Howl (7 page)

“I know, you’ll take care of them too,” Robin said, running her palm along her dog’s back. She did this over and over until Relentless shivered with pleasure.

“Where’s your sister?” Griff asked. “Wasn’t she supposed to help?”

Robin shrugged. “On the phone. With one of her five million new friends.”

Griff nodded pensively. “I never made friends easily. Always took me awhile. She got a boyfriend yet?”

“Nope. But there’s tons interested — so she says!” Robin sighed. “I guess all that make-up is paying off.”

Griff raised an eyebrow but did not speak.

“No!” Griff pulled a puppy they’d nicknamed Tugger away from her bootlaces.

They’d given some of the puppies names. Tugger because he was always pulling on things, Snooze because he fell asleep so easily, and Greedy Guts because she bullied others at the food tray.

“I’m going to get some more clean straw,” Griff said. “Be right back.”

Robin watched as Tugger yanked Snooze’s tail. “Hey!” she said, prodding him away, but he simply turned his attentions to the frayed bottoms of her jeans. She picked him up and tapped his nose with her finger. “Stop being such a troublemaker. I have enough of those in my life as it is.”

Of course, she was thinking about Brittany. The incident in the cafeteria had been a while ago now, but, like a broken DVD, it kept replaying on the screen of her mind. Had Brittany meant to flip her lunch tray like that? Robin was convinced she had. She just wished she’d smacked Brittany, right there on the spot. Or at least told her off. But had she? Oh no! She’d just stood there and done nothing. Like some pathetic wuss.

Since then, she’d washed her green shirt five times but hadn’t been able to get out the ketchup stains. She couldn’t get the sound of the kids laughing out of her mind either. Or stop that stupid photo Zo-Zo had taken from flashing in her memory. Despite her every attempt to leave the event behind, the humiliating images kept chasing after her and swarming her like a gang of thugs.

She had another worry too: Brodie. She kept imagining conversations with him, even fantasies about him walking her home, and the two of them doing homework together. Which was stupid. Beyond stupid. A good-looking guy like Brodie would never be interested in someone like her. Boys wanted real girls. Girls who actually
had
fingernails. And long, silky hair like her sister. But spending time with Brodie would be dangerous. Brittany had made it punch-in-the-face clear that Brodie was
her
property, property she intended to protect violently if necessary.

So, every day, Robin resolved before going to school that she wouldn’t look at Brodie, and every day she broke that resolve a dozen times. At least. Besides, she couldn’t
not
look at him now that they were paired in this environmental project. It wasn’t her fault if life was throwing them together. There was a weird feeling of inevitability about it all. That’s how it had felt with her mother too.

When Robin had first found out that her mother was sick, she and everyone in her family had done everything they could to help her get better. Her father had taken over the cooking so her mom could rest, and Robin, Ari, and Squirm had made their own lunches and cleaned their rooms. They had even stopped fighting, at least in front of her.

Their mother had gone on a special diet, taken vitamins, gotten massages and did what she called “visualizations,” where she pictured herself being healthy. She lost weight anyway, then she lost her hair, and, finally, she lost her ability to move. At the end, she couldn’t even speak.

Throughout it all, Robin had prayed until she got bruises on her knees. One day, despite all her pleading, the worst thing Robin ever could have imagined had happened. “What will be, will be,” Aunt Lizzie had said, uncurling Robin’s fingers from her mother’s hand.

Robin wished she could spit those words right out of her body.

“Hey!” Squirm climbed into the pen. He dropped some old blankets on the floor over the straw. “This will keep them warm,” he said. He sat down beside Robin and picked up the smallest puppy. “I’m calling this guy Einstein. He’s way smarter than the others.” He snuggled the puppy into his neck.

Ari appeared behind him.

“Now you show up,” Robin said. “We’re all done.”

“It’s not my fault that you guys did it so fast.” Ari extended one of her long slender fingers and rubbed a puppy’s ear.

When Griff returned, Squirm said to her, “Did you see that guy in the ATV out in the field?”

