Night of the Black Bear by Gloria Skurzynski

him by surprise. He hesitated before he answered, “‘Hate’ is a strong word. I don’t really hate him. I just don’t want to be connected to him. Since we were little, he’s been like a fly buzzing around me—always there, always a nuisance.”
    â€œBecause your mothers are friends?” Ashley asked.
    â€œRight. They’re almost like sisters, especially after Merle’s dad died. My mom kept helping out because things were so hard for Arlene Chapman.” Yonah took a long drink of his milk shake, rubbed his forehead, and said, “Whoo! Brain freeze. I hate those. Do you ever get brain freeze?” After a pause he added, “Now Merle—he doesn’t freeze my brain, he frosts my shorts. Ha!”
    â€œYeah, funny.” Ashley laughed a little, halfheartedly. “But why, Yonah? You still didn’t say why.”
    Looking through the window at the Gatlinburg street traffic, Yonah said, “Oh—I guess it goes a long way back. OK! Here’s an example.” He drummed his fingers on the table and began, “I’m a year and a half older than Merle, so my mom was always giving him my outgrown clothes and stuff. No problem there. But she’d let him have my toys, too. Sometimes I wasn’t through with them. She’d say, ‘You have lots to play with, Yonah, and Merle’s mother can’t afford to buy him things. You need to share.’”
    â€œThat sounds…nice of her,” Jack murmured.
    â€œYeah? Well, I didn’t care about balls and books and stuff, but one time, something happened that….” Yonah drew circles on damp sides of his glass as he continued, “There was this one thing I really loved. A Chief Cherokee action figure. It belonged to my dad when he was little, and it was still in the box, with a ton of accessories—bows and arrows, a quiver, a buffalo-horn headpiece, a war bonnet, lots of other stuff. I was real careful with it. Each time I took the Chief and the other things out of the box to play with, I put them back exactly where they belonged.”
    â€œSo what happened?” Ashley asked.
    â€œMerle wanted it. My Chief Cherokee.” Yonah set the glass on the table, hard. “He grabbed the box from my hands, and he tore it. So, I punched him, and his lip bled and he howled and my mom came running. She yelled at me and gave Merle my Chief Cherokee. To keep!”
    Jack could see how that would make a little kid mad. “How old were you?”
    â€œI was seven. Merle was almost six.”
    â€œReally.” Ashley curled her fingers over the edge of the table as she leaned forward. “And you’re still mad at him over that? After all these years? He was only a little kid!”
    â€œNo, that’s not the only thing.” Yonah glared at his hamburger, then picked it up and said, “Forget what I told you. Let’s eat and get out of here.”
    Jack knew his sister was turning all this over and over in her mind, carefully examining Yonah’s words as she searched for the heart of his conflict with Merle. Finally, when she pushed away her empty plate, she said to Yonah, “There’s more, isn’t there? I guess that Chief Cherokee thing was what started you being mad at Merle, but no one stays mad for nine years about something like that. That’s not the real story. There’s something a lot bigger. Right?”
    They were interrupted by the hostess, Caitlyn, who approached carrying the check on a little tray. Standing close to Yonah, she handed it to him.
    â€œI’ll take that,” Jack told her as he reached for it. “Am I supposed to give the money to you?”
    â€œNo. Pay up front,” she answered.
    Yonah had begun to get up to follow Caitlyn, but Jack stopped him with, “Wait! I’d like you to answer Ashley’s question—that maybe there’s something much bigger. Is there?”
    Yonah settled