Moon Bear Read online

  Talin called me back. “Tam, you forgot this.” He stood, the mud covering his white shoes, clutching my bag. Talin stumbled through the mud and pushed my bag in my hands. “Look after him,” he said. He bent down and pushed his face into Sôok-dìi’s fur. “Look after him, for Savanh. Do it for her.”

  I watched Talin walk back to the car and spin around, sliding in the mud. The red rear lights disappeared down the hill out of sight, leaving Sôok-dìi and me alone. I turned and started walking up toward the ridge. I could imagine the shape of the line of mountains beyond. I could imagine the deep forests.

  “Come on, Sôok-dìi,” I said. “We’re going home.’

  It took most of the morning to walk up the ridge. It became hot and humid. Airless. Sôok-dìi wanted to lie in the cool mud and sleep. I had to shove and pull him and tempt him with honeyed nuts. It wasn’t far now. Beyond the ridge would be the forests, with rain clouds misting in their branches.

  A fine rain was falling as we neared the top. I dropped Sôok-dìi’s rope and ran ahead of him, scrambling up on my hands and feet. I reached the top and stared around me. I recognized the contours of the land, the curves and twists of the mountains.

  But there were no trees.

  No forest.

  Nothing.

  Just the bare red earth rolling endlessly back, pockmarked by cut tree stumps. Rainwater gouged deep gashes in the hillsides. Tree trunks lay on their sides like sun-bleached bones.

  Grandfather had been right.

  The forests had been cleared farther than I could see.

  There was no trace of where we had once lived.

  There were no forests.

  No trees.

  No home.

  I sank to my knees. I felt sweat trickle down beneath my shirt. Sôok-dìi curled up on the ground beside me. Rain began to fall faster all around us. Sôok-dìi’s thick fur was clogged with mud and water. I ran my hands across his head. He closed his eyes. His mouth hung open, panting, as if he couldn’t get enough air. I buried my head in the fur of his chest and lay like that, listening to the rush, listening to Sôok-dìi’s harsh breathing, listening to the beating of his heart, and hoping it would not stop.

  I lay there while the drumming of raindrops softened around us, and the sun’s rays broke through the clouds. Steam rose up from my clothes and Sôok-dìi’s fur into the damp air.

  I became aware of another sound too. A distant rumble. I looked up, expecting to see one of the logging trucks, but the road leading up to the ridge was empty. The sound built up and filled the sky. A helicopter emerged from the thin mist. Sunlight glinted on its windows. I looked around, but there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to take cover. The helicopter clattered out of the sky, circling the ridge.

  Circling Sôok-dìi and me.

  I sat up and wrapped my arms around Sôok-dìi. I felt sick inside. I knew who was in there. He had come for Sôok-dìi, and I knew he would not let him go.

  I held on to Sôok-dìi as the downdraft from the blades blasted in my face and whipped my hair. I watched the helicopter land and General Chan and two soldiers climb down. The general pulled his uniform straight and waded his way across the mud. A river of blood-red earth ran between us.

  General Chan stood over us. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you?”

  I clung on to Sôok-dìi. “He needs the forest.”

  The general wiped sweat from his forehead. “I need this bear.”

  I gripped my fingers tight into Sôok-dìi’s thick fur. “Don’t take him.”

  General Chan signaled to the two soldiers. One pulled me away, and I sprawled in the mud. I watched them reach down to lift Sôok-dìi. They struggled with him to the open side of the helicopter.

  “General Chan!” I yelled.

  He turned. Mud plastered his general’s uniform.

  I scrambled up and pulled out the envelope Savanh had given me. I pushed it into his hands. “Here,” I said.

  General Chan stared at me. “What is this?”

  “You must read it,” I said. “It is from your daughter. It is from Savanh.”

  Dearest Father,

  If you are reading this letter, you have followed Tam and the bear against my wishes. I ask again that you let them go, for it is not for us to think we own them.

  Yet I know you do this just for me.

  I see you, Father.

  I see you in this darkness, trying to reach me, trying to find a way to keep me with you. Yet you do not see me. You see yourself alone, without Ma or me, and I know this scares you.

  When Ma died, I was scared too. When you were away, Grandma took me for a walk through the forest. I wanted to stop and turn back, but she said we must keep on walking. We walked through dark and deeper dark. My legs ached and I felt I could go no farther, but still Grandma would not let me stop until we reached the top of the mountain. I had never been able to see so far in my life. The mountains stretched forever. Grandma said to me, “Look, Savanh, do not forget there is a whole world out there for you.”

