Moon Bear Read online

  It was a moon bear cub, the bear cub I’d seen on the mountain. It had grown since I’d seen it, but it had the whorl of white hairs that looked just like the evening star. This was the bear cub from home.

  It lay in its own filth. Pasty yellow diarrhea stuck to the fur around its bottom.

  This cub hadn’t gotten away. I wondered what had happened to the mother.

  The Doctor kicked the crate again. “I don’t want it,” he said. “It’s sick. It’s too young.”

  The cub mewled softly and tried to push itself against the bare wooden slats of the crate. It seemed too weak to stand.

  “It’ll be a strong bear one day,” said the truck driver. “Look, it’s a male bear.”

  “It’ll be dead by the morning,” said the Doctor.

  The driver pointed at the banana. “It’s just hungry. See, he hasn’t eaten. Maybe he’ll take some rice.”

  The Doctor stared in at the cub. “How long has it been away from its mother?” said the Doctor.

  “One day, maybe two,” said the driver. “The trappers found it wandering alone on the road.”

  The Doctor snorted at his lies.

  “This one will bring you good luck and great fortune,” said the driver.

  The Doctor curled his lip. “Good luck?”

  The driver nodded. “Sôok-dìi, they called it. The trappers called it Sôok-dìi. They said this bear would bring great luck to whoever owned it.”

  “It would have been better luck if you’d brought me the mother. I’d have paid double for her. Who did you sell her to?”

  The driver picked up the towels and threw them back in the crate. “If you’re not interested . . .”

  The Doctor rubbed his chin.

  “. . . then we have someone else who wants this bear.”

  The Doctor reached into his back pocket and pulled out a fistful of bills. “Half price,” he said, holding up the money. “My father wouldn’t want to hear you were selling me sick bears, would he?”

  The driver glared at the Doctor. In the box, the bear cub pawed at the damp towels. A trickle of yellow diarrhea tinged with blood dribbled out around his tail.

  “Okay,” said the driver. He snatched the money from the Doctor. “Half price, for you only.”

  The Doctor gave me a shove. “Pick up the bear.”

  I looked at him.

  “Pick it up.”

  I crouched down to the bear. How do you pick up a bear? He had grown since I’d seen him in the bear den. Did he have teeth at this age? His back end was matted and stank like the latrines back home when sickness had swept through the village. I reached in behind his neck and grabbed the folds of loose skin. The cub twisted and squirmed. He squealed and opened his jaws, but I could see his teeth were tiny, needle-sharp bumps poking through his gums, and I could see the suckling groove in his upper lip. This cub was still feeding from his mother.

  I lifted him up by the scruff of his neck and wrapped him in one of the dirty towels. The driver took the crate and slung it on the truck and turned his back on us.

  The Doctor looked at the cub in my arms. He put his hand across his nose to hide the smell. “Take him back to the farm and give him food and water. He can have Mama Bear’s cage.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” I said.

  I turned around. Kham and his family had come to look at the bear cub too.

  I walked with the Doctor across the yard.

  When he reached his motorbike, he stopped. “And, Mountain Boy . . .”

  I turned.

  The Doctor swung his leg across the bike and pulled on his leather gloves. “Don’t let it die. If it dies tonight, you can pack your bags and go.”

  I watched the Doctor rev his engine and spin out of the yard. Kham and his brother stood behind me.

  Mrs. Sone glared at her husband. “I thought we said no more bears in this yard.”

  Mr. Sone shrugged his shoulders. “What can I do? Anyway, look. It is only a small one.”

  Mrs. Sone flapped her arms at me. “Take it. Take it away. I don’t want bears here, understand?”

  The cub was struggling in the towel. I walked past them and crossed the road, glad it wasn’t busy. I unlocked the gates, pulled open the sliding doors, and switched on the lights.

  “Sôok-dìi!” I said. I held the cub at arm’s length by the scruff of his neck. “Sôok-dìi! I hope you live up to your name.”

  The cub’s paws paddled the air.

  I couldn’t lose my job. I had to send money back to Ma. I couldn’t let this bear cub die.

  I needed all the luck I could get.

  What was I going to do with a bear cub?

