A Bear Named Trouble by Marion Dane Bauer Page A

Here he could be alone with the pure white goose that was his favorite creature in all the zoo.
    "Come, Mama Goose," he called, reaching into his pocket for the corn he always carried when he came to the zoo. "Come. Look what I have for you."
    She tipped her head to one side, studying him, then suddenly flapped her great white wings and honked loudly. Jonathan jumped,
just a little, and some kernels flew from his hand. As tame as she was, Mama Goose could still startle him when she did that.
    When she was very young, she had been a pet. Once she'd grown past the cute, fluffy stage, her owner had decided he didn't want her after all and had donated her to the zoo. Mama Goose had a good life here. All the kids loved her. But no one, not anyone in the world, loved the pure white goose as much as Jonathan did.
    "Come, Mama," he called again. And settling onto a patch of ground that wasn't too snowy, he held out a handful of corn.
    Mama Goose took a cautious step toward him. She always did that, too, acted as if she had forgotten him, as if she didn't remember he was the one who came to see her every single day.
    She bobbed her head up and down, took another step.
    Jonathan held his breath.
    And then there she was ... not just pecking the kernels of corn out of his hand but clambering with her wide flat feet right over his legs and settling into his lap. She always gave her tail a final shake when she settled down, murmuring deep in her throat. Kind of a low chuckle.
    "Hello," Jonathan whispered, running one hand down her silken neck. He took another handful of corn from his jacket pocket and held it out. Mama Goose gobbled the kernels eagerly, then tilted her head to peer with one bright eye into his face.
    "Who are you?" she seemed to be saying. And, not incidentally, "Do you have any more corn?"
    Jonathan laughed. "I'm Jonathan," he said. "I've told you that before. And yes ... here's more corn."
    She watched intently as his hand disappeared into his pocket and emerged again. Then she bent her elegant neck to receive the new offering.
    "Just wait until Rhonda sees you,"
Jonathan said, watching her eat. "She loves birds, and she's going to love you more than all the gulls over Lake Superior. More than the bald eagles, too."
    Rhonda was his little sister, but she wasn't here in Alaska with him and their father yet. When Dad moved to Anchorage to take his new job as a keeper at the Alaska Zoo, Rhonda and their mother had stayed behind in Minnesota so Mom could finish out her teaching job in Duluth. Jonathan had wanted Rhonda to come with him and Dad, but Mom had objected. "Rhonda needs me," she'd said, as though Jonathan, being all of ten years old, didn't.
    In June, once school let out and their house was sold, Jonathan and Dad would fly back to Duluth and bring Mom and Rhonda and their yellow lab, Marigold, and Rhonda's beta fish, Boy Blue, to their new home in Anchorage. And then, at last, they would be a family again. But this was only April. June was a long way away.
    Jonathan stroked the goose's elegant long neck again, feeling the living warmth beneath the feathers. "You'll like Rhonda, too," he told her.
    She honked her agreement with that.
    "I've told Rhonda I'm going to adopt you for her," he added, "so when she gets here, you'll really be hers. I'll have enough money to do it by then." He already had seventeen dollars and
fifty
cents toward the zoo's adoption fee of thirty dollars.
    You could do that at this zoo, adopt one of the animals, and then it was as if the animal belonged to you—though whatever it was you'd adopted remained at the zoo, of course.
    Imagine adopting a Siberian tiger and taking it home!
    Slowly, carefully, Jonathan encircled the white goose with his arms and buried his face in the feathery softness of her breast. She tolerated his embrace briefly, then bent down to peck his ear.
    "Ow!" he said, releasing her and grabbing the offended ear. "That wasn't very nice."
    But nice or not, Mama Goose