Tree Girl by T. A. Barron

Author:T. A. Barron [Barron, T. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781101651544
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2001-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

AN INSTANT LATER, the hand that had grasped the rim of the trunk melted back into a bear paw. Right before her eyes! Anna, watching from the boulder, blinked in surprise. She looked overhead at the shimmering rays that sliced through the branches, then back at the paw.

Again she blinked. Must have been just a trick of light.

After the paw, a shaggy bear emerged from the hollow trunk. Sash was covered with spiderwebs, dust, and wood chips. And when he pulled out his left rear paw, it looked twisted and swollen. But he was alive! Anna laughed out loud when he thrust his snout into the yellow llyrberries at the rim of the trunk and took a huge bite.

The cub swallowed the berries at once. Streams of juice rolled down the sides of his mouth. He waved at Anna, then rested on the rim, breathing hard.

Finally, he wriggled backward and wrapped his hind legs around the top of the trunk. Then, despite his swollen paw, he slid back down the outside of the tree. His claws squealed as they scraped against the wood. With a thump, he landed on the ground.

Anna jumped off the boulder and stepped over to his side. He brushed some bark off his furry chest and gazed up at her, green eyes aglow.

“Thanks, Anna.”

“Oh,” she replied casually, “I’d do that for any old bear. Even one crazy enough to dare the ghouls.”

He laughed, the same rippling laugh she had heard so many times before. But this time it sounded a bit different—lighter, somehow, and the voice a little higher. His laughter lifted into the surrounding trees, whose branches rustled and creaked along with him.

“How’s this feeling?” She gently pulled a spiderweb off the hurt limb.

The cub straightened his leg and let the paw sink into a thick tuft of moss. “Just needs some rest, that’s all.”

“Which won’t be easy for you.”

Eagle hopped closer on a root and chirped in agreement.

The young bear pushed his nose at Anna. “No, but I can take care of myself. Always have.” He cocked his head. “Until…just now.”

He reached his forepaw toward her face. Lightly he touched her cheek, so lightly that he seemed to have no claws at all. “You’re the crazy one, you know,” he said, his voice sounding higher again. “But that’s the way I like…a friend.”

Puddles formed in Anna’s eyes. For a moment, in her clouded vision, he looked less like a bear than a sandy-haired boy. A boy who had called her friend.

She reached up to touch the paw on her cheek. What she felt, though, was not a paw—but a hand. A hand with fingers like her own.

She shrieked and pulled away. Furiously, she blinked, trying to clear her vision. Nothing changed. The bear cub before her was now, indeed, a boy.

He wore little over his walnut brown skin: loose leggings made of woven strips of bark, and a band of scarlet leaves around one wrist. His bare chest and arms bore dozens of scrapes, bruises, and scars.

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