The Shadow of the Bear: A Fairy Tale Retold by Regina Doman

farewell, my lovely ones, before the neighbors call the police!” And with a smile, Sir Bear leapt from the porch and bounded off into the night.

Chapter 6
     
    THE NIGHTTIME sojourn to St. Lawrence had an interesting aftermath. It should have made the girls more curious than ever about who Bear was. It had the opposite effect. Perhaps they felt that he had earned their trust, and they decided to allow him to keep his secrets.
    Nothing much of note happened the rest of the winter, except that the friendship between Bear and their family deepened. Bear continued his regular visits, and the girls continued to enjoy his company and talk.
    “I had a weird dream last night,” Rose said to Bear a few weeks after the St. Lawrence visit. February was turning into March’s thaw, but spring refused to come quickly. She, Blanche and Bear were talking one Friday night after Mother had gone to bed. “Do you know how to interpret dreams?”
    “Do I look like I should?” Bear was lying on the floor, poring over a book of medieval art that Blanche had taken down for him to look at. She was also on the floor, with her back propped up against the couch.
    “Sort of. Those dreadlocks make you look like a shaman.” Rose, curled up on the couch, prodded him with a toe teasingly. “You know, I’ve never seen a white guy with dreadlocks. How did you get them?”
    “With great difficulty.” Bear yanked at one matted lock thoughtfully. “I had a Jamaican roommate in J.D. He thought I should try dreading my hair. I’ve just sort of kept it that way. It looks rather hideous, but a great disguise for a prince, don’t you think?”
    “Ah, yes indeed, Sir Bear. Well, anyhow, I thought you might be able to interpret dreams. But not because of your dreadlocks. Some people have that gift, like Daniel in the Bible. I don’t think he had dreadlocks.” Rose picked at her nails meditatively. “I always think my dreams mean something.”
    “Maybe they do, and maybe they don’t,” Bear ventured.
    “Well, see if you can interpret this one. It was actually kind of funny. I dreamed that those mean girls from school had kidnapped my sister. I didn’t see them, but I knew it was them. And I was running downstairs and through the rooms trying to find my mom. You know how you can never seem to do what you want to do in a dream? Well, at last I found her, and she was in the kitchen ironing, and I said, ‘Mom, they kidnapped Blanche. What can we do?’ and Mom just shrugged and said in a slow, careless way, ‘Well, those things happen.’ ‘But Mom,’ I said, ‘we’ve got to do something! Call the police! Don’t you care about your own daughter?’ And she said, ‘If you’re going to be so sassy, why don’t you do something about it?’ Now, my Mom isn’t like that at all, which is why it was so weird. And then the doorbell rang, and I ran to open the door, and it was the girls from school—the ones who kidnapped Blanche, and I said to them, ‘Where’s Blanche?’ and they said, ‘We have her.’ ‘What are you going to do with her?’ I asked, and they said, ‘We’re going to stick her head in a box of Styrofoam balls.’ ‘Is that painful?’ I asked, and they said, ‘Yes, very painful.’ And that’s all I remember. Isn’t that weird?”
    Bear, who had been trying to keep a straight face, burst out laughing.
    “A box of Styrofoam balls?” Blanche giggled.
    “Yes,” said Rose perplexed, “It seemed normal in the dream, and I guess I thought it was a sort of torture I’d heard about.”
    “Nothing that I’ve ever heard,” Bear said at last.
    “No more craft projects for you, Rose,” Blanche said, rubbing her eyes.
    “So do you think that had any meaning?” Rose pushed Bear with her foot to make him stop laughing.
    “Yes,” he said. “It means you’re seriously demented.”
    “Bear!” she cried, kicking him fiercely. “Stop it!” But he now was rolling on the floor, guffawing helplessly. She jumped up and