  We sat together for some time looking across the mountains. When we stood up to leave, I asked her what lay beyond the horizon, and she said to me, “That is for us to imagine, to walk toward there holding the dream of what we hope to see, and not turn, however dark the path.”

  Father, I dream of a land so rich and colorful with life for all of us. I dream of a land of a million elephants. I may not be able to make these things happen in my lifetime, but if Tam and Sook-dii return to their forest, then I have taken a few steps of the way.

  So you must keep on walking too and know that I am with you.

  If you look for me, you will always find me. I will be the butterfly that dances in the shaft of golden sunlight.

  When you come looking, you will see me.

  And I will see you, too.

  Epilogue

  Six months later.

  Sometimes when I look up at the stars at night, I look for the brightest star and think of Savanh. Maybe she is up there with Pa. Ma says the people we have loved help us from the heavens. But I don’t believe that now. I think what they did in life lives on within us, and within everything we do.

  I shade my eyes and look up toward the mountain. The new forest reserve stretches all the way across to the other side. This is what Savanh would have wanted. This is what she made happen. The Savanh Chan Bear Rescue Sanctuary rests at the foot of this mountain, surrounded by a backdrop of trees.

  It took six months to build the complex of enclosures, the veterinary hospital, and the visitor center. The sanctuary will be open five days a week, for people to come to see the bears. The bear farm cages live in the museum now, holding only the ghosts of bears, together with the instruments of their torture.

  The new enclosures back onto the forest. Most of the bears have lived their whole lives in the small cages and wouldn’t survive in the wild. But here they can smell the forest, hear it, and breathe it. Their grass enclosures have trees to climb, pools to swim in, and toys of bamboo to play with. At night the bears can see the moon and stars. It’s as close as they can get to freedom.

  It is our home now too, for Grandfather, Ma, Sulee, Mae, and me. We live in a small village an hour’s walk from here. Ma works for a textile business run by other women. They even have a loom and plan to grow mulberry trees so they can keep silkworms and make silk.

  Sulee and Mae love the new school, but it’s not for me. I love days like this when I can go with Grandfather to see the bears, or walk with him inside the forest.

  Grandfather is waiting for me by the entrance to the bear sanctuary with a basket of fruit for the bears. “There you are,” he smiles. “I have been waiting.”

  I smile back. He looks so sharp in his forest-ranger uniform. Younger, too.

  “Come,” says Grandfather. “This is a special day. Let us go and see the bears.”

  I walk with him through the entrance and along the paths bordered by flowers. It’s the first week the sanctuary has been open for
visitors, and already it is busy. Another minibus with tourists has just arrived. I look inside the museum and see a group of schoolchildren crowding around the metal cages. One boy is allowed to climb inside. I watch him reach out to touch the bars, to feel how small it is inside.

  “Kham came to see the bears last week,” I said.

  Grandfather smiled. “Did he want you to teach them all to dance?”

  I grinned. “No. He said he’s got new plans. Better ones. He said one day he wants to create the ultimate wildlife experience for tourists and build log cabins in the forests and walkways through the canopies. He tried to get me to join him.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I said I’d stick to bears.”

  We walk toward the bear enclosures and stop at the first one. The shadows are deep and cool, the bears shaded by the forest. There are twelve bears here already.

  I smile. I hardly recognize Biter. The vets thought he’d never be able to integrate with the other bears. After what he did to the Doctor, we all thought he’d be too vicious. The Doctor was barely alive when he was found. Kham’s ma said he’d have been better off dead than in the state Biter left him in, unable to walk or talk. But the strange thing is, since being here, Biter’s one of the gentlest bears. He lies in the sunshine and swims in the pool. He’s the first one to greet the new bears in the sanctuary.

  Jem and Jep are here too. They roll and tumble down the slopes and stay curled together at night, even though they must be three years old. Mama Bear’s son shares their enclosure, though he likes to sit alone. In the daytime he stays curled inside his pen, but at night he likes to sit and stare at the moon. He’s taken to one of the sanctuary staff, a grandmother with fifteen grandchildren. He follows her up and down the perimeter fence. She treats him like one of her own and gives him extra treats.

  Hua and Mii are here. Their wounds have healed and they have glossy black coats. Their pads have lost the thickened skin, and they roll and play and climb trees, like wild bears of the forest.

  Grandfather and I walk on until we stop beside an enclosure empty of bears. The rope hammock hanging between the trees lies unused. The water on the pool is still.

