The Quest Begins

by Erin Hunter

  The new grizzly was sound asleep, her back rising and falling in an even rhythm. She was very thin, with patchy fur and scratches along her muzzle. Lusa wondered what had happened to make her look so battered. Had she been in a fight? If so, she’d lost, by the look of it.

  Grumps ambled over from his corner. He sniffed the newcomer with a grim look on his face, and then lumbered back to his corner, where he sat down with his back to her, grumbling.

  “I don’t think Grumps wants to share,” Lusa said to Yogi.

  “Maybe he’s worried she’ll want to eat all his food,” Yogi said. “She’s so thin—she must be starving!”

  “Where do you think she comes from?” Lusa wondered. “Do you think she’s a wild bear? Did she come from the forest and the mountain? Has she been out there her whole life? Do you think she’s met tigers and elephants and flamingos?”

  “How should I know?” Yogi said. “She’s just a brown bear. It’s not that interesting.” He turned and wandered over to the food bowl, searching for leftovers.

  Lusa ran to the Bear Tree and clambered up. She pulled herself onto a long branch that stretched out close to the Fence, from where she had a clear view into the brown bear enclosure.

  The she-bear kept sleeping. She seemed to sleep for a very long time. Lusa lay down on the branch and waited, watching her. She had so many questions! Especially if this was a wild bear. A real wild bear!

  Ages later, the bear stirred. Lusa sat up on her branch. Was she awake? The grizzly rolled onto her side and twitched her paws. It looked like her eyes were still closed, but her mouth was moving as if she was talking to herself. Lusa scrambled down from the tree and ran back to the Fence. She strained her ears, keeping very still so she could hear.

  It sounded like the grizzly was murmuring the word Tobi over and over again. Sometimes her voice was soft and sometimes fierce. Then the grizzly grunted in an unhappy way and whispered, “Toklo.”

  Lusa didn’t understand either of those words. Was the grizzly speaking another language—not bear language? It didn’t sound like the flat-face language, either. Then she caught the word mountain. The she-bear’s paws jerked and batted at the air, as if she was dreaming about running.

  “River,” she whispered. “To the river. Careful. Toklo…Tobi.” Her murmurs trailed away and her paws went limp again. She’d fallen back into a deeper sleep.

  Lusa was confused but also excited. If the bear was talking about mountains and rivers, surely that meant she’d come from the wild. Maybe when she woke up, Lusa would be able to find out more.

  Most of the day passed before the strange bear awoke. Lusa had given up watching her and was practicing climbing the tree again, digging her claws into the bark and experimenting to see if she could climb down headfirst, which didn’t seem to work very well. Yogi was perched on a boulder, calling out unhelpful suggestions.

  “Let go and jump!” he shouted. “Maybe you’ll find out you can fly!”

  Lusa ignored him. He wasn’t as interested in climbing as she was, which meant she was already much better at it, even though he was moons older than her.

  Suddenly an angry roar split the air. Startled, Lusa nearly lost her grip on the branch, but she dug her claws in before she could tumble out of the tree. She clung to the trunk, panting. She’d never heard a roar with so much fury and outrage and pain in it before. King’s roars were stern and commanding. Grumps sometimes roared in a grouchy, irritated way. But this roar was different. It had to be the new she-bear.

  Lusa crept along the branch and peered down into the brown bear enclosure. The new grizzly was running around and around the Bowl, charging at the Fences. She reared up on her hind legs and scraped her front claws against the back wall, roaring furiously.

  Grumps looked bewildered. He was up on his hind paws, looking from the she-bear to the wall where several flat-faces were watching.

  Yogi came running over and scrambled up the tree beside Lusa. His eyes were enormous and he was shaking like the trees in a storm. “That bear is crazy!” he declared.

  “I think she’s sad,” Lusa said. The she-bear had sounded sad when she’d been whispering those odd words. “Maybe she’s lonely.”

  “Lonely?” Yogi snorted. “She’s got a brain full of bees.”

  “She needs a friend,” Lusa decided.

  “She doesn’t want to make friends!”

  “How do you know?” Lusa challenged. “Maybe I’ll be her friend.”

