Chapter Seven: A Guest

  Lusa


   Lusa's mom, Alicia, licked Lusa's ruffled black fur. Lusa smiled at Alicia.
  "So what were you gonna tell me?" Lusa asked.
  "There's a new grizzly coming. Ella says that the grizzly was outraged and in pain when the flat-faces found her." Alicia shook her head. "Wild bears get crazier each day. I don't understand this."
  "Like my daddy."Lusa pitifully mourned. "He almost bit Ella. Probably rabies." Lusa's face lit up. "I'm going to check on the Grumps.
  Lusa always called grizzlies Grumps. In the Bear Bowl, there were lots of bears. Grizzlies were Grumps and white bears were called Swimmers. Lusa shuddered. The white bears were so tall, they could eat Lusa in one snap of their mammoth jaws! She soon saw a metal wired gate that seperated the black bears from the Grumps. A couple of flat-faces but an unconscious Grump by the wired gate, near Lusa. The flat faces quickly hurried off. There, the Grump woke up. The Grump's furious/sad eyes stared at Lusa.
 "Who are you? Where am I? What happened to my cub?" The grizzly said.
 "I'm Lusa, a black bear. Um, you're in the Bear Bowl and I don't know your cub is. Perhaps you should check the flat-face's long firebeast?" Lusa said.
 The grizzly bear's eyes softened. "Ah, you must be a kind one. My name is Oka. I had abandoned my cub because I care for only my other one." Oka began to wail. "Oh, Toklo! If you only knew I loved you too!"
   Lusa felt pity for Oka. But a thousand thoughts whirled in her head. "Are you hungry for fruit? I know how to get a ton of fruit. maybe I can fetch you some fruit!" Lusa offered. "Do you like pears, mangoes, wedges of pineapples, apples, pulps of oranges?"
  Oka shook her head and nosed Lusa. "We grizzlies don't live on fruit. We eat salmon, such and such. Hunt for rabbits instead of my dumb idea of dandelions!"
  "What's a salmon?" Lusa asked, curiously.
  Oka gave a small smile. She looked up to where the Mountains were. "The wild," Oka murmured. The grizzly remembered her time where she roamed freely with Tobi and Toklo. "You have many things to learn, young blackberry." Oka finally said. "Many."