Lily to the Rescue: The Three Bears Read online

  A lot of animals see dogs touching noses and decide it’s a good idea and start doing it themselves. But they don’t usually learn how to sniff butts, which is the best part.

  “We rescued a baby elk!” Maggie Rose said, bouncing up and down on her toes a little. “I can’t wait to tell Mom.”

  Craig looked around. “All right, let’s get back to the road.” He pointed and I followed his finger, curious. I couldn’t smell anything interesting in that direction, so why was he pointing that way?

  Bryan shook his head. “No. The road’s this way, not that way.”

  Maggie Rose frowned. “Are you sure?”

  Craig gazed at her, then raised his head and peered at the sky. “With all these clouds, I can’t tell where the sun is.”

  Brewster sat, yawning, and scratched himself behind the ear. I yawned myself. Brewster can always do that to me: make me yawn, even if I am not in the mood to do so.

  “We should follow Brewster,” Bryan suggested. “He has a hound dog’s nose.”

  Craig snorted. “Brewster looks like he’s ready to take a nap.”

  “No. Watch. Come on, Brewster!”

  Brewster eased to his feet, eyeing Bryan suspiciously.

  “Let’s go! Find the road! Come on!” Bryan pulled Brewster a few steps. Brewster glanced at me and then went along. The rest of us followed.

  “You’re pulling him,” Craig told Bryan. “Let him lead.”

  “I know how to handle my own dog,” Bryan answered.

  “Okay, then drop the leash. See where he goes,” Craig said.

  Bryan dropped Brewster’s leash. “Find the road, Brewster!” Bryan told his dog. “Find the road!”

  Brewster looked at us. We all looked at him. I figured he was supposed to do some sort of trick and then we would all get treats.

  Brewster sat, and Bryan groaned.

  “Some hound dog,” Craig said. “Let’s go.” He turned in another direction. Maggie Rose and I got ready to follow.

  “No,” Bryan said stubbornly. “Who says you get to decide?”

  “I’m the oldest, and I’m the only one who’s had survival training,” Craig answered.

  “You’re the oldest and the dumbest,” Bryan said.

  “Yeah? Well you’re dumb to infinity.”

  “You’re dumb to infinity times infinity.”

  “Please!” Maggie Rose cried.

  We all stared at her, and I went to lick her hand. My girl was upset. “We’re lost and you’re just arguing!”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. “Okay,” Craig finally said. “We know the elk were in front of us. So if we walk away from them, we’ll be going back the way we came. All right?”

  Bryan shrugged. “Okay,” he agreed. But he didn’t sound sure. “I still think it’d be faster to just head straight back to the road.”

  “Thank you, Bryan,” Maggie Rose said gratefully.

  We took more of a walk. The boys kept checking back behind us. After a short while, Bryan shook his head. “I can’t see the elk anymore.”

  “That’s okay,” Craig replied. “This part was downhill, remember? And now we’re headed back and going uphill. The road’s this way.”

  We trudged along some more. After a little time, we left the area that Brewster had already marked. Now we were exploring a new place, where he was eager to lift his leg.

  “Come on, Brewster,” Bryan said more than once. There was a gentle note to his voice, though.

  His voice wasn’t gentle at all when he said to Craig, “Now we’re going downhill.”

  Craig paused, frowning. We all waited for him to do something, though I didn’t know what. I looked up at Maggie Rose. “Are you sure this is the right way, Craig?” she asked.

  Craig shook his head. “No, not completely. Listen.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a phone. “I’ll just call Dad.”

  “He’ll be mad at us. We left the trail,” Maggie Rose said.

  Craig sighed. “Yeah. I know. But I think we have to—oh.”

  He was looking down at the phone.

  “What’s wrong?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “The battery’s dead,” Craig said slowly. “We can’t call anybody.”

  “So we’re really lost?” my girl asked in a small voice.

  “No,” Craig answered quickly. “Of course not. Look, we only went, what, maybe forty-five minutes from the road? So it’s not that far.”