  I carried him to Mama Bear’s old cage. The other bears shuffled in their cages, expecting their usual evening treats of fruit.

  “No fruit today,” I called out.

  Hua tried to swat me as I passed. Biter stuck his nose through the bars and held it up high, sniffing the scent of new bear.

  “He stinks,” I said. “We’d better give him a bath, hadn’t we?”

  All the bears were sitting on their haunches, watching me—or, rather, watching the new bear. Even Mama Bear’s son lifted his head from his paws to peer at the newcomer.

  I lifted Sôok-dìi into Mama Bear’s cage and closed the door. The cub was too small for the bars at the bottom. His stumpy legs slipped and slid. He was too weak to balance, and he wedged himself between the lower bars.

  I uncoiled the long hose and began to wash him with water. He wriggled and mewled. I let the water run until his back end was clean and water dripped from the dark fur.

  “Tam! It’s me, Kham!”

  Kham was calling me from the outside the sliding doors.

  I left the water running and went to find him. He was standing at the entrance to the bear barn, wide-eyed and ready to run.

  He didn’t take his eyes from the row of bears. “Are they all locked in?”

  I nodded.

  “My father sent me to say he is locking the yard gates soon. So don’t be late back.”

  I looked back at Sôok-dìi at the end of the row. I’d have to hurry. “I’ll come soon,” I said.

  Kham took one look at me and left.

  I rolled up the hose and went back to Sôok-dìi. His eyes were closed, and he was shivering. He was sucking on his front paws just like Sulee used to suck her thumb. His legs hung through the bars. He couldn’t move. I looked across at Biter. It was hard to imagine Sôok-dìi could grow that big.

  “Right,” I said. “You need food.”

  I fetched some bananas from the prep room and mashed them in my fingers. I tried to feed little pieces through the bars, but Sôok-dìi turned his nose away, and the pieces dropped onto the floor. I could see him drifting into sleep. I opened the cage door and tried to wake him. I could feel his ribs beneath his soft fur. I guessed he hadn’t fed in a while. I tried him with another piece of banana, but instead he tried to hold my fingers in his paws and suckle them.

  I looked back toward where Kham had been standing. I couldn’t just leave this bear cub. He could be dead by the morning. Maybe if I took him back I could try and feed him through the night. I knew Mrs. Sone wouldn’t allow me, but she needn’t know. I wondered what Ma would have thought too. We never let animals inside our house.

  I grabbed an old towel from the prep room and wrapped Sôok-dìi inside. He wriggled and squirmed at first but then lay still. I took a banana and a papaya and locked up the farm and left.

  Mr. Sone waved to me as I walked into the yard. I kept my head down and wrapped my arm tightly around the bundle in my arms. I hoped he wouldn’t call me over and was glad the bundle didn’t wriggle and give itself away.

  I shut the door of my room behind me, leaning my back against it. I could hear Mr. Sone’s footsteps on the yard outside. I held my breath. I heard him shut the garage gates and bolt and chain them. His footsteps turned in the direction of his house. I breathed out. I was safe. No one would disturb me now. The logging trucks
had gone, their broken tires replaced for another trip into the forests.

  I switched on the light, sank to the floor, and unwrapped the bear cub from the towel. He blinked, his small eyes barely open. I broke another piece of banana and covered my fingers in banana paste, but Sôok-dìi didn’t seem to want it. He stretched his small paws and squirmed onto my lap as if he were trying to push himself right into me. His paws kneaded my T-shirt, and he nuzzled against my chest.

  I lifted my hand and ran it across the soft fur on the top of his head. Beneath his folds of loose skin I could feel the ridged bumps of his backbone and ribs. His stomach felt hollow and empty, and I wondered just how long ago he’d eaten.

  Close up his muzzle smelled sour, like the buffalo calves when they’d gorged themselves on their mothers’ milk. Maybe he wasn’t on solid food yet at all. He must have been feeding from his mother when he was taken. I didn’t have any milk. I wondered if baby milk would do. I remembered one of Ma’s cousins needing powdered milk to feed her baby. She’d had to travel far to find it. Maybe I could feed Sôok-dìi like that too, although I didn’t know where to get milk or even how much it would cost. I tried to think what bears would eat in the forest. Fruit and roots and grubs. But then I remembered what Grandfather had told me about bears: they went mad for honey. I left Sôok-dìi curled up in the towel and opened the small cupboard. I reached in for the tin of honey I’d sworn I wouldn’t open. Forest honey. Bear honey. I didn’t suppose a little would matter, to give some to the bear cub.

