Little Polar Bear Rescue Read online

  For Ollie Callum who is wild about the natural world, and a very big fan of polar bears – Rachel

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  Copyright

  “Who can tell us how to light a fire using things from the forest?” Karen, the Forest Club leader, looked around at the hands in the air. “How about you, Felicity?”

  They were on a Forest Club camping trip in the woods and there was so much to see. Fliss was busy looking at a group of woodlice and hadn’t heard the question.

  “She wouldn’t know how to start a fire – she’d know how to start a zoo!” Ella laughed.

  “I want to be a vet, not a zookeeper!” Fliss said. “They’re completely different!”

  “That’s very interesting, girls, but let’s get back to the topic of making a fire,” Karen said. “Go ahead, Emile. Why don’t you tell us?”

  “You can use cramp balls,” he said. “It’s a fungus that grows on dead trees in the shape of a black ball. If you break it open, it’s dusty inside and easy to light.”

  “Dusty black fungus balls!” Taylor snorted. “Don’t be silly!”

  All the kids laughed and started rolling around. Fliss didn’t join in – she didn’t want to hurt Emile’s feelings. But it was hard not to see the funny side!

  Karen and the other camp leader, Andrew, clapped their hands together for silence.

  “Although it does sound far-fetched, Emile is actually right,” said Andrew. “Cramp balls are great for helping to start a fire. They’re also known as King Alfred’s cakes or coal fungus. Well done, Emile.”

  Once everyone had calmed down they gave Emile a round of applause.

  “So, next question. How do we arrange a fire so it has the best chance of staying alight?” Karen pointed to Pippa.

  “Scrunch up some paper, then add a layer of kindling and arrange a cone of sticks and logs around that.”

  “Excellent answer,” said Andrew. “Now, who would like to show us their skills by lighting a real campfire? If it’s successful we can celebrate with smores, also known as … melted marshmallows and chocolate biscuits!”

  Everyone cheered. Ella got up and did a ‘smores dance’, which involved jumping around and shouting more smores, more smores.

  “OK. But first let’s build up an appetite with a big game of hide-and-seek.” Andrew grinned. “Ella, seeing as you’re on your feet and keen to take part, why don’t you be the seeker?”

  “I love seeking,” Ella said, closing her eyes. “Ready, steady … go! Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”

  There were shrieks of excitement as the children criss-crossed all over the place, looking for somewhere to hide. Emile lay flat on the ground in plain sight and Fliss nudged him with her foot.

  “What are you doing, Emile?”

  “I’m pretending to be a stick,” he whispered. “You can be a stick too, if you like.”

  Fliss giggled. Emile always looked at life in an interesting way – he was one of a kind! She needed to find a hiding spot fast but she didn’t fancy being a stick. She looked across at Ella, who was striking a new silly pose with every number she shouted out.

  “Nine, eight, seven…”

  Fliss didn’t have long. Hoping Ella would be distracted by Emile’s stick impression, she ran to her tent and snuggled deep down inside her sleeping bag. Just in time.

  “Three, two, one! Ready or not, here I come!”

  Fliss tried to stifle a giggle, expecting Ella to open her eyes and shriek “found you” at Emile. And when she didn’t, Fliss thought maybe Emile’s trick had worked! It wouldn’t be the first time he had been right. Then came a yell.

  “Found you!” Ella’s voice was still loud, even though it was now in the distance. “Taylor, I said I saw you. You have to come out!”

  The voices faded away and Fliss assumed Ella had gone further into the woods to look for the others. That gave her plenty of time to get out and find a better hiding place. But it was warm and comfortable in the sleeping bag… Although her heart was racing with the excitement of the game, Fliss found her eyes fluttering and then closing. It was so cosy!

  BANG.

  What was that? Fliss’s eyes flew open. It sounded as if some kids had run past and thumped the tent. Fliss yawned. She must have fallen asleep!

  She had no idea how long she’d been hiding. Perhaps everyone else had been found and they were all looking for her.

  Fliss wriggled back up the sleeping bag and blinked. It was dark and the air was cold. Had she slept through the game, the campfire and dinner? There’s no way Ella would have let her miss the smores! Feeling panicky, Fliss got out of the bag and stood up. The first thing she noticed was that her head wasn’t touching the roof of the tent. Then she felt the floor beneath her feet – it was hard, like wooden boards, not soft, like a grassy campsite. What was going on?

  Still unable to see clearly, Fliss stepped forwards with her arms outstretched until she reached a surface. It felt like a solid wall. Feeling along it she came to some stiff cloth – a blind. She pulled the blind and it rolled up. Light streamed in, so bright it hurt her eyes. She rubbed them and peered around, keeping her eyes half closed until they got used to the brightness.

  Fliss was in a room. There were four bunk beds, each with a sleeping bag and blankets. She jumped as she heard another thud – not kids thumping a tent but wind buffeting against the building. Fliss pressed her nose against the window. Outside everything was white. There was snow as far as the eye could see.

  She wasn’t in a campsite any more. It looked like she was in the middle of nowhere, at the end of the world.

