip on Aldo, they crept up the stairs in just a few seconds. They passed through the living room without waking the professor, opened the heavy front door, and stepped out onto the Weavers’ front path. Without warning, Aldo broke into a gallop.
“Aldo!” Spencer hissed, bumping against the bear’s back as they tore through Bearhaven. He held on with all his might, squeezing Aldo’s body with his legs. “Aldo!” he whispered again. This wasn’t what Spencer had in mind for their mission. He’d thought they’d be more like two undercover operatives, silent walking, sneaking through Bearhaven side by side.
Spencer could only see their progress in brief glances as they left the town behind and broke out into the valley. Every time he tried to lift his head to look around, the bear’s black-and-tan fur filled his eyes. He felt Aldo start up a steep hill. We’re almost to the clearing! Even though Spencer had expected to sneak out of Bearhaven on his own two legs, he had to admit they were moving much faster this way, and riding a bear wasn’t the worst way to travel.
“Hold on tight, now!” Aldo called. Spencer lifted his head to check their surroundings. The clearing was just a few paces ahead. Aldo wasn’t slowing down. Wait … Spencer thought as his view got blocked by fur. We can’t take the tree elevator up to the bridge above the trees. That will give us away in a minute! The Bear Guard would be alerted as soon as the elevator was in use, but it looked like Aldo had already figured that out.
“Aldo, wait!” Spencer cried. He tightened his grip on the bear just in time. Aldo launched himself at one of the trees and began to climb at a pace that only a young, trained member of the Bear Guard would be able to manage. Leaves and air whipped past Spencer as they climbed high into the tree. He tried to scream but his mouth filled with fur. They were going too fast! It was getting harder to hold on. The familiar images Spencer couldn’t explain suddenly filled his head: leaves and branches snapping back into place as he fell through them. Now, this time, he also saw a bear’s face—Yude.
Before Spencer could react, the climb was over. Aldo hopped onto the bridge and came to a stop, breathing heavily.
“You all right up there?” the bear asked almost casually once he’d caught his breath.
“You didn’t tell me we were going to do that!” Spencer yelled, trying to recover. How had the plan he’d made so carefully to sneak out of Bearhaven gone so haywire?
“What did you think we were going to do?” Aldo sounded surprised. “You said you needed me to bring you over the bridge.”
“I didn’t—I thought—you should have warned me!” Spencer sputtered. It didn’t matter. They were above the trees now. “There isn’t a camera up here?” He scanned the nearby branches for a fake beehive.
“Not right here. There’s one on the other side, but we’re in a blind spot. Sorry if I scared you,” Aldo added. “I thought I was just following the plan.” He started to pad across the bridge. “I’m going to jump onto a tree trunk to our left in a few steps. That way the camera won’t see us. I’ll climb to the ground from there, all right?”
Spencer took a deep breath. He didn’t see any other option. “All right.” A moment later they were in the air. There was a thud as Aldo made perfect contact with a tree. They started to descend.
Spencer slipped down off Aldo’s back. “That’s better,” he muttered, glad to have his feet on the ground again. The trip down from the bridge in the trees hadn’t been as bad as the trip up, but Spencer was happy it was over. He took off his backpack and pulled out the map he’d drawn. The sooner they set off toward Kirby’s, the better.
Aldo stretched and shook out his fur. “The sun’s coming up,” he said. He rose onto his hind legs to inspect the woods. “Smells like the coast is clear. How far is Kirby’s?”
“A couple of miles, if my map’s right.” Spencer laid the map on the ground between them and took out his phone. “We need to start going south.” He tapped his compass app and waited for it to load.
“That’s this way.” Aldo dropped back to all fours and walked a few paces in one direction. The compass app finally loaded, confirming the direction Aldo was heading was definitely south.
“Impressive!” Spencer picked up his map and followed Aldo into the woods. This might be easier than I thought. Spencer consulted his map as they walked. By the time they r
eached the edge of a large open field, the sun had finished rising, and Spencer and Aldo’s stomachs were both growling for breakfast.
“If my research on coordinates was right, we should be really close now.” Spencer consulted the map.
Aldo rose up onto his hind legs and sniffed hard. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. “Kirby’s around here somewhere. At least, a human that’s not you is around here somewhere.”
Spencer pored over his map. The red X he’d marked was on one side of this clearing. “Now we need to head east!” he exclaimed. “Come on!” Spencer slung his backpack over one shoulder and started to jog into the woods with the map crumpled in his arms.
“This way, little man,” Aldo called, nodding his head in the opposite direction.
“Oh. Right,” Spencer said sheepishly. He followed Aldo, now heading east. Do bears have internal compasses? he wondered, trying to remember if his parents had ever told him that. Mom and Dad loved to tell him stories and facts about bears, and Spencer knew way more about the animals than any of the other kids back home, but he couldn’t remember ever hearing anything about bears’ incredible sense of direction.
He was about to ask Aldo when he was suddenly met with a face full of fur. Aldo had stopped walking. Spencer poked his head around the side of the bear.
Just ahead, a small white house sat surrounded by trees. Its paint was weathered and peeling, and the porch in the front was supported by cinder blocks. A narrow dirt driveway curled off into the woods, but there wasn’t a single car parked in it. The house looked abandoned. The huge satellite dish perched on top of the rusting metal roof was the only sign anyone might really be living there.
“I guess this is it,” Spencer whispered. He tried to step around Aldo, but the bear blocked his path.
“Not so fast,” Aldo said, nudging Spencer backward. “You can’t go marching in there holding a map straight to Bearhaven.”
“Oh, right … ” Spencer stuffed the map inside his backpack. His excitement kicked in again.