Cynthia Manson (ed) (22 page)

I went right up to Homer to tell him
off for selling the bear to somebody else instead of to me but before I could
open my mouth, he said, “That wasn’t right, Mrs. Slowinski, but as long as it’s
done, I won’t make a fuss. Just give me the eighteen dollars and we’ll forget
about it.”

That was like accusing me of
stealing, and Milly Ungaric was standing near and she had that nasty smile on
her face, so I knew who had stolen the bear. I ignored what Homer said and
asked, “Who was on duty last night?” We don’t have a fancy alarm system in
Pitman; one of the firemen sleeps in the firehouse near the phone.

“Shorty Porter,” Homer said, and I
went right off.

I got hold of him on the side.
“Levi, did you see anyone come in last night?” I asked. “I mean late.”

“Only Miz Mildred.” he said. “Just
before I went to sleep.”

Well, I knew it was her, but that
wasn’t what I meant. “I mean after you went to sleep. Did any noise wake you
up?”

“When I sleep, Miz Sophie, only the phone
bell wakes me up.”

She must have come back later, the
doors are never locked, and taken the bear. She’s big enough, but how could she
reach it? She couldn’t climb over the shelves, everything would be knocked
over. And she couldn’t reach it from the floor. So how did she do it? Maybe it
wasn’t her, though I would have liked it to be. I went back to Homer. He was
tall enough and had arms like a chimpanzee. “Homer,” I said, “I’m going to
forget what you said if you’ll just do one thing. Stand in front of the toys
and reach for the top shelf.”

He got red, but he didn’t blow.
After a minute he said, sort of strangled, “I already thought of that. If I
can’t reach it by four feet, nobody can. Tell you what; give me seventeen
dollars and explain how you did it, and I’ll pay the other dollar out of my own
pocket.”

“You always were a stupid, nasty
boy, Homer, and you always will be. Well, if you won’t help me, I’ll have to
find out by myself, start at the beginning and trace who’d want to steal a
funny-looking bear like that. Who donated the bear?”

“People just put toys in the boxes
near the door. We pick out the ones for the auction and the ones for the Santa
Claus boxes. No way of knowing who gave what.”

I knew he wouldn’t be any help, so I
got Carrie and Debbie and went to the one man in town who might help me trace
the bear, Mr. Wong. He doesn’t have just a grocery, a
credit
grocery,
thank God; he carries things you wouldn’t even find in Pittsburgh. His kids
were all grown, all famous scientists and doctors and professors, but he still
stayed here, even after Mrs. Wong died. Mrs. Wong never spoke a word of
English, but she understood everything. Used to be, her kids all came here for
Chinese New Year—that’s about a month after ours—and they’d have a big feast and
bring the grandchildren. Funny how Mrs. Wong was able to raise six kids in real
hard times, but none of her children has more than two. Now, on Chinese New
Year, Mr. Wong closes the store for a week and goes to one of his kids. But he
always comes back here.

“Look I have for you,” he said, and
gave Debbie a little snake on a stick, the kind where you turn it and the snake
moves like it’s real. She was still sniffling, but she smiled a little. The
store was chock full of all kinds of Chinese things; little dragons and fat
Buddhas with bobbing heads and candied ginger. I knew I was in the right place.

“Did you ever sell anyone a teddy
bear?” I asked. “Not a regular teddy bear, but a black one with big purple
eyes.”

“No sell,” he said. “Give.”

“Okay.” I had struck gold on the
first try. “Who’d you give it to?”

“Nobody. Put in box in firehouse.”

“You mean for the auction?”

“Petrina nice girl. Like Debbie.
Very sick. Must help.”

“But...” Dead end. I’d have to find
another way to trace the bear so I could find out who’d want to steal it. “All
right, where’d you get the teddy bear?”

“Grandmother give me. Before I go U.
S. Make good luck. Not teddy bear. Blue bear. From Kansu.”

“You mean there’s a bear that looks
like this?”

“Oh yes. Chinese bear. Moon bear.
Very danger. Strong. In Kansu.”

“Your grandmother
made
it?
For you?”