  I turned the lid and scooped up a fingerful of honey. I could see the honeycomb inside still filled with bee grubs. I crouched down and slid my finger inside Sôok-dìi’s mouth. At first he shook his head and tried to spit it out, but once he’d tasted the sweet honey, he pushed himself closer.

  I smiled. “You want some more?’

  He sniffed it and licked a little from my fingers. I wondered if he remembered the taste of honey. I wonder if his mother had brought a comb of honey and shared it with him. I wondered if the taste of it took him back to the forest, like it did for me. He wriggled closer for another taste. I scraped out nearly half the pot for him, and he sucked and sucked the sweet honey from my hand. I dipped my fingers in the water of my washbowl and let him lick that off my fingers too.

  He tried to crawl up my chest and sleep in the crook of my neck.

  “No you don’t,” I said.

  I folded the towel in the corner of the room and wrapped him up inside it.

  “You can sleep there tonight.”

  I switched out the light and curled up under my own sheet. I closed my eyes and hoped sleep would find me. I was falling asleep as I felt him crawl against me, snuffling and pawing his way in to me. He gave a low humming sound from deep inside his chest and curled up, resting the flat of his paw against my cheek. I could feel his fast heartbeat through his rib-thin chest. I wondered how he’d been taken. A cub this young couldn’t wander from its mother. I stared up through the small skylight to a thin sliver of moon. It was a crescent moon, like the white crescent on his chest. It was the same moon that hung over the forest canopies and reflected in the still waters below the waterfalls, where I’d seen him in his den. I thought of Grandfather. Maybe he was looking up through the branches of the trees at the same moon right now and thinking of me, too.

  I pushed my face into Sôok-dìi’s soft fur and breathed in the deep scent of the earth, of the leaf litter, of the forest paths and the cool mountain rain. I closed my eyes and let the images fill the room and shine brightly in the darkness.

  I belonged there. Sôok-dìi belonged there too.

  I curled my arm around him. “One day,” I said. “I promise you. I’ll make sure we both get back home again.”

  I woke spluttering and coughing, unable to breathe. Sôok-dìi had squirmed onto my face and had his muzzle pressed against my nose. I pushed him off and sat up. It was still dark outside, but the heady scent of sandalwood from the monasteries drifted on the early morning air. This was usually my favorite time, when the air was clear of dust and I could watch the stars fade in the dawn sky. But today I had no time to lie and listen to the city wake.

  I had a bear to feed.

  I switched on the light, and Sôok-dìi squinted at the brightness. He seemed a little stronger than yesterday. He could stand, but when he tried to scamper across the room, he fell over. He took the honey tin between his paws and stretched his long pink tongue inside to lick out what he could find. Somehow I’d have to find more food for him today. I’d have to wash the dirty towels, too. Mrs. Sone would probably throw me out if she knew a bear was sleeping in here.

  I could hear Mr. Sone unlock the garage gates and waited until I guessed he had returned to the house. I pushed open the door to my room. I could see Kham and his family through the window of their house in the white neon light. Kham’s brother was already near the door. He’d be out in the yard soon. I couldn’t risk anybody stopping to talk to me. I wrapped Sôok-dìi in a towel and reached for the money I’d earned from errands for Kham. There wasn’t much left after buying that bolt of red cloth for Ma. It couldn’t be helped. I’d have to try and buy some milk today. I tucked Sôok-dìi beneath my arm and raced across the road before the sun had even risen above the rooftops.

  It was Saturday. Neither Asang nor the Doctor came on Saturdays, but I wondered if the Doctor might drop in to check on the new cub. I didn’t even know where the Doctor lived or where he went on the weekends. Mr. and Mrs. Sone said he went back across to Vietnam to see his family, but Kham’s brother said he had a girlfriend across the Friendship Bridge in Thailand.

