Free Great Bear Lake by Erin Hunter Page A

away from the place where she knew other bears would gather to go back onto the ice.
    As the day grew hotter it was hard to keep her paws moving.Her fur itched and she longed to find a patch of shade and lie down there, but she made herself keep going.
    I wish I was back on the ice, she thought. I wish I could go home .
    As she trudged, Kallik felt a growing sensation that something was watching her, that silent paws were following her. She glanced around uneasily, but nothing moved or made a sound, except for the reeds beside a nearby pool, brushing together in the breeze.
    â€œWho’s there?” she growled, but her voice sounded thin and weak. It’s this weird place, she thought. It makes me worry about things that aren’t there .
    She padded on but the feeling didn’t go away. She did her best to ignore it, but it was hard not to keep glancing over her shoulder.
    The sun had begun to slide down toward the horizon when Kallik thought she could hear a strange rumbling in the sky, very faint, but somehow familiar. Thunder?
    She looked up but the sky was clear, a deep blue streaked with pink. Silhouetted against the setting sun, she could see a dark shape. It was no bigger than a bird but it grew rapidly as it drew closer. Suddenly, her belly lurched and a memory flashed behind her eyes like a seal popping its head out of an ice hole.
    The metal bird!
    The sound grew louder until it thumped inside her head, hurting her ears. As the metal bird approached her, Kallik could see a web dangling underneath it; inside the web was a huge bundle of white fur, all squashed up. This bird wascarrying a white bear—at least one—just as the other bird had tried to carry Kallik and Nanuk back to the ice. Kallik remembered the wind in her fur, and how terrified she had been to find herself flying skylengths above the ground. She had clawed at the web in a panic until Nanuk had soothed her and explained to her what was happening.
    But that metal bird had never reached the ice. Kallik shuddered as she relived the moments when its wings had begun to whine and clatter as if it were in pain, until it burst into flames and fell out of the sky. Her heart pounded as she remembered Nanuk’s broken body lying amid the wreckage, her eyes closed and her fur already cold against Kallik’s muzzle.
    The rumbling, chopping sound swelled until it seemed to fill the whole world; Kallik crouched down and put her paws over her ears. Suddenly, the noise changed, becoming more high-pitched and whining. Kallik lifted her head and risked looking up. The bird was sinking closer to the ground, its long metal wings no longer keeping it up in the air.
    â€œNo! No!” she yelped, scrambling to her paws and bounding toward it. “Go up! Go up!”
    But the metal bird didn’t hear her. It went on sinking, lower and lower. Wind from its clattering wings flattened the grass and bent the sparse thornbushes. Kallik hid behind a rock, peering out as she waited for flames to start spouting from its body. She flinched as she heard a high-pitched cry of terror coming from the web. There must be a cub in there! She squeezed her eyes shut tight and waited for the earth-shaking crunch of metal and fur amid roaring flames.
    Several heartbeats passed; the only thing she could hear was the chopping sound of the wings, throbbing steadily through the air. Daring to open her eyes again, she saw that the metal bird was flying so low, hovering in one place, that the web containing the bears bumped gently on the ground. Kallik pricked her ears hopefully. No bear could die from a little bump like that!
    She watched from the shelter of her rock as the web fell down around the bears and three furry shapes tumbled out: a she-bear and her two cubs. All three looked bone thin, as if they’d had as much trouble as Kallik finding food on land since the ice melted. Kallik could guess how confused they must feel, dropped here by the bird without