A Bear Named Trouble by Marion Dane Bauer Page B

rose on her stubby legs, shook her feathers back into alignment, then climbed off his lap. As she waddled away, her tail feathers twitched with each step.
    Jonathan smiled at the picture her rear end made—Mama Goose always made him smile—and scrambled to his feet. Though he had managed to avoid sitting in a patch of snow, his own rear was cold and more than a little damp. He wasn't done with the white goose, though, even if she was done with him. There was the game to be played still.
    He closed his eyes and stood perfectly still for a long moment, breathing in the alive smell of the wet earth. When he opened them again, he was ready. It was a game he'd played with his sister since she was little. He'd pretend his way inside a bird or an animal, then he'd tell Rhonda exactly what being that animal was like.
    He and Rhonda were still playing the game, even if they had to do it on the telephone now. That meant he had to store up details for the next phone call. He couldn't make the game seem real without the right details.
    Jonathan squinted his eyes, studying Mama Goose, who was busy pecking at something hidden in the damp leaves.
    Feathers. First there would be the feathers, soft and stiff at the same time. Feathers all over their bodies. And beaks, of course. He brought his hand up in front of his mouth, defining in the air the size and shape of a beak.
    "I know," Rhonda would say, impatient for him to get on to the good part, the part where the flying began. "All birds have feathers and beaks."
    "But," Jonathan would remind her for the hundredth time, "you have to be
inside
the feathers,
inside
the beak. You have to feel them."
    "And inside the wings!" she would say, and without even seeing her, he would know that her cheeks were plumped out with a teasing grin.
    But Jonathan refused to be hurried. He never let himself be hurried when they were playing the game, no matter how impatient Rhonda got. Waiting a little didn't hurt her. Rhonda hated waiting, but then she
was
rather spoiled. Everyone in the family admitted that Rhonda was spoiled, even Dad, who was the one who spoiled her the worst.
    Next, Jonathan would remind her about Mama Goose's eyes, how she has one eye on each side of her head. "That's so she can see in every direction at once," he'd explain, "so she won't get caught by predators." But, of course, Mama Goose didn't have to worry about predators. Life in the zoo was safe.
    "Our feet," Jonathan spoke out loud now, as though Rhonda were by his side and could hear, "are big and flat. You'd think a goose's feet would be cold, standing bare like that on
the snow, but they aren't. It's got something to do with the veins being close together. I don't remember exactly what."
    Finally, he got to the part he knew Rhonda was waiting for. He reached his arms out wide and said, "And our wings are strong. When we stretch them out, they catch the air. I can feel the way the air lifts me off the ground. I can feel the flying in my wings. Can you feel it, too?"
    And without even having to close his eyes to concentrate, he heard Rhonda's answer. She looked up at him with those sky blue eyes that always captured every fragment of the light and said, "Yes, Jonnie, yes. I can feel it. Just like you. We can fly!"

2. Waiting
    T HE young brown bear kept moving. Twice he circled back to check out the place where he had last seen his mother. The first time she was still there. She bared her teeth and flattened her ears again. The second time she was gone. She and the big male were both gone.
    The cub sniffed his way around the clearing. He picked up his mother's scent, but he got the intruder's, too. So ... the two of them had gone off together. The young bear stood, gazing off after them. The trail would have been easy to follow, but bewildered as he was, he knew better than to risk an encounter with the big male.
    Should he wait for his mother to return? Somehow he knew that would be futile. Once more, he turned