Beastly Little Boy

Chapter 15

Marking the border between his territory and Arturo's was tedious work for Bernard. Each tree had to be scratched deeply enough to leave a noticeable mark. That was fairly easy for the first couple of pines, but the sap that accumulated on his paws soon forced him to stop and wipe it off periodically.

There was also the issue of only having one uninjured front limb to work with. Although he successfully avoided straining his injured shoulder, the paw Bernard used got more than its fair share of exercise.

Bernard's whole arm ached from his shoulder to the tips of his claws by the time he stopped for the day. As he limped further into his territory to search for food and get a better sense of the resources available, Bernard found himself longing for the ability to walk on two legs again.

He stood up every now and again to relieve his front paws, but he was too heavy to stay in that position for more than a minute at a time. It was amazing how a powerful animal like a bear could only handle a couple of steps before being forced to return to walking on all fours.

"What's so great about being able to walk on two legs?" asked the cub. "Humans look so unstable that it's a wonder the wind doesn't knock them over. Having their noses so far from the ground must make it hard to smell stuff too."

He sounded oddly curious. It couldn't hurt to talk to him and make him a little less ignorant about people. If nothing else, maybe chatting could distract Bernard from how sore he was. "It helps them see farther," Bernard said as he sniffed a wild blueberry bush. "It also keeps people's hands free so they can use them more easily. You don't see bears carrying things in their paws, do you?"

"No. We don't really need to. That's what our mouths are for," said the cub.

Bernard plucked a berry to see if this light snack was worth taking the time to pick. The wonderfully sweet burst of juice in his mouth confirmed that it definitely was. He nodded to encourage the cub to keep talking before nipping away a cluster of berries.

"Mom used to carry my brother and I on her back when we had time to travel slowly. I always felt warm and safe when I burrowed my head into her fur with my brother next to me." The cub sniffled. "I miss them."

Bernard was grateful that the mouthful of berries gave him an excuse not to answer right away. He chewed slowly, taking his time before swallowing. "I miss my family, too," he said. "At least your mom wanted to be with you and loved you. I didn't even have that."

"Not even before you finished transforming?"

"I guess she loved me before Dad died. She could barely look at me after my body started changing though. No thanks to you." Bernard paused to lick juice from his muzzle. "Hey, how come you didn't know that already?"

"Since I had to keep my focus on changing you until everything except your voice had transformed, I only got to see your dreams. If I tried to see or hear what happened while you were awake, I might have messed something up or killed you."

"Thanks for not killing me, I guess," Bernard said awkwardly.

The cub took a deep breath. "Listen, I didn't realize your mom would react the way she did. I just wanted a human to understand what it felt like to be a grizzly, not to make her abandon you."

Forcing himself not to growl at the memory, Bernard cleared his throat. "There isn't anything we can do about what Mom did. It's not a good idea to think about it too much, kid."

"You're probably right. Mom used to say that wishing for it to start raining salmon won't make it happen. By the way, my name's not Kid. It's Orson."

Bernard smiled. Now he finally knew what to call his constant companion. "Alright, Orson. You were saying something about people's noses being too far from the ground, right?"

"Yeah. How can humans smell anything well? I've never seen one bother to sniff something up close or take the time to check for anyone else's scent. How do they stay off of each other's territory if they can't smell the scent markers?"

Great, he'd spent hours clawing a bunch of stupid trees when the scent was what really mattered, not the marks themselves. At least the rest of the process would pass by more quickly now. "The thing is, people rely on their eyes and ears more than their noses. They usually can't tell each other apart based on smell alone unless somebody wears a certain kind of perfume often." After eating the last of the blueberries, Bernard began flattening some grass to lie down on.

"Of course, people do sniff things," Bernard continued. "You just don't have much experience with the smells people search for. I remember how the smell of Mom's freshly baked sugar cookies used to make Dad and I come running from across the house!" He chuckled. "As for people's territories, they're a bit complicated compared to what bears have. Humans share space with each other most of the time. Houses have their ownership documented in writing, so people don't need to be able to smell anything to know who each house belongs to."

Orson snorted. "What are cookies, houses, and writing?"

The exhausted bear flopped down and curled up to rest. He'd be lucky if his sore arm let him sleep at all. "Cookies are amazing. They can be crunchy or gooey, but they are always delicious, except when they have raisins in them. Houses are basically dens for people. If I tried to explain them more than that, we'd be discussing them until next year. As for writing, it's a bunch of marks people use to communicate without speaking. Do you remember ever seeing any black marks on white stuff in my dreams? That's writing."

"That looked like a bunch of bugs to me. Do humans squash bugs to leave marks every time they want to leave a message?"

Bernard laughed so hard that he had to pause to catch his breath. "No, that would be gross. What people do is different depending on where the person wants the writing to be and what tools they have. No matter where the writing is, they use letters. Those are the things you thought were bugs, and they mean different things when they are arranged in different ways."

"That sounds confusing."

"Here, let me show you," Bernard said, hauling himself onto his paws. He wrote two words in the dirt using the tip of a claw. The writing was sloppy and tough to read, almost as if a preschooler had scribbled it. "I can't write normally as a bear, so this is the closest thing to good writing I can show you." He pointed to the first word. "That's my name." He gestured to the second word. "That says 'bear'. Do you get the idea?"

"Yeah. I have to admit, that's kind of neat. It's not very good for long distances though," Orson said. Bernard flopped back onto the flattened patch of grass. "Still, I'd like to learn more about it and the other ways humans are different from bears. Could you teach me?"

"Why? It's not like you'll ever need to read a book." He sighed before Orson could ask the inevitable question. "It's a thing made of trees that people write on."

"You're a lot nicer when you're explaining why humans do stuff. It kind of reminds me of my mom. She knew everything about the woods."

It couldn't hurt to practice writing again. If he ran into other humans, having at least somewhat legible handwriting could help him communicate with them if they didn't run away from the freaky writing bear first. "I guess so. There's a lot I don't know because I had to leave school a couple weeks after the transformation started, but it's worth a shot."

"What's school?"

Bernard felt as if he had opened the floodgates to an endless ocean of questions. At least he could have a friendly conversation with Orson now. He silently wished that the cub would let him squeeze in a few hours of sleep before he had to get back to marking his territory in the morning.