  “Ha!” Yogi flicked his ears. “She won’t talk to you. You’ll just make her madder if you try.”

  “We’ll see,” Lusa said, lying down on the branch to watch the raging grizzly.

  Finally the she-bear wore herself out. She stopped running and collapsed near the fence, breathing heavily with exhaustion.

  “Here I go,” Lusa said, sitting up.

  “You’re going to get your nose clawed off,” Yogi growled.

  Lusa climbed down the tree and padded over to the Fence near the new bear. She crept up carefully, trying not to make any sudden noises. The grizzly swung her head around and saw the black bear cub approaching. She lowered her head and barked, but Lusa couldn’t tell if it was an unfriendly noise or not.

  “Hello,” Lusa said, scratching the dirt nervously with her paws. “I’m Lusa. What’s your name?”

  The grizzly sighed and closed her eyes. Lusa waited for a moment, and then, disappointed, she turned to go back to the tree.

  “It’s Oka,” the brown bear growled. Lusa jumped. At least the bear wasn’t speaking that strange language anymore.

  Lusa pressed closer to the Fence. “Welcome to the Bear Bowl, Oka,” she said. Feeling bolder, she lifted herself onto her hind legs and sniffed the air, trying to figure out what she could smell in Oka’s scent. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “Were you in the wild? Did you live on the mountain? Have you seen a forest?”

  But Oka turned her massive head away and buried it between her paws.

  “I told you she wouldn’t want to make friends!” Yogi called from the tree.

  “Maybe later?” Lusa said to Oka, backing away. “Whenever you’re feeling better, I’ll be right here.” Of course, she had nowhere else to go.

  Oka slept for the rest of the day, staying outside when night fell instead of going into the grizzly Caves with Grumps. Lusa came out the next morning to find Oka stomping around on the other side of the Fence, growling and muttering. Sometimes she would attack the tree that grew at the back of the grizzly enclosure, shredding its bark and snapping savagely at its branches. This worried Lusa a lot, because if there were bear spirits living in that tree, they wouldn’t be very pleased. She hoped they were all right.

  She stayed away from the Fence, playing with Yogi and rolling around to make the flat-faces laugh. It was the first really hot day of leaftime, and lots of flat-face cubs were visiting, chattering and pointing at her. Lusa was able to get three different feeders to throw her extra fruit, which made her feel very clever.

  “It’s going to rain tonight,” Stella announced as they ate their evening meal. “I can feel the air getting thicker and wetter.”

  Lusa sniffed. She could see what Stella meant—clouds were rolling in and the sky seemed all crackly around the edges.

  “Oka will sleep in the Caves if it’s raining, won’t she?” Lusa said.

  “Who’s Oka?” Stella asked.

  “The new grizzly,” Lusa said, pointing toward the Fence with her muzzle. “She slept outside last night, but if there’s a storm—”

  “You shouldn’t be worrying yourself about grizzlies, little blackberry,” Stella interrupted. “It’s not your problem if she sleeps outside in the rain.”

  But Lusa was worried about Oka. A heavy rain started shortly after dark, and as Lusa crept back under the shelter, she could see Oka’s blurry hulking shape crouched in the corner near the Fence, away from the trees or anything that could shield her from the storm.

  The rain pounded on the roof all n
ight as Lusa dreamed about the sad, lonely bear outside. She woke up near dawn when the rain finally stopped. Yogi was sprawled across the den with one of his paws flopped over her head. Lusa climbed free carefully so she wouldn’t wake him and went outside.

  Birds were twittering in the trees, and the air had a fresh, newly washed feeling to it, like the best fruit the feeders brought before Yogi trampled on it. There were still piles of gray clouds in the sky, but light pink rays of sunlight were starting to peek through as the sun came up.

  Oka was lying in the corner where she’d first met Lusa. Her wet fur was steaming in the cool early-morning air.

  Hesitantly Lusa approached, but although Oka was watching her, the grizzly made no move to run away. Lusa sat down by the Fence and tilted her head, studying the brown bear. “Did you stay out here all night in the rain?” she asked. “Don’t you mind getting wet?”

  Oka closed her eyes and didn’t respond.