  Fliss left the bunk room and took a look around. It didn’t take long! There were only three rooms in the whole hut. There was a sleeping area, a tiny bathroom and a living room with a kitchen at one end, an office at the other and an old sofa in the middle. A door from the living area led straight outside and Fliss wrenched it open to see if there was anything that could tell her where she was.

  She stepped out and was hit by the bracing weather. The sunshine was so pure it was like a camera flash, and the sharp wind rose and fell in sudden gusts. But the most astonishing thing was the cold – it was so cold that it made Fliss’s teeth chatter. In front of her, the snowy ground gave way to a huge, flat sheet of ice. Had the sea frozen? Fliss could only take a few seconds of the freezing air before she shuffled back inside the hut and slammed the door shut.

  “It’s so cold, it could be the South Pole!” she said to herself. Not long ago she had found herself there, looking after the sweetest penguins.

  She looked out of the window again at the expanse of white and wondered where on Earth she was and what animals could possibly be out there. She knew there had to be at least one, because every other time she had ended up a long way from home it was for a reason – to rescue a baby animal that needed her help. But she couldn’t help anything if she didn’t warm up soon. The cold was getting into her bones.

  There was a fireplace and Fliss spotted a log basket next to it with everything she needed. Remembering Pippa’s instructions, she made a cone of small logs around some paper and kindling and held a match to it. Within minutes, the fire was roaring and Fliss rubbed the cold out of her skin. Now she could concentrate.

  The room had two windows – one with a view of
the frozen sea out front and another on the opposite wall. Through the second window, Fliss could see a range of snowy hills, and what was that? In the distance she could just about make out the flat slopes of roofs and a snow-ploughed road. It was a town! Good, so she wasn’t completely alone. But she had to keep exploring until she found out where she was and what to do next.

  The office part of the living room had a desk. On it was a computer and some books. Underneath, a pile of equipment was stashed in a large box. The walls were covered in pictures, charts and graphs. And a map! It had a small Canadian flag in the bottom corner and a curved dotted line at the top, which Fliss recognized as the Arctic Circle. So she was in the very north of Canada, right next to the North Pole – no wonder it was so cold!

  Fliss stared at the wiggly shape of coastlines. The sea was marked blue, and the land mostly white and empty. There were no big cities or landmarks, just a dot and the name Winston, which had to be the town she’d seen. And there was another tiny dot labelled ‘LOOKOUT’. It was on the south side of a large, sweeping C-shaped bay.

  Fliss gazed out of the windows again. A bay straight ahead, with land behind and wide sea open to the right… That must be it! She was in remote Canada, in a lookout hut! But what was the hut a lookout for? Whales? Ships? No, surely it would be on the coast for those things. This was in a bay.

  Her eyes travelled along the wall to a large, handwritten sheet with the title: Polar Sightings – Threat Levels. She had worked out that she was near the North Pole but she wasn’t sure what was being recorded. Perhaps it was the sea level.

  Fliss picked up a small book called Animals of the Arctic. Aha! This might give her a clue about what she was here to help… She flicked through the pages of birds and beasts. It seemed that quite a few animals lived in or near the Arctic Circle! Looking up, she again saw the town in the distance. Perhaps she should walk into Winston and speak to the local people. They might know of a distressed animal or at least where to look for one.

  Then something outside the back window caught Fliss’s eye, between the hut and the distant town. A large white shape was moving on a snow mound. Maybe it was a ball of snow, rolling down the hill? Those gusts of wind could be fierce. Surely they weren’t fierce enough to blow away a chunk of snow that big. The lump continued to move, and there was another one behind it.

  Fliss rummaged in the box under the desk and found a pair of binoculars. Perfect! She took them to the window, put them to her eyes and adjusted the focus until the snow mound came into view, crystal-clear.

  Now she could see them, the white fur, the black noses… It was a polar bear and her cub!

  Fliss took another look at the Polar Sightings sheet on the wall. It wasn’t polar as in North Pole. It was polar as in polar bears! If she’d looked at it more closely before she might have worked it out. There were several entries:

  Three mothers seen leaving den with cubs in direction of town. Alerted Winston. 3rd March.

  Mothers headed out to ice. 5th March.

  Two males spotted heading towards town. Alerted Winston. 6th March.

  So this was a polar bear lookout. Fliss knew that hungry bears could attack humans. Whoever was doing shifts in the lookout had to warn the town if bears were coming their way. It was quite a responsibility!

  There was a walkie-talkie on the desk and Fliss wondered if she should use it to let the town know about the polar bears she’d spotted. But if they weren’t heading towards town – she didn’t want to create a fuss. She decided to check they were going in that direction before doing anything hasty.

  Fliss returned to the window with the binoculars. The mother bear was still making her way down the snow hill towards the hut. She wasn’t like the polar bears Fliss had seen in books or on documentaries. Those were big fluff balls and this one was scrawny. Her fur looked like a yellowy shaggy carpet and she was thin and malnourished.

  You must be hungry after a winter in your den raising cubs, Fliss thought.

  The little bundle tumbled after its mother and Fliss smiled. It looked as though it was the first time it had ever seen snow. It probably was!