“Probably Mr. Big Shot on one of his toys.”

They all went to the barn door, where they stood watching an ATV crossing the field. After the previous night’s rain, the ground was now covered in slushy snow and the ATV was leaving big muddy tracks in its wake.

“That man’s not tall enough to be Rick Kingshot,” Griff said, tracking the ATV with her eyes. She crossed her arms. “Must be Conner, his sixteen-year-old. The one who thinks he’s a big time hunter. Like his dad.”

Ari stepped forward. “That’s Conner?” She sounded breathless. “He’s like the hottest guy in school.”

Griff gave a loud sigh.

Squirm scrunched up his face as he watched the ATV. “What’s he doing?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Griff said. “Usually, Conner’s going like a bat out of hell.” But the ATV was moving slowly, as if in search of something.

Robin saw it first. Something round and black was running ahead of the ATV. A raccoon? But raccoons didn’t get that big, did they? She stared harder. When she realized what it was, she tried to say the word, but it caught in her throat. Squirm said it for her. Except he said it with excitement. She would have said it with fear.

“Bear!” Squirm shouted. “It’s a bear!”

She reached out and grabbed the back of his jacket, but he wrenched himself free and was off. She lurched after him, caught his arm, and dragged him to a halt.

Squirm yanked his arm away furiously. His face was flushed. “I’ve never seen a bear, not a real one.” He raced across the muddy field. “It’s so little … it must be just a baby —”

A baby? An alarm bell went off in Robin’s body. If there was a baby bear, there would be a mother nearby. Even she’d heard how vicious mother bears were when it came to protecting their young.

A gun fired. Robin almost jumped out of her boots.

“He’s trying to kill it!” Squirm broke into a run.

Robin sped after him, slipping in the mud. The slushy snow soaked the legs of her jeans, but she kept running anyway, jerking her head around every few moments to make sure the mother bear wasn’t coming from behind to attack them.

The baby bear was running fast now. Robin was trying to keep her eye on it as she ran, when suddenly it dropped out of sight. What? She stood still, her eyes riveted on the spot where she’d last seen it. How could the bear just disappear? Had the boy shot it? She hadn’t heard the gun go off again. She ran forward, not stopping until she reached Squirm. He was looking down into a pile of rocks. She stepped forward to see better. In the middle of the rocks was a deep cylindrical hole.

Robin leaned over and peered into what she realized must be an old well. It smelled of stale water, but there was another smell too. The smell of something wild.

Squirm leaned as far as he could into the hole. Robin, afraid he might fall in, gripped his jeans tightly.

“He’s in there all right,” Squirm said, pulling himself back. “Way at the bottom. Look at him! Isn’t he cool? We’ve got to help him out.”

The ATV pulled up, and Robin straightened.

Conner set his gun into a rack at the side of the ATV and got off. Standing, he looked huge. He was big-boned like his sister, Brittany, and had the same thick blondish hair.

Ari and Griff were approaching, and hearing them, Conner turned. Robin watched as Conner’s eyes travelled the length of Ari’s body. One side of his mouth rose in a smile.

“Hey,” he said. “Haven’t I seen you around school?”

Ari’s tongue poked out and wet her lips. She smiled.

“What’s your name?”

“Ari.” Her eyes were bright.

Conner drew himself up taller. He strode over to the well.

Robin watched him carefully. She could see why Zo-Zo had said all the high school girls thought he was good-looking. Not only was he muscular, with big, wide shoulders, but he had a soft, almost angelic-looking face. Despite that, however, there was something about his eyes that didn’t look innocent at all.

“That’ll be an easy shot with my crossbow,” he said glancing down the well.

Squirm paled. “You’re going to kill it?”

“No choice. He hasn’t got a hope of getting out.”

“We’ll go down and get him,” Squirm said.