  “Maybe you’re used to it,” Lusa guessed. “You must get rained on all the time in the wild. Right?”

  Oka still didn’t answer.

  “I wish I could go into the wild,” Lusa went on. “I’d like to see a forest and catch my own prey.”

  Oka snorted, making Lusa jump. “There is no prey,” the brown bear snarled. Her eyes were open now, black and fierce. “There’s nothing to eat.”

  “But you must have eaten something. I thought the wild was full of food.”

  “It used to be,” Oka growled. “Fishing…finding fish in the rivers was what we used to do. Back…back then.”

  “What’s a river?” Lusa asked.

  “It’s a long tongue of water that rolls through the hills and mountains and forests, carrying fish.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a fish,” Lusa admitted. “But I know they bring them for Grumps sometimes. And the white bears eat them, too, so I know what they smell like.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Fish is a brown bear’s favorite food,” Oka said. She still had her eyes half closed. “Toklo would have liked fish. He would have been good at catching fish. Maybe he is now…but I’ll never know.” She stopped abruptly.

  “Who’s Toklo?” Lusa prompted.

  “Tobi,” Oka murmured, curling onto her side and resting her muzzle on the ground. “Why did you leave us? I’m sorry I couldn’t feed you enough, but didn’t I try? Couldn’t you have held on?”

  “Who are Tobi and Toklo?” Lusa begged, pulling herself up on her hind legs by hooking her claws in the fence. “Oka, please tell me who they are.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve had to do, Tobi,” Oka whispered without looking up. “What I had to do to poor Toklo. What I was forced to do, just to stay alive. Scavenging from flat-face dens, eating scraps out of metal containers, running for my life from the firebeasts.” A violent shudder wracked her body. “Toklo,” she cried again. “I’m sorry, Toklo.”

  She closed her eyes. Lusa stared at Oka in dismay. She hadn’t meant to upset her. Quietly she dropped to all fours and backed away. Whatever had happened before Oka came to the Bear Bowl, it must have been truly terrible.

  Lusa left Oka alone for a few days, worried that she’d upset the brown bear again if she tried to talk to her. But Oka stayed huddled by the Fence most of the time, and finally Lusa decided to try again. Maybe Oka needed a real bear to talk to instead of her sad memories. Perhaps telling Lusa about them would make her feel better.

  The sun was high in the sky, and Yogi and Stella were lying in the Mountains being boring instead of playing. Lusa climbed out of her perch in the tree and padded close to the Fence. She passed by Oka’s spot, waiting to see if the grizzly would respond. Nothing happened, so she turned around and walked past again.

  Oka grunted. Lusa stopped immediately. It wasn’t quite a “hello,” but it didn’t sound like “go away,” either. She sidled closer.

  “Hi, Oka,” she said. “How are you feeling today?”

  Oka blinked and grunted again.

  “The Bear Bowl isn’t so bad, is it?” Lusa tried. “I know Grumps is kind of…grumpy…but the bears on this side of the Fence are nice, I promise. That biggest one over there, drinking from the water dish, is my father, King. My mother, Ashia, is inside the Caves, napping. And that lazy lump of fur on the closest rock is my friend Yogi. You might like him—he’s funny when he’s not annoying.”

  Oka’s ears twitched. Lusa hoped that meant she was listening. She sat down and ran her claws through the dirt.

  “King came from the wild, too, like you,” she went on. “He wouldn’t tell me about the mountain, though. Mother said there’s one you can see from outside the Bear Bowl. Is that where you came from?”

  “There are many mountains,” Oka murmured. Lusa perked up her ears. “I came through many, many mountains…. They caught me on one shaped like a bear’s snout, with snow at the top…cold snow, freezing my paws…Poor Toklo.”

  “What else did you see?” Lusa prompted.

  “There was a river,” the brown bear said, gazing up at the sky. “A long journey…I followed it until I found a dry riverbed to walk along. Journey…journey…three lakes at the edge of a dead forest.”

  “A dead forest?” Lusa echoed with a shiver. “Why was it dead? Who killed it?”

  “The fire from the sky,” Oka whispered, as if talking to herself. “The fire that roars like a bear when it rains.”

