Nick glanced at him nervously, but instinct told him to jump onboard. “Not a bear?” he echoed. “Because it sure as hell looks like it to me!”
Abby and I stared at them incredulously as the four of us closed ranks. Not only was it a bear, but it was clearly very interested in what we were doing in its meadow, and it seemed it might have a bad case of rabies, even though I wasn’t sure grizzlies could be infected with that. A few seconds later, it dropped down to its feet and let out another hair-raising growl.
We all took careful steps back at the same time, unwilling to become breakfast for the beast.
“Where the hell is Ferdie when we need him?” James muttered under his breath.
Abby’s eyes narrowed as she backed cautiously away. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’d offer Ferdie to the bear?”
James flinched and wrapped a protective arm around me as the animal growled its displeasure and hunger again. “Abby, at this point, I would offer you to the bastard if I thought for one second that Nick would let me get away with it. I do not want to be eaten by a fucking bear!”
Abby pulled out bear spray. “I came prepared. I guess Yogi’s eyes are going to be burning for a while.”
“Wait. Let’s try to scare it away first. Start screaming and waving your hands,” James said, keeping the thing warily in his sights. “If we look bigger, the bear will retreat!”
Then, never losing eye contact, Nick reached carefully into his pocket and took out a granola bar. Abby started unwrapping sandwiches from the cooler and tossed them toward the bear. Moving as quickly as he could, Nick unwrapped it and held it out, shaking it and hoping the foil wrapper would get the bear’s attention. A second later, he threw it over its head.
We all held our breath, and time itself seemed to stop. Then, calmly, the bear swiveled around and headed over to investigate the treat.
We exhaled in one accord and backed away more swiftly, all except James, who turned on a dime the second the bear took its first sniff of the granola.
“I-I kind of want to touch it,” he said, stepping toward it with a look of wonderment on his face, the kind of pained curiosity one wears when staring at a tragic car accident one can’t pull one’s eyes away from.
Without breaking stride, Nick grabbed him by the hair and pulled him along with us. “Fuck that, and fuck camping! We’re going home...now!” he said.
“We’ve handled much worse,” James said. “I’m not going to have Abby hold this over my head; that I chickened out.” He let out a long sigh. “Listen, I’ve been chased by natives in the jungle. If I can handle them, I can handle this.”
“Let’s go back to the campsite,” Abby said.
“But there are bears!” Nick said.
“People camp in bears country all the time.”
I held James’s hand and we all went back to the campsite. We were all coming down from that burst of adrenaline, exhausted with the relief that we were not mauled to death by a bear.
We actually had fun the rest of the day and even tried to fish. We talked and laughed and had a great time. Took a lot of pics too. This is what Abby wanted. She wanted to create wonderful camping memories like she had when she grew up. I’d gone camping a few times and always enjoyed it. When night came, we sat around the fire and told all kinds of stories. We ate Smores and hotdogs. And finally, we went to sleep, after we bear proofed the place. It started to rain, but Abby was sure it would blow over. My weather app said we would only have a little rain. So I snuggled up next to James and fell asleep.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
I woke up to water dripping on my face. And I swear it felt like I was floating. I sat up and quickly assessed the situation. I grabbed my flashlight and realized we were all in a big giant puddle of water, about three inches of water. Waking up to a flooded tent in the middle of the night is never fun.
“Um, guys!” I said.
James splashed around. “What the hell?”
“I’m soaked!” Nicked chimed in.
“I guess Mother Nature threw us a curveball,” Abby said.
James smirked as he held up his soaking wet pillow. “Go camping, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”
“It did have its good moments,” I said, pushing back the wet hair from my face. “I loved swimming with you at the lake today.”
He smiled at me. “We did have some fun. When we weren’t facing dangerous beasts or biblical floods.”
“I feel like a beached whale in this puddle of water,” Abby said.
“Are we done?” Nick asked.