  I take a deep breath and stare around the empty space.

  Sôok-dìi was not so lucky.

  When the vets opened him up, he had an infection deep inside him. “Peritonitis” the vets called it. His body had shut down. They tried to keep him alive by flushing fluid inside, washing all the badness out. They pumped him full of antibiotics, but the vets said it would take a miracle for him to survive.

  I press my head against the wire fencing of the empty enclosure and turn to Grandfather. “Savanh said Sôok-dìi was a fighter.”

  Grandfather smiles. “Yes,” he said, “and she was right. Look, here he comes.”

  It’s the moment we have been waiting for. His recovery has taken six long months. This is the first time Sôok-dìi will take a step outside. We see him, a dark shape at first behind the metal grille of the hatch to his outdoor enclosure. The hatch lifts up, and he raises his nose and sniffs the air. He takes a step onto the earth and presses his nose against it. He looks thin. His fur is patchy and ragged, and his ribs and hip bones are visible beneath his skin. He sniffs again, smelling the other bears, and takes a step back inside.

  I whistle to him. “Come on, Sôok-dìi. You can do this.”

  Grandfather opens the mesh gate to the enclosure. “Maybe he’ll come out if he sees you.”

  I take a papaya from Grandfather and walk across the grass and crouch down next to the open hatch. “Come, Sôok-dìi. It’s me.”

  I see him then, his black face and gray muzzle. He stumbles across in fast strides and throws his paws around my shoulders and nuzzles into me, making the deep humming sound in his chest. I push my face into his fur, but he’s smelled the papaya and tries to take it from my hand.

  I throw it away from me and it rolls a little way down the slope toward the pool of deep green water. Sôok-dìi shuffles down the slope, digging his claws deep into the earth. But he doesn’t eat the papaya. He keeps on going, down toward the pool. He stops and sniffs the pool, blowing bubbles across its surface. Leaves and sunlight float on the water. Sôok-dìi dips a paw in and then another. I watch him drop forward and slide deep into the water. He comes up for air, blows a snort of breath, and disappears again, leaving a ring of bright water. He surfaces and climbs out, shaking the water from his coat, scattering the sunlight. He shakes so hard that he falls over, and lies on his back with his eyes closed and mouth so wide open that I almost think he’s smiling.

  Grandfather crouches next to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Your father would have been proud.”

  I look at the wire enclosures and the forest beyond. “But the bears are still not free,” I say. “Other bears will come. More will be captured from the mountains and more forests will be cut down. There will be more men like the Doctor and people who want to buy their bile.” I sink my head onto my knees. “What hope is there for the bears? This is only one small mountain.”

  Grandfather wraps his arms around me and smiles. “Tam, you are like Nâam-pèng.”

  I frown at him. “Nâam-pèng?”

  “Do you not remember, Tam? Nâam-pèng, the smallest bee?”

  I push Grandfather’s hands away. “What of him?”

  Grandfather sweeps his arms across the bear sanctuary, across the trail of schoolchildren, families, and tourists. Sunlight glints from the windows of two more tourist buses climbing the steep road of the valley. “Look around you, Tam,” he says. “Do you not see what is happening here? Look at the people who have come to find out about the bears and the forests. More will come and see this for themselves. They will want to change things too.”

  I shade my eyes against the sun to see all these things.

  “Listen, Tam,” says Grandfather. “You are not alone. Do you not hear the bees?”

  Gill Lewis is the author of the critically acclaimed Wild Wings and One White Dolphin, both winners of the Green Earth Book Award. A veterinarian, her love for animals and the natural world plays a big part in her writing. She lives in the United Kingdom. Visit her online at gilllewis.com.

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  Also by Gill Lewis

  One White Dolphin

  Wild Wings

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2015 by Gill Lewis

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Alessandro Gottardo

  Jacket design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Alessandro Gottardo

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  First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lewis, Gill.

  Moon bear / Gill Lewis. — First edition.

  p. cm

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2013 by Oxford University Press.

  Summary: In Laos, twelve-year-old Tam must work at a bear farm where bears are cruelly caged and milked for their bile, but when a familiar cub is brought to the farm, Tam will do anything to free both the cub, and himself.

  ISBN 978-1-4814-0094-7 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-0096-1 (eBook)

  [1. Asiatic black bear—Fiction. 2. Bears—Fiction. 3. Animals—Treatment—Fiction. 4. Laos—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.L58537Mm 2015

  [Fic]—dc23 2013049285