Finding bear, p.1
Finding Bear, page 1
First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2023
Published in this ebook edition in 2023
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
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HarperCollinsPublishers
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Text copyright © Hannah Gold 2023
Illustrations copyright © Levi Pinfold 2023
Cover illustration copyright © Levi Pinfold 2023
Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023
Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008582012
Ebook Edition © September 2023 ISBN: 9780008582029
Version: 2023-08-03
Praise for
FINDING BEAR
‘A triumphant return to April and Bear’s world, this time with the loveliest baby bear. A roaringly snowy adventure’
Nizrana Farook, author of The Girl Who Stole an Elephant
‘An unstoppable, heartwarming sequel. I’ll be recommending this book forever’
Carlie Sorosiak, author of I, Cosmo
‘Revisiting the world of April and Bear feels like coming in from the cold. Magical’
Rob Biddulph, author of Peanut Jones and the Illustrated City
‘Pack your rainbow boots for the most magnificent adventure!
An exhilarating story of love, hope and courage’
Jenny Pearson, author of The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates
‘Pure joy … An immensely powerful story’
Jasbinder Bilan, author of Asha & the Spirit Bird
‘A cold story that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside’
Lee Newbery, author of The Last Firefox
‘A beautiful, breathtaking Arctic adventure. Made my heart pound, break and soar!’
Rashmi Sirdeshpande, author of Never Show a T-Rex a Book
To every single person who wanted April and Bear to reunite.
This book is for you.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise for Finding Bear
Dedication
Map
Chapter One: The Photograph
Chapter Two: Rainbow Wellies
Chapter Three: The Email
Chapter Four: No Time To Lose
Chapter Five: Return to Svalbard
Chapter Six: Hamish and Jurgen
Chapter Seven: The Port
Chapter Eight: The Polar Institute
Chapter Nine: A Frosty Encounter
Chapter Ten: Surprise
Chapter Eleven: Preparation
Chapter Twelve: Hedda
Chapter Thirteen: Husky Ride
Chapter Fourteen: Chocolate and Change
Chapter Fifteen: A Bear Roar
Chapter Sixteen: Tension
Chapter Seventeen: Disaster
Chapter Eighteen: Arctic Storm
Chapter Nineteen: Trapper’s Cabin
Chapter Twenty: Bear
Chapter Twenty-one: Together Again
Chapter Twenty-two: Bear Ride
Chapter Twenty-three: The Ice Cave
Chapter Twenty-four: The Cub
Chapter Twenty-five: A Decision
Chapter Twenty-six: The Mineshaft
Chapter Twenty-seven: A New Name
Chapter Twenty-eight: A Confession
Chapter Twenty-nine: The Plan
Chapter Thirty: Help Arrives
Chapter Thirty-one: The Northern Lights
Chapter Thirty-two: The Fjord
Chapter Thirty-three: On Thin Ice
Chapter Thirty-four: The Rescue
Chapter Thirty-five: Lisé
Chapter Thirty-six: Unexpected Arrivals
Chapter Thirty-seven: A New Dawn
Chapter Thirty-eight: Goodbye
Epilogue: Home
Author’s Note
Resources and Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
Books by Hannah Gold
About the Publisher
Map
IT WAS EXACTLY seventeen months since April Wood had returned home from Bear Island and she was sitting cross-legged in her back garden listening to the sound of silence. Other people might have said that silence can’t make a noise, but April knew differently.
She knew that silence carried all sorts of messages – especially if you had learned how to listen properly. Besides, she much preferred being outdoors to inside. It was an altogether kinder place.
Particularly these days.
When April and her father had first arrived back from the Arctic, it had been like diving into the deep end of a very cold swimming pool. The constant noise and smog of cars and motorbikes, with their never-ending stench of exhaust, had been the most horrible shock. And people. So many people everywhere. Hustling, bustling and jostling every crowded minute of the day.
It had been Dad’s decision to hasten the move to the seaside and within a month, they had sold their tall and gloomy city house and found somewhere new near Granny Apples. It wasn’t necessarily the kind of house April would have chosen herself. Number Thirty-Four, Stirling Road sat in a row of identical modern red-brick houses, each with its own neatly lawned back garden and freshly painted fence. Unlike their old home, or even the wooden cabin on Bear Island, this house was filled with hard, square corners and shiny, gleaming work surfaces. There wasn’t even an open fire to toast crumpets on. Instead, it had one of those electric fires with pretend logs that glowed red with the flick of a switch. But Dad seemed happy. In fact, he was the happiest April had seen him in years and, as he kept reminding her, this house was far easier to keep clean.
But it didn’t mean she had to stay inside, especially on an evening like this – when the setting sun was streaking the sky with shades of gold and the breeze whispered through the trees like magic.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said out loud.
