Read Online The Bear: A Novel by Claire Cameron - Free Book Online Page A

keys just the white. She has a very pretty dress and I feel proud that she is my momma and that Jessica gets to see. Momma doesn’t have a job because she wants to be with me and so we go to the park and music and then sometimes playdates when we want friends to be with us only sometimes not always. The door opens and plaid shorts with hairy legs are standing.
    Steven’s voice says come in. Steven is Jessica’s daddy and he is the parent at home. I am supposed to say “Hi, Steven” and that is hard. Momma gives me a push and that means manners. Jessica is on the stairs and she has a doll in her hand. Barbie! It is a Barbie I haven’t met. I try to see Barbie and Jessica runs into the kitchen and I can’t see her anymore. Momma giggles and I look and she is gone and so is Jessica but only Barbie is on the ground. I go to pick her up and she disappears into fairy dust when I touch her. Now I can’t see and I feel around and it’s only metal and I don’t know what it is.
    Maybe a can like the one that holds tuna fish or one that Daddy opened and the fish were lying next to each other like a sleepover yuck. The fish in the cans have backbones and even sometimes heads and I do too because I can see through my eyes.
    There is breathing. It goes in and out and in and out. And something touches my foot. Small and pointy. I jump up. Bang my head goes clang. Ouch. I look up and see the tippy point of the canoe is above me. I am down on the ground of the canoe and I slid under the seat. It’s wet around me. I pull my feet in and water goes slosh. I look over to see what touched me and there is Stick’s gobby head. It is big like the moon. I can tell that he was sleeping because his eyes are smooshed on a little. I can see the line of the canoe where it is sewed together with metal stitches has made a print on his face.
    “Cookie?” he asks.
    I am in the canoe. Stick has the tin and he has shuffled to my end of the canoe. His nose makes the breath. I sit up and keep my hands on either side of the edges to make sure we don’t take a fall in the water by mistake because a canoe is tipsy. The sky is blue and it is a little cold and I look to the side and see there is big long grass that has its feet stuck into the water beside the canoe. Then there are sticks that are crisscrossed all over each other in a hump like the back of a turtle. I blink and I don’t know where I am and then I think camping and then I know I took Stick for a canoe ride for a long time. Maybe we are back again and I look to see if I know and it doesn’t look the same. It’s not a turtle’s shell that is beside the canoe. It is sticks and some mud with parts that have grass growing out. Our canoe is lying beside it and so is less tipsy but I don’t like that Stick is moving around inside the canoe. It makes me scared of getting wetter.
    “Let’s get out,” I say.
    “Cookie?”
    I grab the tin from him. Stick screams.
    I try to stand and my one leg feels like someone has chopped it off by accident or on purpose. It won’t move for a minute and I think that the water at the bottom of the canoe has ruined it. It feels like a piece of meat and then my foot is like Daddy’s sneaker. And then it hurts and I grab it and think ouch and then it goes prickle and a cactus is rolling up and down except there is no cactus in the canoe. I want to get out to get away from the cactus because it hurts my leg so I chuck the cookie tin onto the turtle’s stick shell that is beside the canoe and get my hands on the edges. I step right out onto the sticks with the leg that still walks. My pj’s are a waterfall for a minute and then they go drip on the canoe. Drip drip drip it sounds like a clock. The clock stops when I step up to the sticks. They feel pricky too but not as much. I find a good place for my foot and then move the dead one out and crouch down to hold the side of the canoe like Momma would.
    “Come on, Stick,” I say, making my voice high like a