Moon Bear by Gill Lewis

Author:Gill Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

“Sôok-dìi,” I yelled. I ran at him, clapping my hands and flapping my arms in the air. “Sôok-dìi! Away! Away!”

Sôok-dìi lowered his head and backed off Kham.

“Hup! Hup!” I yelled, still flapping my arms.

Sôok-dìi reared up on his hind legs and took backward steps. I lowered my arms and he slumped onto his haunches. I patted the floor and he lay down, his head lowered and ears back. I rummaged in my pocket for his honeyed nuts, scattered them on the floor, and spun around to look at Kham.

Kham had crawled backward and had his back pressed against the sliding doors. A trickle of blood ran down his forehead, from a gash just above his eye. He just stared past me at Sôok-dìi, his mouth hanging open.

I crouched down beside him. “Kham!”

Still he stared.

“Kham! Can you hear me?” I shook him by the arm. “Are you okay?”

He turned to look at me. “Bear . . . ,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Kham. I didn’t hear you come in. . . .”

“Bear . . . ,” he said again.

“Your face . . . he’s drawn blood.”

Kham touched the cut on his head and looked at the fresh blood on his fingers. His eyebrows rose a little in mild surprise.

Sôok-dìi had moved a little closer. He snuffled in my pockets and then started sniffing Kham’s feet.

I raised my arms and yelled at him, “Sit up, Sôok-dìi. Sit. Up.’

Sôok-dìi sat back on his haunches and then slumped on the floor with a groan, as if I’d stopped his fun.

I turned to look at Kham again, but he was just staring between the bear and me, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

“It’s okay, Kham,” I said. “I won’t let him touch you.”

Kham grabbed my arm and pinned me next to him. “That bear . . . ,” he said.

“Let me put him away.” I said the words as slowly and calmly as I could. “And then I’ll take you home.”

Kham pulled me closer still and shook his head. “No! No! You don’t understand.” He turned to me. “That bear,” he said, a huge grin spreading across his face, “that bear is going to earn us a fortune.”

I pushed Kham away. “What?”

Kham scrambled to his feet and pointed at Sôok-dìi. “He does what you say!”

“So?”

“So,” said Kham, “so there hasn’t been a dancing bear in the city since the One-Eyed Bear Man’s bear ate a tin of rat poison and died.”

“Kham!” I said. It was my turn to pull him around to face me. “What are you talking about?”

Kham clapped his hands in front of my face and laughed. “Wake up, Tam! Listen! When I was little, there was a man who used to sit outside the temples and museums and make his bear dance for the tourists. They paid good money to have their photo taken with the bear.”

I frowned. “So you’re saying we should take Sôok-dìi into town and let people take photos with him.”

Kham slapped me on the back. “Exactly.”

I stretched my foot out and scratched Sôok-dìi behind the ear with my toe.

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