That was another thing that had remained with her from the Arctic. The habit of speaking out loud to herself. April didn’t consider it strange. Not until others started giving her funny looks.
Thankfully it was a Friday, which meant school was over for the week and she could do exactly as she wanted. She’d only been there a handful of months but still hadn’t shaken off the feeling of being the odd one out.
It didn’t help that after her presentation about the plight of the polar bears – the one that had taken ages to prepare – most of the class had just yawned. When April had tried to wake them up with her best roar (one she was very proud of) and then demonstrated how she could smell peanut butter from over one mile away, all they’d done was laugh and then make bear noises at her from the back of the class. To make matters even more embarrassing, the teacher had pulled her aside and suggested that perhaps animal impersonations were best kept out of the classroom.
April had tried to explain in her best and most polite voice that it wasn’t an impersonation. That she was trying to inform everyone about the problems in the Arctic – just like Lisé from the Polar Institute had encouraged her. But her words were wasted. From that moment on, she was known as ‘Bear Girl’ and, judging from the accompanying sniggers, she wasn’t sure it was a compliment.
The article in the local press hadn’t helped either. Somehow a local reporter had got wind of April and her father’s trip to the Arctic and since it was a slow news week, he’d wanted to tell their story. Dad had been reluctant. But not April. She had seized the opportunity because surely here was a chance to tell everyone about how much the polar bears needed their help. Here was a chance to warn people how quickly the Arctic was melting! But then the article had got lots of facts wrong, including April’s own name. As if she were anything like an Alice! And worst of all, rather than saying that she had saved Bear, the article implied that the captain of the ship had done all the hard work.
April wasn’t looking for brownie points or gold stars or even compliments. All she wanted was for someone to take her seriously. Especially now time was ticking for the planet.
‘If I really was Bear Girl,’ she muttered, ‘then people would be listening! They would be making changes!’
A crow perched on the fence cawed in agreement.
April sighed. It was February and despite a handful of brave daffodils, the air still carried a brisk chill. No doubt Dad would call her in soon – worried she would catch hypothermia or some other life-threatening condition. Ever since they had got back from the Arctic, he constantly worried about her and fretted non-stop that she would fall into some terrible danger. Even now she could see him through the kitchen window searching for her, wh ich meant she only had minutes left.
She carefully took a photograph out of her pocket. It was the safest place for it, but more importantly, it also meant it was pressed to her heart at all times. It wasn’t the kind of photo most people carried in their pockets. It wasn’t a photo of a mum or a dad or brothers and sisters or grandmas and grandpas. This was a photo of her and a full-sized male polar bear – huddled together in a tight embrace that would seem incredulous to most people. It was, of course, a photo of her and Bear and it was her most treasured possession. Taken on the quayside in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the pair of them were silhouetted against the sun, leaning into one another as the flash of the camera caught their final goodbyes. They were pressed so tightly together that it was hard to see where Bear ended and girl began. Even now, April couldn’t look at the photo without feeling a horrible tightness in her throat.
‘Hello, Bear,’ she whispered, hearing the tremble in her voice.
April wasn’t sure how long polar bear memories lasted, or even if Bear remembered her at all. Not in the same way she remembered him, anyway. She would never ever forget him. Not for as long as she lived. And then for a trillion more years on top of that.
No doubt he was getting on with his new life. The way that Dad said she ought to be getting on with hers. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. Every day she did her best to live the kind of life that Dad, Granny Apples and everyone else seemed to expect from her – a perfectly normal human existence. And that might have been enough for some people. But every so often, a memory would surface in April’s mind – the tickly sensation of Bear’s whiskers on her face, the sudden touch of his wet nose and, most vivid of all, the warm soft chocolate of his eyes and the way his gaze had melted into her own.
‘I miss you,’ she said quietly, making sure Dad couldn’t hear through the open kitchen window. ‘I miss you so much.’
She didn’t expect a reply. The Arctic, after all, was a long way away and April hadn’t heard from Bear since their last fateful day together. Bear couldn’t write letters or pick up the phone and it was much too far away to hear him roar. But he had, hopefully, found some new polar bear friends – maybe even a mate. Most of all, she hoped he was happy.
‘Because that was the whole point of taking you back to Svalbard, wasn’t it?’ she whispered. ‘I just wish … I wish I knew that you were all right.’
April breathed in the silence, hoping that somewhere out in the night sky she might receive the answer she longed for. As she strained her ears, she heard the whisper of the silver birch tree, the bark of a dog two streets down, the distant tremor of the sea. But what she couldn’t hear was …
‘APRIL!’ Dad flung open the back door and a puddle of warm yellow light spilled out. ‘What are you doing out here? You’ll catch your death of cold!’