“Not
make
, make. Grandfather
big hunter, kill bear. Moon bear very big good luck. Eat bear, get strong, very
good. Have good luck in U. S.”

“That bear is real bearskin?”

“Oh yes. Grandmother cut little
piece for here,” he put his hand under his chin, “and for here.” he put his
hand on his chest. “Make moon.” He moved his hand in the crescent shape the
bear had on its chest. “Why call moon bear.”

“You had that since you were a
little boy?” I was touched. “And you gave it for Petrina? Instead of your own
grandchildren?”

“Own grandchildren want sportcar,
computer, skateboard, not old Chinese

bear.”

Well, that was typical of all modern
kids, not just Chinese, but it didn’t get me any closer to finding out who had
stolen the teddy bear, the moon bear. Deborah, though, was listening with wide
eyes, no longer crying. But what was worse, that romantic story would make it
all the harder on her if I didn’t get that bear back. She went up to the
counter and asked. ‘Did it come in?”

“Oh yes.” He reached down and put a
wooden lazy tongs on top of the counter.

“I got it for you, Grandma.” Debbie
said, “for your arthritis, so you don’t have to bend down. I was going to save
it for under the tree, but you looked so sad...”

God bless you, Deborah. I said in my
heart, that’s the answer. I put my fingers in the scissor grip and extended the
tongs. They were only about three feet long, not long enough, and they were
already beginning to bend under their own weight. No way anyone, not even
Mildred Ungaric, could use them to steal the moon bear. Then I knew. For sure.
I turned around and there it was. hanging on the top shelf. I turned back to
Mr. Wong and said, casually, “What do you call that thing grocers use to get cans
from the top shelf? The long stickhandle with the grippers at the end?”

“Don’t know. In Chinese I say. ‘Get
can high shelf. ‘ “

“Doesn’t matter. Why did you steal
the bear back? Decided to sell it to a museum or something?”

“‘No. Why I steal? If I want sell, I
no give.” He was puzzled, not insulted. “Somebody steal moon bear?”

He was right. But so was I. At least
I knew
how
it was stolen. You didn’t need a “get can high shelf.” All
the thief needed was a long thing with a hook on the end. Or a noose. Like a
broomstick. Or a fishing rod. Anything that would reach from where you were
standing to the top of the back row so you could get the bear without knocking
over the shelves or the other toys. It had to be Mildred Ungaric; she might be
mean, but she wasn’t stupid. Any woman had enough long sticks in her kitchen,
and enough string and hooks to make a bear-stealer, though she’d look awful
funny walking down the street carrying one of those. But it didn’t have to be
that way. There was something in the firehouse that anyone could use, one of
those long poles with the hooks on the end they break your windows with when
you have a fire. All you’d have to do is get that hook under the string that
held the number tag around the moon bear’s neck and do it quietly enough not to
wake Levi Porter. Which meant that anyone in town could have stolen the moon
bear.

But who would? It would be like
stealing from poor little Petrina herself. Mildred was mean, but even she
wouldn’t do that. Homer was nasty; maybe he accused me to cover up for himself.
Mr. Wong might have changed his mind, in spite of what he said; you don’t give
away a sixty-year-old childhood memory like that without regrets. Levi Porter
was in the best position to do it; there was only his word that he slept all
through the night and he has eight kids he can hardly feed. Heck, anyone in
town could have done it. All I knew was that I didn’t.

So who stole the moon bear?

That night I made a special supper
for Carrie, and Deborah served. There’s nothing a waitress enjoys so much on
her time off as being served. I know; there was a time I waitressed myself.
After supper, Carrie put Deborah to bed and read to her, watched TV for a
while, then got ready to turn in herself. There’s really nothing for a young
woman to do in Pitman unless she’s the kind that runs around with the truckers
that stop by, and Carrie wasn’t that type. She had made one mistake, trusted
one boy, but that could have happened to anybody. And she did what was right
and was raising Deborah to be a pride to us all.