Conner laughed. “And get the skin clawed right off of you?” He glanced at Ari as he grabbed a large metal bow from the side of his ATV. “If I put a rope on this crossbow, I’ll be able to pull his body out after I shoot him.” He turned his attention to the woods across the field. “His mom will be watching. If I can skunk her out of hiding, I’ll get myself two bear rugs instead of one.” He turned to Ari with warm confidence. “I’ll give you one if you like.”

Griff stepped forward. “Put that thing away! There’s going to be no killing here.”

“No?” Conner readied the crossbow.

Griff pushed it aside. “I think you best get back on to your own property. Now! Robin? Squirm? Go get the ladder.”

Conner shook his head. “You city people! You don’t know squat about nature. That bear has claws like razor blades! They’ll shred you to ribbons.”

Griff straightened her shoulders and looked at Robin. “The ladder’s inside the barn. To the right of the door. The two of you should be able to manage it.”

Conner turned to Ari. “Is she crazy?” He put the bow back into its stirrup and patted the seat. “Come on, Ari. I’ll take you for a ride.”

Griff’s eyebrows arched as high as an alarmed cat’s back.

Ari tossed her hair over her shoulders and climbed into the passenger seat.

Griff’s hand gripped her jaw. “Don’t be long.”

If Conner heard, he made no sign. He gunned the ATV and charged off, leaving a cloud of blue smoke in its wake.

Squirm waved the smoke away and set off across the field with Robin. He scrunched up his nose. “Wow, those ATVs sure can fart.”

Robin and Squirm trudged through the snowy ruts. It wasn’t far to the barn, but Roimbin kept staring into the trees. A clump of black caught her eye.

“It’s the bear! The mother bear! Look!”

Her breath stopped and she stood still, waiting for it to charge from the woods.

“Where?” Squirm challenged. “I don’t see anything.”

When the clump didn’t move, Robin exhaled and started walking again. She slipped but kept staring behind her. Every patch of black seemed to have eyes and fur. What would she do if it attacked? Run? She’d heard somewhere that you were supposed to lie down and play dead if a bear attacked. She couldn’t imagine doing that. She’d be too afraid. But she’d probably be too afraid to run, so she’d be doomed.

When they finally reached the barn, she hefted one end of the old wooden ladder and Squirm took the other, and they started back across the field. They hadn’t gone far when their dad called to them from the porch of the farmhouse.

“What’s going on?”

“A bear, Dad, a bear!” Squirm shouted. “Conner, the boy next door, he was chasing it, then it fell down the well.”

Robin watched her dad disappear into the house. She scowled. Didn’t he care? Then he reappeared with his medical bag.

“You sure?” he asked, catching up with them. “It should still be hibernating.”

“It’s tiny,” Squirm said.

“It must be.”

When they got to the well where Griff was waiting, their dad peered down it for several moments, frowning. Robin could hear the bear whimpering.

“It’s only a few weeks old, for Pete’s sake!” He looked up and stared into the woods. Creases formed on his forehead. “The mother won’t be far.”

“Conner wanted to kill it. And the mom!” Squirm’s face was full of anguish. “Can we save him, Dad? Can we?”

“Maybe, now that we have a ladder. I’ll go down and pull him up. He can’t be more than ten pounds —”

“But what about his claws?” Robin asked. She’d picked up a stray cat once, and it had ripped long red scratch lines down her bare arm. From what Conner had said, the bear’s claws would be a thousand times more dangerous.

Their father pulled a balaclava and what looked like oven mitts from his bag. “Vets know all about claws….”

Robin grinned. “Smart, very smart.”

He pulled on the balaclava. “If you think the baby’s claws are scary, think about the mother’s! They’ll be longer than your fingers. And sharp enough to tear your face off in a single swipe.”

“Whoa!” Squirm said. “I’m glad it’s you going down there and not me!”

“Once I get him, he’s going right back to the wild,” their dad said, shoving his hands into the thick mitts. “We’re not taking in any baby bears.” He squinted into the fields. “We don’t want to get his mother’s nose out of joint. Mother bears can get nasty. Very nasty.”

Robin cringed but helped the others lift the ladder into the well.