  The cub was chunky and healthy-looking. His mother’s milk must have kept him well fed during the winter months. The young bear tried to leap on its mother’s back but the big bear didn’t stop walking.

  “Hey, little one, your mum needs some food!” Fliss laughed.

  The mother bear had clearly had enough! She lay on her tummy and slid all the way down the hill. The cub tried to run after her but fell and skidded too. It was like a snowy helter-skelter! The young bear landed in a heap at the bottom. It rolled around before chasing after its mum, who was now walking past the hut. Fliss ran to the other side of the room and looked through the front window. The bears were heading for the sea ice! There was no need to alert the people of Winston.

  As she watched the beautiful bear family padding off into the distance, As she watched the beautiful bear family padding off into the distance, Fliss wished there was a way of getting closer. She knew that wasn’t possible though – there was a reason they had lookout huts. Adult bears could be vicious, especially if they were hungry or looking after cubs. This mother bear was both of those things! She might have been thin but she was still so big a human wouldn’t stand a chance if she decided to attack.

  Then the polar bears were gone. Fliss put down the binoculars, her heart beating fast. She felt so lucky to have seen them.

  Why am I here? she thought again. If it’s not for the polar bears, then what?

  Fliss flicked through the Animals of the Arctic book. There were magnificent reindeer called caribou, Arctic foxes, snow hares… With the bears safely out on the sea ice, she could now go and investigate. An animal might be stuck. She had to check the area.

  Searching through the box for whatever else she might need, Fliss found a backpack with Arctic Survival written on it. A survival kit would definitely come in handy! She also found boots, gloves and snow goggles, and on the back of the door were salopettes. They were a bit big so she rolled up the legs and tightened the braces over her shoulders. She slipped a jacket over the top and was ready to go, with the animal book in her pocket and the binoculars round her neck.

  One last look at the information sheets on the wall told her that it was March 14th and sunset was at 5.20 p.m. A clock on the wall said 10 a.m. She had plenty of daylight left to rescue a baby animal!

  Fliss stepped outside the hut. Only then did she see that it was covered in spikes. She gulped. They must be there to protect the person inside from hungry bears… A lone human in a little hut would be an easy snack.

  Fliss didn’t feel entirely safe leaving the shelter but she knew that somewhere out there an animal was in trouble. If she didn’t get to it in time, she would never forgive herself. And what would happen to her? If this was like every other time that she had found herself transported to a distant land, only a successful rescue would send her back home.

  A sudden scraping noise made her jump. A chunk of snow had fallen off the roof! Fliss laughed at how nervous she was and took a deep breath, enjoying the cold, clean air. Which way should she go – straight ahead to the sea ice or towards the town?

  She walked to the edge of hut and turned to look at the town. The view of Winston was blocked by the snow hill – the one the mother and cubs had tumbled down. Now she could see something white on top of it. Was it a snow hare?

  Fliss lifted the binoculars to her eyes to get a better look.

  No. It was a bear cub. Another polar bear cub!

  At the top of the snow hill Fliss could see that the cub was sitting alone.

  I don’t understand, she thought. The mother and her cub have gone. Unless…

  “Oh no! You got left behind!”

  The cub didn’t seem to know what to do with itself so Fliss approached carefully, keeping an eye out in case the mother bear realized that she’d forgotten one of her children. Slowly she made her way up to where the little cub was s
itting, patting at the snow.

  “Hello, you,” Fliss said softly as she got closer.

  The cub sprang to its feet and ran at her. It was the size of a small dog with extra big paws. Fliss thought it would stop, but it didn’t. Filled with excitement, the cub tumbled towards her and crashed into her legs, knocking Fliss over in the deep snow. Then it sat back and stared at her curiously. Fliss laughed loudly and the bear jolted in shock at the sound, making her laugh even harder.

  When she got her breath back, Fliss stood up and dusted off the snow. “If you’re that keen to be friendly then we’d better introduce ourselves right away. I’m Fliss!”

  The cub continued to look at her so Fliss kept talking. “You have a beautiful home!” she said, sweeping her arm at the view.

  From the top of the hill she could see everything. On one side there was Winston, on the other was the bay. The wide sea was beyond that, covered in ice. She also noticed, now that some of the snow had slid off, the words Nanuk Lookout on top of the hut.

  “Nanuk – that’s a nice name,” she said, smiling down at the cub. “How about we call you that?”

  Fliss knelt back down in the snow to get a better look at Nanuk. As the cub rolled around she could see it was a boy. He had cute little semicircle ears, dark eyes and a black nose. He looked like a beautiful wintery teddy bear and she desperately wanted to cuddle him. But she knew from her nature documentaries that touching a wild animal wasn’t wise. It was always better to observe.

  Nanuk, however, had other ideas. He jumped into Fliss’s lap and tried to lick her hand with his little pink tongue. Fliss still didn’t give him a cuddle. Instead she stayed still and let him climb all over her. Then Nanuk sat down, apparently delighted by a bit of snow. He patted it until it formed a snowball and held it between his paws.