The+Bear

Will Kerwin 7/8A 11-20-09 __ The Bear  __ I had no idea why I suddenly woke up to the sound of Ralph’s high pitched voice screaming “HELP! HELP!” I jumped out of my sleeping bag, slamming into Scott’s huge body on the way out of the tent. I got up to see Ralph standing by our food pack with his glasses on. “Guys! Some of our food is gone!” Ralph was practically addicted to food, so if any crumb went missing, he would start a search party to look for it. This was more than just a crumb. Through the dawn light that was coming through the brightly colored autumn trees, I could see our food pack lying on the ground, with a torn up bag of Lay’s next to it. OK, just to catch you up, I’m Chris. My friends Ralph, Scott, and I are on a weekend camping trip in the north woods. “Well I guess we’ll just put it higher up in the tree tonight” Scott suggested. “YES!” Ralph exclaimed. “And we’ll put in a tree further away from our camp” That evening, we walked to a tree a fair distance from our camp, and Scott slung the heavy food pack over a high branch in an oak tree. On the way back, we marked our path with red duct tape. As Scott stooped his head to get into the tent, I had plenty of room above my head as I walked in. Again Ralph woke us. This time by shaking us violently and saying: “HE DID IT AGAIN! HE TOOK MORE FOOD!” “Who, when… WHAT?” Scott and I said in unison. “I was going to get my pre-breakfast snack, and the food pack was on the ground, and beef jerky was gone!” I sprinted over there, with Scott and Ralph eating my dust. Sure enough, the food pack was lying on the ground with and empty beef jerky bag next to it. And there were tracks. They led off into the woods away from the pack. “Oh my gosh!” Scott said. “That thing must be enormous!” He was right. The tracks were about as big as my head. Ralph pointed out something else. The tracks started at the old tree, and continued along the red duct tape path to the new tree. “Geez, that is one smart bear!” I said. “We must follow the tracks to its den!” Ralph proposed. And started marching off into the woods. “Whoa! Ralph! We don’t want to get eaten by a bear!” And even though we protested a lot, he persuaded us to sneak over to the den. It was empty. “We must devise a plan. We must find a way to bring this bear down and destroy it once and for all! HAHAHA!” Ralph started to cackle like a psychomaniac. “I agree” Scott said. “Me too” I agreed. So, that night, after devising a plan, we went to the bear’s den. We set up a bunch of traps, grabbed our weapons, and planted the food pack a good 20 feet or so away from the entrance to lure it out. Then we waited. After a few minutes, we heard loud sniffing from the den. “Everyone! Positions!” Ralph whispered as he snuck around to the back of the den. Scott and I held our big sticks at the ready and hid behind 2 trees. The bear came out. It was over twice as big as Scott! It started to lumber towards the bag when it hit our first trip wire, falling face first right into our duct tape trap. But instead of being trapped, it ripped the tape off and charged at Ralph, who was dancing around and taunting to the bear. Then it fell into the small water-filled pit we had dug. Now even more enraged, it charged Ralph again. Time for plan B. That’s when Scott and I came out from our hiding place and beat it with our sticks until it turned away from Ralph. That’s when he threw his whittled wooden spear right into its back. There was then an unearthly howl. It was on the ground, and Scott and I gave it a beating it would never forget. But it still got up. This was panic time. It looked at us, and we all knew we were dead meat. But instead of ripping us to shreds, it just hobbled away. Never to be seen again.