  “Then why haven’t we found it yet?” Bryan wanted to know.

  “Okay,” Craig said. “If we climb up to the top of the hill, we should be able to see the lake and the lodge.”

  “Is that from your survival training?” Bryan asked with a bit of a sneer.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Craig demanded.

  Everyone struck off in yet another direction. Gradually, the smell of where we’d been that afternoon left the air. We were truly exploring, and it was fun to sniff out new animal odors in the soil and along the trees and bushes.

  Craig stopped. “Let’s drink some water,” he said.

  Brewster and I watched as the children searched in their packs, but all they brought out were bottles of water that hardly smelled like anything at all. “Let’s give some to the dogs, too,” Bryan said.

  Maggie Rose cupped her hands and Bryan carefully dribbled some sweet water into them. “Here, Lily,” she offered. I carefully licked up the drink, loving my girl, kissing her hands when the water was gone.

  “I didn’t realize when we got up here that the trees would be so thick,” Craig said, looking around. “We won’t be able to see anything.”

  “So we really are lost.” Bryan’s voice was flat.

  Craig gazed at him and then nodded. “Yeah, we’re lost.”

  There was a long silence. “I’m scared, Craig,” Maggie Rose finally said.

  8

  Sometimes people use words to tell each other things. Sometimes, like dogs, they pass messages without making any sounds.

  This seemed to be one of the no-sound times, because the two boys exchanged a long look. Then Craig bent over so he could see my girl’s face. “I don’t think you should be scared, Maggie Rose. We’ve got a lot of daylight left. And the road goes for miles. All we have to do is find it and we’ll be able to get back to the lodge.”

  “Right,” Bryan agreed. “Besides, we all knew we weren’t going to see the bears right by the lake. There are too many people on the path. Out here, we could find them before anybody else!”

  “Sure! We’d be heroes!” Craig said, grinning.

  “People would carry Maggie Rose on their shoulders and name an airport after her,” Bryan added. He sounded happy. He sounded as if he were trying to sound happy.

  My girl giggled.

  Craig lifted his eyes to the sky. “Still can’t see the sun.” He studied his wrist. “It’s just past three. We should go this way, because…” He paused and looked at Bryan. “Well, what direction do you think we should go, Bryan? Maggie Rose?”

  “I don’t know,” my girl answered.

  “Why don’t we keep going in the direction we’ve been heading?” Bryan suggested. “Even if it doesn’t lead to the road, we might find a trail. And the trail will take us somewhere.”

  “That’s a great idea, Bryan,” Craig told him.

  Whatever they had been talking about seemed to lift their spirits, and that made me cheerful, too. I trotted happily at the end of my leash. We were still exploring new places, it seemed, and Brewster enjoyed leaving his marks over such a large area.

  When the strong scent of a new animal reached us, Brewster and I were alert, waiting for the humans to react.

  Suddenly Maggie Rose gasped. “Look over there! I see the bear cubs!”

  * * *

  Everyone ran. Up ahead I saw two heavy, dark-colored animals snuffling along the ground. A pair of huge squirrels!

  “I see them!” Bryan called.

  Even with Maggie Rose and Bryan running behind us, Bre
wster and I were straining at the end of our leashes. We were making so much noise that the squirrels both stared in alarm. Each was chubby and about the size of a cat.

  I knew what was going to happen next. They would scamper up a tree.

  I have never caught a squirrel, and I’m not sure what would happen if I did, but I’d really like to find out. I knew for sure I would be able to catch at least one of these big ones before they made it to a branch out of my reach.

  “Whoa, hold on, those aren’t bears,” Craig said. Maggie Rose dragged me to a stop.

  I could make no sense of this and looked up at her. Why was she keeping me from catching a big squirrel?

  The squirrels ignored the trees and both dove into a hole in the ground. Oh, those kind of squirrels! I’d met them before. They’re too lazy to climb trees. Instead, they go into holes.

  “Marmots,” Bryan said disgustedly. “They’re just marmots.”

  “I’m sorry, Bryan,” Maggie Rose told him.

