The Bear

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Longlisted for the Women's Fiction Prize

Mummy never yells. Mostly not ever. Except sometimes.

Anna is five. Her little brother, Stick, is almost three. They are camping with their parents in Algonquin Park, in three thousand square miles of wilderness. It's the perfect family trip. But then Anna awakes in the night to the sound of something moving in the shadows. Her father is terrified. Her mother is screaming. Then, silence.

Alone in the woods, it is Anna who has to look after Stick, battling hunger and the elements to stay alive. Narrated by Anna, this is white-knuckle storytelling that captures the fear, wonder and bewilderment of our worst nightmares - and the power of one girl's enduring love for her family.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

I can hear the air going in and out of my brother's nose. I am awake. He is two years old and almost three and he bugs me lots of times because I am five years old and soon I will be six but it is warm sleeping next to him. I call him Stick. He always falls asleep before me and I listen to the air of his nose. I can hear my parents' voices. They are farther away than I can reach and whispering because they think I can't hear. I let out a squeak to let Momma know I am awake and she says "We're right here" from too far away. I squeak again and the tent zipper undoes and I can see the sky in the crack. Her cool hand brushes my hair back and her fingers touch my cheek. "Shh, Anna," she says and the sky zips away again. When I am inside a tent the outside is far away. The tent is blue and sniffs like dust. My parents have a fire because it is the end of summer and they are cooking something too and not sharing with me. Bacon. I love bacon. My tummy rumbles and I want bacon but it will make Daddy mad. I sniff Gwen teddy bear instead. She is brown and smells like us. I hear the air whistle when it leaves Sticky's nose. I feel nervous and I don't know why. The night will be dark soon. And it might be the meat is making my tummy weird. When we were back at the cottage, Sticky was chewing on bacon and he shoved another in his mouth and another and another. When Momma saw she said "Chew your food" but Stick couldn't chew because his mouth was all full. He started to go red and his eyes got watery and I thought he was crying. I said "Ha-ha Alex's crying" and Momma came and thumped him. A ball of bacon came out of his mouth. Momma got Stick in trouble for not chewing and I looked at the meat. It had spit on it. I felt a barf in my mouth. And I didn't eat that bacon ball but it's making my tummy feel weird. The air is cold. I roll closer to Stick. His breath goes in my ear and it is warm. A little piece of light from the fire is having a dance on the side of the tent but only a little because it is not dark yet. There is no music except Stick's nose air and still the light flicks and rolls on the side of the tent. I can't sleep. I tuck Gwen under the covers so she isn't cold and I creep over to the door. The zipper has teeth that grab onto my skin. I go slow so it doesn't bite and I open it just a little bit so my face can be out. The carpet here is made of pine needles. They smell like the yellow bottle I use to help Momma clean the bathtub. There are prickle pine trees all around our camp. These are the ones that forgot the needles on the ground. The moon is going to switch with the sun and the moon will have a tail that shows up on the water. The water is not chop chop chop anymore. It sits quietly in the lake now because it is sleeping. Close to the water, really far away from me, I can see two shadows. I can hear fromthe whispers that it's Momma and Daddy and they are laughing. Momma leans forward and I see a ponytail like a horse's hanging down. Her face is smiling and I can see her teeth in a nice way. The only other thing I can see is Coleman. Coleman is green like grass and he is so heavy I can't lift him up. We bring him on canoe trips to carry our food and keep it cold. And we use him so that bears can't rob the food from us. Bears like our food if we let them and we don't want to do that. So Coleman holds everything cool inside his body and has a metal tooth in the front that keeps him shut tight. He is really really big and a metal box. Stick and I can both fit inside him like when we play hide and seek at home. We can stay so quiet and hide in Coleman from Daddy and try to stop laughing with my hand on Stick's mouth. When Coleman sits in the canoe he can't fit across sideways and so Daddy needs to put him pointing to the front. Only Daddy can lift him up. When Coleman has to pee he has a little button at the side where I can push and his pee comes out and when I see it sometimes I pee too. Coleman is why we camped on the island because he is so heavy and big. The water was chop chop chop because the wind was whistling in my ears and Coleman makes the canoe go tippy. If we went down the path to the next lake where we were supposed to camp then Daddy would have to carry Coleman and the canoe but Momma wanted to be here at the island to see the tail of the moon. Once I tried to pick Coleman up and I can't. I whisper hello to Coleman and Daddy's head turns away from the fire: "Back in the tent, Anna." I stay still to make me dream. "Did you hear me?" I am awake. "Last time, okay?" "Yes, Daddy." "Sleep tight." I poke my head inside and Gwen missed me. She looks lonely and I tell her with my eyes that I am coming. I carefully take the zipper in my fingers. They feel furry in the tips and too tired to pull. Zipper will bite if I don't watch out. I pull again and the zipper tries to get me between my thumb and pointy finger, the soft part that looks like it could be on a frog. I sit back and pull my hand away. The zipper must be hungry and so I will stay away. I grab Gwen and sniff and tuck her back into the sleeping bag. I lie on my back and snuggle and the fire is dancing more on the side of the tent because it is a little more blue and gray outside. I watch it and my eyes start to shut but I don't want them to. Maybe if Stick is asleep then Momma will pluck me out of bed and feed me bacon. I want to ask out loud but my teeth are too fuzzy. My head is heavy like a rock. My eyes shut again and I peel them open. I hear a sniff. It might have been from Sticky's nose but it sounded bigger than that. Stick's nose must be growing and in the middle of the night it will hog all the air. Something moves on the side of the tent. I see some fluff beside the dancing fire and I think the fluff is Stick's hair. He has escaped. It might be his little white head sneaking out for bacon. A few of his fluffy hairs are sticking up as a shadow just outside the tent. His nose whistles beside me so I know it's not, but the hair stands up and I think it looks thicker. The hair stands there shaking like my fingers when I am hungry. I watch it and it moves forward only a very little, as slow as a snail. It would be a hairy snail and much bigger and that means it probably isn't a snail anymore. And the bacon smells and my eyes fall down and now I can open them only a crack. I see the hair move and I think as my eye shuts how did Stick stay sleeping and sneak out of the tent for bacon at the same time? Excerpted from The Bear by Claire Cameron All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

When five-year-old Anna hears her mother and father yelling outside their tent, she hides, never seeing the bear that's attacking them. A few minutes later, her father shoves Anna and her two-year-old brother, Sticky, into the Coleman cooler, telling them to be quiet and not move. Anna sees only a glimpse of what she thinks is a big black dog that investigates the cooler briefly before moving on. The kids finally emerge to find the campsite torn apart, their mother dying, and no sign of their father except for a bloody shoe. At her mother's insistence, Anna takes Sticky in the canoe and paddles to the edge of the woods. Anna must try to keep the big dog from locating them and keep Sticky and herself alive. A very tense story told sparsely from Anna's point of view, this is somewhat based on real events. Anna's thought process is vivid, emotional, and gripping. Narrator Cassandra Morris evokes Anna perfectly, from her panic to her delight and everything in between. VERDICT Recommended to fans of Gary Paulsen's Hatchet and Emma Donoghue's Room. ["A fast, compelling read for nature lovers, though it's not the book to take with you while camping if you plan to sleep at all," read the review of the Little, Brown hc, LJ 1/14.]-Terry Ann Lawler, Phoenix P.L. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.