  Asang hardly ever came in to see the bears. He left that to me. He’d bring sacks of rice and fruits, but sometimes he forgot and I’d have to try and ration out the rice until he brought some more.

  The bears turned as I walked in. They lifted their noses, smelling the new bear curled up against me. Maybe it brought some memories of forests for them, too. Sôok-dìi squirmed and mewled in my arms. I’d have to find milk for him. Cleaning would have to wait. He was too small for Mama Bear’s cage, so I decided to take him with me while I went to buy the milk. I couldn’t chance him slipping through the bars. I put him in a rattan basket, covered him with a towel, and headed out onto the street.

  “Hey, Tam!”

  I turned. Kham was following me up the road.

  “Where are you going?”

  I kept walking, wrapping my arms around the basket. Sôok-dìi was hidden in the folds of the towel. I didn’t want Kham to see.

  “I have to get food for the bears,” I said. It was true enough. I’d meant to buy them some fruit.

  “I’ll come,” he said.

  I kept on walking. “I’m just fine by myself.”

  Kham jogged to catch up and walked along beside me, kicking the dirt. “We need to find a way of making money.”

  “I thought you were selling stuff at school,”

  Kham tutted. “They banned me. A teacher said it wasn’t school policy, but I think it’s just because he got a flashlight that didn’t work.”

  “Oh!” I said.

  I kept our pace striding slightly ahead of him.

  “Is that all you can say? ‘Oh’?”

  I stopped at a junction and looked both ways for traffic. “What do you want me to say?”

  Kham trotted across the road with me. “Well, how did your family earn money?”

  I could feel Sôok-dìi wriggling inside the basket and heard him sucking on his paws. I just hoped he’d go back to sleep. I frowned and thought back. Money wasn’t something we’d thought about that much. “We didn’t need much,” I said, “though Ma sold her embroidery, and Pa . . .” I stopped talking. I hadn’t spoken of Pa since I’d left the village. I quickened my pace. It was hard here, walking in the city. Fast steps and slow steps, dodging the people and the traffic, not like the long, easy strides through the forest.

  Kham trotted to keep up with me. “What about your Pa?”

/>   I just wished Kham would go away. I could feel Sôok-dìi bumping about in the basket. I glanced down to see him wriggle free of the blankets and claw his way to the basket edge. His head was poking out. I slipped into a side street and slid down behind some bins.

  Kham ducked in behind me. “Tam! What are you—”

  His eyes opened wider as he stared at the bear cub I was trying to push back into the basket.

  He took a back step. “Tam!” He said slowly, stringing out my name. “Is that . . . the bear?”

  I frowned and tried to cover the cub with the sheet, but he pawed his way out.

  “What are you doing with it?”

  I looked around. “Don’t tell everyone,” I snapped.

  I swaddled the bear like I’d seen Ma do with my baby sisters, wrapping the sheet tight around him, tucking his paws against the folds. He couldn’t move. I laid him back in the basket and brought the towel over him to hide him from view.

  Kham was still staring at me.

  “I have to find him some milk,” I said. “Baby milk.” I stuck my head out of the side alley and looked up and down the street. “But I don’t know where to find any.”

  I looked back at Kham, but he just stood, grinning at me.

  “What?” I said.

  Kham laughed and slapped me on the back. “You know, Tam,” he said, “life’s been a whole lot more fun since you arrived. Come on, I know where to get your milk.”

  I followed him along two more streets until we stood outside the window of a pharmacy.

  “In here?” I said.

  Kham peered in through the glass doors and nodded. “I know the shopkeeper. Let me do the talking.”

  I stood inside the pharmacy, looking around. Inside, the walls were filled with boxes, bottles, and pill pots and lotions. There were even some pots with the bear-farm logo. I wondered if the Doctor sold bear bile here too.

  “Kham!” The lady at the counter greeted Kham with a huge smile.

  Kham smiled back.

  “And how are your parents, Kham?”

  “They are very well, thank you,” he said. He glanced back at me and frowned. I could feel Sôok-dìi wriggling against the basket. I could hear his claws scraping in the rattan. I hoped he wasn’t getting out of the sheet.