  I pulled my girl over to the hole so I could stick my nose in and drink up the smell of big fat squirrel. Bright dark eyes glittered back at me.

  “I did a report on marmots for school,” Bryan said. “Biggest squirrels in the squirrel family.”

  “I thought you were the biggest squirrel in the squirrel family,” Craig told him.

  “What does that make you, then?” Bryan grinned at him. “You’re bigger than I am.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie Rose said again.

  “No, you know what? Forget about it. I was fooled, too,” Bryan replied. “I saw a furry critter and my brain said it was what we’re looking for.”

  They stood for a moment. Brewster nosed the ground, and I knew before he did it that he was going to lie down.

  “I guess we’d better keep going,” Craig finally said.

  Bryan tugged at Brewster’s leash, and Brewster got wearily to his feet.

  * * *

  I had no sense of where our people were taking us. I just knew it was deeper and deeper into the woods. Brewster finally had to give up on his project to lift his leg on every tree we passed. There were just too many of them.

  After we’d been walking for a long time, I could sense my girl getting tired. It showed in the way her feet dragged just a little, and how her grip on my leash had grown slack. “Craig? I need to stop and rest,” she said.

  “I think we should keep going,” Craig answered.

  “But we’re lost,” Bryan pointed out. “If we keep going, won’t that just make us lost-er?”

  “I don’t think that’s a word,” Craig told him.

  “What should I say?” Bryan asked.

  “More lost,” Craig advised.

  “There. You admit it. We’re more lost,” Bryan said. He sounded as if he’d won something.

  “What time is it?” my girl asked.

  Craig lifted his hand and stared at it. “It’s a little after five.”

  “Well, that’s good. Dad will start looking for us when we don’t show up at the car,” Bryan said.

  “Dad?” Craig asked. “But we came up here with Mom. He thinks we’re going home with Mom. That’s what he said when we were walking to the lodge.”

  Maggie Rose shook her head. “But I … I told Mom we’d go home with Dad.”

  There was a short silence. Brewster eyed the pine needles, getting ready to lie down. Bryan threw up his hands. “Great. Dad thinks we’re driving home with Mom, and Mom thinks we’re driving home with Dad.”

  Craig nodded. His whole body seemed to sag. “So nobody’s going to realize we’re stuck out here until they both get home.”

  “And that could be after dark,” Maggie Rose said.

  Brewster collapsed onto his stomach and rolled onto his side. Bryan dropped Brewster’s leash. “This is bad,” Bryan said.

  9

  I watched Craig as he looked around. I glan- ced around, too, but all I saw were trees and trees. “I think,” he said slowly, “that we should stop before we get even more lost.”

  “What do you mean? Stop? Here?” Now my girl was looking around, too. “We can’t just stop, Craig. We have to get to the road.”

  I touched her hand with my nose. Whatever was upsetting her, she was with a good dog who loved her.

  “I know,” Craig agreed. “But it’s not going to be daylight much longer. Before the sun goes down, we need water, food, and shelter. Here is as good a place as any.”

  Maggie Rose shook her head wildly. “Here is not good! No one will find us here!”

  Craig gave Bryan a long look, and Bryan turned to my girl. “Maggie Rose. Listen. Craig’s right. We don’t know when they’ll even start searching for us. We have to prepare for it to get dark.”

  My girl bit her lip. I nosed her hand again. Brewster, still sprawled on the ground, sighed and shut his eyes.

  “What I learned in survival class is, the first rule is, don’t panic,” Craig said, holding up a finger. Then he held up another. “The second rule is, make a plan.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Bryan asked.

  Craig thought about it. “Okay, first, I guess we should check our water supply.”

  Craig sat down, and the other children did the same. Brewster flapped his tail against the ground.

  When the kids took off their backpacks and unzipped them, the sound got Brewster’s attention. He raised his head, probably wondering the same thing I was. Dinner?

  “Two bottles of water,” Maggie Rose said.

  “Three,” said Bryan.

