of events took no more than a few seconds. Eric was lying on the ground, crying, when I shouted, “Three against one! That’s brave.”
The elephant and the polar bear gave a start.
I’d scared them, and they took a step away from my brother. As if to deny that they’d had anything to do with him. The pig gave me a superior look.
“Go away,” he said, turning toward Eric again. “You’ve got nothing to do with this.”
“Help,” whimpered Eric.
“Two against three is at least a little better,” I continued and took a few steps forward.
I was not a champion fighter.
Actually I’d never been in a fight. I would never ever fight again. But my twin was lying on the ground and I couldn’t do anything other than try to help him.
“Go to hell,” hissed Samuel.
His companions were excited by his courage. They turned toward me with a kind of impatient energy that scared me.
“He’s going to give us the Ruby,” the polar bear explained.
“Otherwise he’s toast,” the elephant chimed in.
“But…I don’t have—” said Eric, and got yet another pig-kick in the stomach.
That was enough for me.
I rushed up toward the three perpetrators with my sights on the pig, and managed to push against him so hard that he stumbled over Eric and fell down to the ground. Eric took the opportunity to pull himself up on his knees at the same time as Samuel got back up on his hooves faster than I’d thought possible. With a howl he threw himself over me.
After that my memory of the fight is more diffuse.
I knew for sure that Eric got away.
I’m unsure whether that happened immediately after the pig tackled me or somewhat later, but I have the feeling that Eric got moving as soon as he had the chance.
The polar bear, the elephant, and the pig belted me green and blue. They didn’t stop before we heard the bells ringing us in. I was a threadbare teddy bear who with great effort dragged myself up the slope from the storage sheds back to the school.
As was her habit, Mother came and picked us up right after lunch. She greeted the preschool staff. She asked if we’d been good. She asked if we’d had a good day.
Then we left.
Without looking at us she directed her steps toward the market hall in Amberville. It was a few blocks from the school, and we followed in her wake. The market hall was a magical oasis of scents and colors, a temple of food filled with loud-voiced hawkers and choosy customers. For several hours we wandered around in there, until we had almost forgotten the drama at the schoolyard.
It wasn’t until that evening that we had a chance to talk about what had happened. When Father turned off the lamp in our room and we heard him go down the stairs toward the living room, Eric whispered his thanks for the help.
“If Samuel played marbles a little better he wouldn’t be so angry all the time,” said Eric.
“He was angry,” I said in confirmation and felt how my body ached.
“It serves him right,” said Eric.
“What?”
Then Eric turned on the lamp above his bed, and in the light he held out the glittering marble: the Ruby.
“I nabbed it from that fat pig a long time ago. It serves him right.”
I looked at Eric and saw the expression on his face for a fraction of a second. Then he turned out the light.
It was that evening the abyss between us opened.
That evening defined us as each other’s opposite.
The cubs at the school had almost beaten me to death, for good reason. My twin brother was a thief.
My twin was the opposite of a good bear.
CHAPTER 6
They usually met at Zum Franziskaner on North Avenue, a lunch restaurant on the lemon-yellow avenue for those who would rather see than be seen. For many years Rhinoceros Edda had had the goal of seeing Eric at least once a week. They had an uncomplicated relationship, mother and cub, in contrast to Eric’s more contentious connection to his father. His mother dismissed his destructive teenage years at Casino Monokowski as a healthy and necessary rebellion; his father had been less understanding. And even if at first Eric loved his mother for her broad-mindedness and despised his father for his narrow-mindedness, over the years he’d acquired a more nuanced picture of the situation.
“You look tired,” remarked Edda. “Are you sleeping properly?”
Eric Bear said that he was sleeping properly. In addition he promised that