Page 1 of A Very Beary Christmas
Chapter 1
Chloe
I huddled my scrawny seven-year-old body further against the wall of the small cave, the rough, damp stone digging into my back. This cave was my safe place, discovered during one of my many attempts to stay as far away from the trailer when my father was on one of his benders. It wasn’t a big space, little more than a crevice, but it was big enough for me to hide.
I didn’t dare move. Something was out there, shuffling around.
Leaning forward slightly, I peeked out into the forest surrounding my sanctuary and saw nothing. The darkness was near absolute, broken only by the occasional shafts of silvery moonlight streaking through the dense canopy.
I clamped my lips together to stop my teeth from chattering. My threadbare coat and sneakers didn’t do much to fend off the bitter cold, but at least I was out of the wind.
Things had gone eerily quiet, as if everything around me was suddenly holding its breath, just as I was.
I shrunk even further into myself.
I had heard the townspeople stomping clumsily through the forest several times throughout the day and night, calling my name, trying to find me. What was out there now, though, wasn’t them. No, whatever it was, it was much bigger than that.
“Chloe!”
The familiar voice spoken from just outside the cave startled me. Instantly, my fear began to ebb away when I realized who it was.
I peered cautiously out into the darkness. “Sam? What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” I could hear the worry in his voice and though it was dark, I could easily picture his golden-brown eyes looking down at me, creased in concern.
Since we’d moved to the small, mountain town six months earlier, Sam had appointed himself my protector. No matter how hard I pushed him away, he just kept coming back. Secretly, I was glad he was persistent, because I liked Sam. I liked Sam a lot.
“Come on out, Chloe.”
I didn’t want to, but Sam could be pretty stubborn. Still, I didn’t want to take the chance that anyone else would find my special place, so I turned myself sideways and slid out through the narrow crack.
“How did you find me?” Sam had a way of showing up exactly when I needed him. That didn’t explain how he had zeroed in on my hiding place when no one else could. I knew I hadn’t made a sound; I had plenty of practice at trying to be not just silent, but invisible, too.
He didn’t answer, responding with a question of his own. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. I was tired and cold and hungry, but that was nothing new and he didn’t need to know that. I didn’t want him to think I was a cry baby.
Even standing up as straight and tall as I could, I barely reached his shoulders. Sam was big—tall, broad, and strong. A lot of the kids at school were big, but Sam was even more so than most.
“Come on.” Before I even realized what he was doing, he wrapped his large hand around my wrist and tugged me away from the cave. I dug my heels in and tugged back, to no avail.
“I can’t go back,” I told him, hating the way my voice sounded so weak and whispery. I really couldn’t go back, though. My father would beat me good for trying to run away again, and one of these days, I wasn’t going to survive it.
“I’m not taking you back.”
“Then, where are we going?”
“To my house.”
I struggled even harder. Going to his house meant involving his parents, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Adults always said they wanted to help, and some even tried, but they always ended up making things worse.
I didn’t want to leave again. I liked it here. I wanted to find a place in the mountains and live like the pioneers did. Or, better yet, I could be like Mowgli in the Jungle Book. Maybe Sam could be my Baloo.
“Don’t worry; my parents are cool. They won’t tell.”
I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t dare hope. I had seen his mom plenty of times. She worked in the school cafeteria and seemed like a nice lady. Every day she asked me if I wanted lunch, and every day I lied and told her I had already eaten. Her eyes would get all sad and she would give me an apple or something anyway, and tell me to save it for later. Some days, that was all I ate.
We tromped through the woods, our feet crunching in the light snow covering the ground. Then the pitch blackness lifted and we were suddenly in a clearing. And in the middle of that clearing was one of the biggest houses I had ever seen. It looked a lot like the Lincoln Log forts Sam and the other boys built sometimes during indoor recess when the weather was too bad to play outside, but this was made of real logs and it was huge.