‘I’m coming,’ she said, reluctantly standing, the evening peace suddenly shattered. She slipped the photo back into her breast pocket and zipped it up tight. Then, as the crow continued to caw, she followed her father inside.
APRIL WIPED HER feet carefully on the mat before placing her shoes in the cupboard. As she did, she caught a flash of something bright and colourful hiding at the back. Her rainbow wellies. They were too small for her now and even though she probably should have taken them to a charity shop long ago, she hadn’t. It was one of the few links she had left to Bear Island, and if she put her nose closely to them, she could have sworn she could smell the faint sharp air of the Arctic. She was half tempted to smell them now but her father called her again.
She entered the living room to find the floor covered in a carpet of vinyl. ‘I was trying to find … ah! Here it is.’ He plucked out the record triumphantly. ‘Did you have a good day?’
‘It was fine,’ she answered, crossing her fingers behind her back.
‘Good, good,’ Dad said, smiling at her lopsidedly. ‘That’s my girl. I knew you’d be happy here.’
April winced. Now in her third term at her new school, she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d struggled to make any real friends yet. For some mysterious reason, making friends with humans was far harder than it was with polar bears.
‘How was your day?’ she asked instead.
Just as he had promised, Dad had taken on a job at the local university trying to come up with compostable alternatives for single-use plastic. He was about to answer when the doorbell clanged.
‘Ah!’ he said, flushing. ‘That’ll be Maria. I asked her over for dinner. I … I hope you don’t mind? I know normally it’s just us …’
He was looking at her so earnestly that April nodded. Although she never would have admitted it out loud, she was a teeny bit disappointed. Friday night was their night. The one evening where Dad finished work early so they could have some ‘together’ time. Tonight, she’d hoped they could try out that new vegan restaurant in town, or even take a walk along the beach. Just the two of them.
Dad paused in front of the hallway mirror, brushed a hand through his dishevelled hair and adjusted his collar before opening the door.
‘Maria!’ he exclaimed. ‘You look … well! And you brought Chester with you. Good, good. April loves Chester, don’t you?!’
Without question, April loved Chester. Who wouldn’t? He was a cockerpoo with honey-coloured eyes, soft velvety ears and a delicious doggy smell that she found irresistible.
‘Edmund!’ Maria entered the hallway in a blaze of colour and a waft of saffron. ‘I’ve brought paella for the dinner.’
Maria often brought food. She was from Valencia in Spain and loved to cook for people. Either that or she was fed up with Dad’s cooking. Neither April nor her father had lost the habit of eating their food out of tin cans, much to Granny Apples’s disgust, who said that some habits should stay in the Arctic where they belonged.
Dad and Maria did that awkward grown-up thing of hugging but not really hugging before letting their hands flap uselessly by their sides. Both of them wore silly grins that said far more than words ever could. It was then Maria noticed April.
‘Hello there!’ she said, taking off her red-dotted scarf and smiling widely.
April nodded back. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Maria. After all, hadn’t she wanted Dad to get a girlfriend? Plus, she wasn’t the kind of person to truly dislike anyone – especially not someone who loved animals. It was just, well, a teeny bit awkward when your headteacher was also your dad’s new girlfriend. This was how Dad had met her – at the gates of April’s new school. April was never quite sure whether to call her Miss Puro or Maria, so half the time she ended up avoiding calling her anything at all.
As always, Chester helped smooth over any embarrassing silences. He scampered across to April with a hopeful expression. ‘Hello, boy,’ she whispered as Maria trailed after Dad into the living room.
‘I found this piece of music earlier that I wanted to play for you,’ Dad uttered, waving one of his records in the air like it was some sort of trophy. ‘I think you’re going to love it.’
He placed it on the record player, the same one that had been to the Arctic and back, and within seconds, the sound of Mozart’s Voi Che Sapete from ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ filled the air. It was an upbeat, almost jaunty song. Composed for laughter, sunshiny days and skipping.
Dad, who was by no means a natural dancer, had been taking lessons and he encircled Maria in his arms and began to vigorously twirl her around the room in a waltz. The paella dish lay forgotten on the floor and April stood in the doorway, looking in, with an uncomfortable ache in her chest. An ache she didn’t quite understand but one that made her feel guilty for feeling it at all.
‘What is it, my dear girl?’ Dad asked over dinner, the three of them sitting around the paella dish at the kitchen table. ‘Something seems to be bothering you.’
Once upon a time, her father would never have noticed her moods – not even if April had skipped and cartwheeled her way into a room singing at the top of her voice.
Whilst he still wasn’t the most observant person in the universe, Dad had nevertheless changed. And even though she had wanted this change – including a new girlfriend for him – when it had come it was so fast and so sudden, it had caught her off-guard. The feeling was unsettling. As though Dad’s life had galloped gamely on whereas her feet were stuck somewhere in the thick, unremitting ice of the Arctic.
