Free Bear Adventure by Anthony McGowan, Nelson Evergreen

terrifying jump over the gorge demanded more nerve than ability; but this was different. She had to use every particle of her being to keep from falling off – a fall that she knew might easily break her neck or set off another landslide that would finish her off, along with the baby bear, the cougar and probably Frazer as well.
    She had to use all her natural balance to compensate for the constant sliding and skidding of the wheels; all her strength to keep the frantically bucking handlebars in line; all her intelligence to pick out the best route as she hurtled down the slope; and all of her nerve to keep the disabling waves of panic at bay.
    Her eyes constantly flickered in a triangle, the three points of which were the bear, the cougar and the section of mountain right in front of her.
    Twice she almost fell, but both times a well-placed
foot kept her upright, at the cost of a few more millimetres of sole worn off her trainer.
    Amazon was vaguely aware of Frazer behind her. Partly it was the uncanny sixth sense that she had developed for knowing his whereabouts. But mainly it was because of his constant insane whoops and yells.
    She was getting close to the big rock on which the bear cub stood. But so was the cougar, approaching it from the other side. And it was now that Amazon realized the flaw in her plan. Well, not so much a flaw as an oversight. She just hadn’t given any thought as to what she should do when she reached the rock.
    Would the baby bear meekly submit to her grabbing it? How could she face the cougar? And, if she did manage to somehow mount the rock, save the bear from the big cat and climb back down to her bike, how on earth was she supposed to cycle the rest of the way down carrying a bear that, although a baby, weighed as much as a sack of potatoes?
    Amazon was almost at the rock now. She’d gained enough confidence as a mountain biker to make a perfect sliding stop right in front of it. She glanced back at her cousin, hoping that for once he might have done some thinking.
    She saw that he had.
    But it wasn’t the kind of cool, rational thinking she’d been hoping for.

Frazer had, in fact, been giving serious thought to exactly these problems as he carved his way down the mountain. The fact that his brain hadn’t come up with any kind of ingenious plan vaguely disappointed but didn’t especially surprise him. But, all along, his body – or perhaps just a deeper, barely conscious part of his brain – knew what had to be done.
    Ten metres before the rock – at about the same point that Amazon had begun to apply her brakes – Frazer performed a trick he’d done a hundred times on his old BMX, but never once on a mountain bike. He threw all his weight on to his hands, levered back and up, and got his feet on to the crossbar. He was still steering with his hands, but it was tricky – no, it was impossible – on the mountain. But he didn’t need to stay like this for long. Because now it was time.
    He jumped with all his might, making sure he put enough sideways pressure on the bike to send it
round the rock. The rock that he was now sailing towards in mid-air.
    He landed on top of it and went straight into a forward roll. But, at the same second that he leapt up on to the rock from his bike, the cougar made its leap towards the little bear too.
    The cougar, intent upon its prize and partly blocked by the big rock, had failed to notice the approach of the two humans. It was therefore a little surprised to find itself sharing the rock not only with the helpless bear cub, but also with this bizarre flying human.
    That surprise was the only advantage Frazer had – and he knew he only had a second. He did not pause, but carried straight on from his forward roll into a run. He stooped, picked up the little golden bear and jumped straight down from the rock. As he’d hoped, his bike had come to rest almost exactly where he landed.
    ‘Amazon, if you want to live, get here now!’ he hollered.
    A