I stayed up and sat in my rocker,
trying to think of who would steal that bear, but there was no way to find that
out. At least it wasn’t a kid, a little kid, who had done it; those firemen’s
poles are heavy. Of course it could have been a teenager, but what would a
teenager want with a funny-looking little bear like that? There were plenty of
better toys in the lower rows to tempt a teenager, toys that anyone could take
in a second with no trouble at all. But none of them had been stolen. No, it
wasn’t a teenager; I was pretty sure of that.

Finally, I went to sleep. Or to bed,
at least. I must have been awake for half the night and didn’t come up with
anything. But I did know one thing I had to do.

That night being the last night
before Christmas Eve, they were going to hold the auction for Petrina in the
firehouse. I didn’t want to get there too early; no point in making Deborah
feel bad seeing all the other presents bought up and knowing she wasn’t going
to get her moon bear. But I did want her to know it wasn’t just idle talk when
I promised I’d get her bear back.

Debbie and I waited until the last
toy was auctioned off and Porter announced the total. Four thousand, three
hundred seventy-two dollars and fifty cents. More than we had expected and more
than enough to send the Rozovskis to New York. Then I stood up and said, “I bid
eighteen dollars, cash, for the little black bear. Number 273.”

Homer looked embarrassed. “Please,
Mrs. Slowinski, you know we don’t have that bear anymore.

“I just want to make sure,
Mr.
Curtis, that when I find that bear, it’s mine. Mine and Deborah’s. So you can
just add eighteen dollars to your total,
Mr.
Porter, and when that bear
turns up. it’s mine.” Now if anyone was seen with the bear, everybody’d know
whose it was. And what’s more, if the thief had a guilty conscience. he’d know
where to return the bear.

That night I stayed in my rocking
chair again, rocking and thinking, thinking and rocking. I was sure I was on
the right track. Why would anyone want to take the moon bear? That had to be
the way to find the thief; to figure out why anyone would take the bear. But as
much as I rocked, much as I thought, I was stuck right there. Finally, after
midnight, I gave up. There was no way to figure it out. Maybe if I slept on
it... Only trouble was. tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and even if I figured out
who took the bear, there was no way I could get it back in time to put it under
the tree so Debbie would find it when she woke up Christmas morning. For all I
knew, the bear was in Pittsburgh by now, or even back in China. Maybe I
shouldn’t have warned the thief by making such a fuss when I bought the missing
bear.

Going to bed didn’t help. I lay
awake, thinking of everything that had happened, from the time we first stood
behind the firetrucks and saw the bear, to the time in Mr. Wong’s store when I
figured out how the bear had been stolen. Then all of a sudden it was clear. I
knew who had stolen the bear. That is I knew
how
it had been stolen and
that told me
who
had stolen it which told me how. which ... What really
happened was I knew it all, all at once. Of course. I didn’t know
where
the bear was, not exactly, but I’d get to that eventually. One thing I had to
remember was not to tell Deborah what I had figured out. Not that I was wrong—
I
wasn’t
wrong: everything fit too perfectly—but I might not be able to
get the bear back. After all, how hard would it be to destroy the bear, to burn
it or throw it in the dump, rather than go to jail?

The next morning Deborah woke me.
“It’s all right, Grandma.” she said. “I didn’t really want that old moon bear.
I really wanted a wetting doll. Or a plain doll. So don’t cry.” I wasn’t aware
I was crying, but I guess I was. Whatever else I had done in my life, whatever
else Carrie had done, to bring to life, to bring up such a sweet wonderful
human being, a girl like this, one to be so proud of, that made up for
everything. I only wished Jake could have been here with me to see her. And
Wesley Sladen, the fool, to see what he’d missed.

I didn’t say anything during
breakfast—we always let Carrie sleep late because of her hours but right after
we washed up, I dressed Deborah warmly. “We’re going for a long walk.” I told
her. She took my hand and we started out.

I went to the garage where he worked
and motioned Levi Porter to come out. He came, wiping his hands on a rag.
Without hesitating, I told him what I had to tell him. “You stole the teddy
bear. You swiveled the ladder on the ladder truck around, pointing in the right
direction, and turned the winch until the ladder extended over the bear. Then
you crawled out on the flat ladder and stole the bear. After you put everything
back where it was before, you went to sleep.”