  “I’ve got three, too. Okay, that’s good,” Craig said. “We just ate a little while ago, so even though we haven’t got any food, it’s not so bad. We can last until morning with no food as long as we’ve got water.”

  “Actually—” said Bryan. He reached into his own backpack and pulled something out. I recognized the smell and began to wag my tail. Brewster eased to his feet.

  “You brought a jar of peanut butter?” Craig asked, laughing softly.

  “No,” Bryan replied patiently. He reached into his bag and brought out another jar, and another. Brewster and I were both wagging now. I did my very best Sit to encourage some sharing.

  Craig shook his head. “Who brings three jars of peanut butter on a hike around Echo Lake?”

  Bryan shrugged. “I didn’t want to run out.”

  “Yeah, I guess not.”

  “Well, if you’re complaining, maybe you don’t want any,” Bryan said. He stuffed the jars of peanut butter back into his backpack.

  “I’m not complaining, Bryan!” Maggie Rose said quickly.

  “No, I’m not complaining. You are like, the genius master of peanut butter, Bryan,” Craig said. “So okay! We’ve got water, and thanks to Professor Peanut Butter, food. We won’t starve or die of thirst. The only thing we have to worry about now is temperature. Once the sun’s all the way down, it’s going to get chilly pretty fast this high up in the mountains. We need some shelter.”

  Bryan looked around. “Here? What do you mean?”

  “We’ll have to put one together with what we have,” Craig told him.

  “I don’t think I have anything to make a shelter from,” Maggie Rose said slowly.

  “Well,” Bryan said to Craig, “you did promise to build Maggie Rose an airport.”

  Everyone laughed, which made my girl relax a little.

  Craig picked up a very long branch from the ground. “We can build a lean-to.”

  Maggie Rose brightened. “I know what that is! We find a tree limb close to the ground and lean branches up against it.”

  “Branches with leaves or pine needles,” Bryan added.

  “See? You know what to do,” Craig said.

  Bryan unclipped Brewster’s leash, and my girl unsnapped mine. Then we played with sticks!

  Everyone seemed to have forgotten how to throw them, though. Craig and Maggie Rose and Bryan found big sticks, most of them covered with dead pine needles, and dragged them over near where Brewster had de
cided to take a nap. I ran after my girl and grabbed her sticks with my teeth and tried to play Tug-a-Stick. This is, of course, the right thing to do with sticks if nobody’s throwing them.

  “No, Lily,” my girl told me. I found this baffling. Why would anyone say “no” about a stick?

  When they decided they didn’t want to play anymore, I saw that all the sticks were leaning up against a low tree branch in a shape that reminded me a little of a doghouse.

  “I still think an airport would have been a better idea,” Bryan said. “We could have flown home on an airplane.”

  “It doesn’t look very warm,” Maggie Rose said softly. “The ground is going to be cold.”

  They were silent for a moment. Craig squinted at the sky. “Sun’s going down. That’s why it’s getting chilly.” He looked at my girl. “You’re right. The lean-to will keep some of our heat in, but it’s going to be a pretty cold night. I’m not sure what choice we have, though.”

  Maggie Rose crouched and peered into the not-doghouse. “I have an idea,” she said.

  10

  Both boys nodded at Maggie Rose. “Whenever we’re outside and it’s dirt, like this,” Maggie Rose went on, “Lily always digs out a place to sleep. See? Like Brewster.”

  When my girl said my name, the boys looked at me. Now that she had said Brewster’s name, they were all looking at him.

  Brewster was lying in the hollow he had scraped out for himself while I was busy helping with sticks. As if he could tell that we were gazing at him, he opened one eye.

  “The hole helps keep him warm,” Maggie Rose said. “It’s like a dog bed. We could do that. We could scoop out a dog bed and fill it up with pine needles. That would be warmer than the dirt. Softer, too.”

  “Hey.” Craig was smiling. “That’s a really good idea, Maggie Rose.”

  After that, Bryan and Craig crawled in underneath the sticks and began digging out soil with their hands.