  “I know that fire!” Lusa cried. “I’ve seen it in the clouds! It’s so loud, my ears hurt for days afterward. I didn’t know it could come down from the sky!”

  “It can,” Oka said, “and when it touches a tree, it can spread fire through a whole forest.”

  Lusa stared at her in alarm. “But what about the spirits in the trees? The dead bears?”

  “Dead bears?” Oka roared. “What do you know about dead bears? Why are you asking me all these questions? Leave me alone!” She jumped to her paws and galloped away to the far side of the clearing.

  Lusa leaped back. “I’m sorry!” she called after Oka. “I didn’t mean to bother you!”

  “Shhh, little cub,” Ashia said, coming up behind her. “It’s not your fault. That bear has problems you can’t help with.”

  That didn’t make Lusa feel any better. She felt sorry for Oka, and she wanted to find a way to help her, if she could.

  That night she had strange dreams of racing through an ice-cold river, watching silver fish leap and splash in the water around her. Above her head birds screeched in the sky and fire flashed in the clouds. The wind rushed through her fur and the trees around her called out to be climbed, using the voices of black bears from long ago.

  She woke while it was still dark, feeling restless and hot. The den seemed more cramped than usual, the walls pressing in around her. Even when she was outside, Lusa wished for more space to run, so she could really stretch her paws. She wanted new trees to climb, with different bark and unfamiliar branches that would challenge her. She wanted to eat something new and catch her own prey.

  She climbed onto one of the boulders and sat down, looking up at the fading night sky. It didn’t feel right to call this rock a Mountain anymore, not after the stories she’d heard about real mountains. She searched the sky until she found the Bear Watcher. It shone brightly and steadily, and she wondered if it watched her as closely as it watched wild bears.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” a deep voice said from behind her. Lusa scrambled around, slipping on the rock, until she faced her father. King was sitting on his haunches, looking up at the Bear Watcher, too.

  “You do?” Lusa said. “You mean you feel it, too?”

  King growled. “A little restlessness is natural when leaftime starts,” he said. “But I see the way you pace and sniff the air. That brown bear is filling your head with strange ideas.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Lusa insisted. “She’s just telling me about the wild.”

  “You don’t need to know about that,” King said. He stood up and turned to walk
away, but he paused and looked back for a moment. “I want you to leave that bear alone,” he rumbled.

  “But—” Lusa started.

  “Don’t argue with me, Lusa,” he growled.

  He padded over to one of the trees and began to scratch his back against the bark. Lusa watched mutinously, her fur prickling. It wasn’t fair! Why couldn’t she listen to Oka’s stories?

  The dark bulk of her mother emerged from the den behind them. Lusa could tell from the look on Ashia’s face that she had heard their conversation.

  “He’s right, little cub,” Ashia said, pressing her muzzle into Lusa’s side. She licked Lusa’s nose and nuzzled her. “You should stay away from that bear.”

  “Why?” Lusa asked, climbing onto her mother’s lap and burying her face in her fur.

  “Because she’s not well,” Ashia said. “When a mother loses her cubs, sometimes her heart gets sick and she doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  Her cubs! Lusa thought with a jolt. That must be who Tobi and Toklo are! But Oka had spoken as if Toklo were still alive. Lusa wondered how she had lost him.

  “You see how dangerous it is in the wild,” Ashia went on. “There’s no future for bears out there. We are much better off in here, where we are safe and well fed. There’s nothing to attack us or hurt us, and food comes every day, no matter what. The flat-faces take care of us.” She nudged Lusa’s muzzle with her own. “I’m glad I didn’t have to try and feed you on my own out in the wild, like that poor grizzly did.” Ashia shook herself, fluffing out her fur and tumbling Lusa onto the ground.

  “Do as your father says, little cub,” she said affectionately. “You’ll be happier if you stop listening to these stories and stop thinking so much about the wild.”

  She turned and went back into the den. Lusa watched her go, then looked up at the Bear Watcher again. How could she stop thinking about the wild? Especially when the air was so full of the smell of wild things growing? She padded over to the tallest tree and launched herself up the trunk, scrambling up as high as she dared to go. Then she stretched out her muzzle toward the Bear Watcher star.