Want to get scared? Want to be frightened? Look up a video of a cataract operation (a real one, not an animation). Fortunately, I understand that they shoot you up with so much happy juice you don't care...kinda like a colonoscopy, I guess.

One week from today.... So, here:

        Middendorf Brothers Lumber Company was at 17th and Spring. The lumber which built our house came from there, and whenever we needed new lumber (which wasn't very often) or roofing shingles or other stuff like that we got it there.
        Ursus Arctus Middendorfii was found pretty much all around town. Fortunately, Ursus Arctus Middendorfii didn't come into town very often, but when it did it caused a sensation. Mostly people would scream and yell and carry on something awful, and finally the police or someone would chase it away. As far as we could remember nobody had been eaten by one, but we hadn't been around very long. Aunt Tillie, who was the oldest person we knew, said that when she was growing up Ursus Arctus Middendorfii had eaten nearly a whole school full of kids (but schools were smaller then, so there weren't very many kids who were eaten).
        We always figured that this animal was named after the town of Ursa and that Middendorf Brothers Lumber Company had something to do with them. We didn't have any idea about the "Arctus" part of the name.
        We found out differently when we were older, but by then there weren't any around town anymore. They'd all moved way north.
        You might not know the common name for Ursus Arctus Middendorfii, because like most people you probably call it by its scientific name to avoid confusion with such as Urus horribilis. People who don't know any better call Urus horribilis a "grizzly bear." Urus Arctus Middendorfii is, of course, called a "Brown Bear" or a "Kodiak Bear." Brown bears on Kodiak Island are called "Kodiak bears" because they can grown to be twelve feet tall and weigh over 1,200 pounds there, but that's because they have lots of good salmon to eat. Brown bears only grow to be about nine feet tall and only weigh about eight or nine hundred pounds because their diet is more limited. Because of the salmon and catfish and carp and spoonbills and sturgeon and bass and sunfish and trout and other fish which available, Ursus Arctus Middendorfii in our area would sometimes grow to be as much as eighteen feet tall and would weigh well over two thousand five hundred pounds.
        Once one of the bigger ones came into town and stood up and looked into somebody's second floor window. Boy, did those folks get out of bed in hurry that morning! The poor bear was so scared that it ran over an empty schoolbus getting out of town.
        Mostly they didn't bother anyone. They stayed around the river and ate fish and blackberries and various grasses and sometimes dead animals they found. Once one of the bigger ones did eat a pickup truck, but the owner had been teasing him and people thought that the driver had gotten what he deserved.
        Nobody bothered the bears, so when they disappeared we wondered what had happened. I mean, eight or nine hundred large bears don't normally just vanish into the air, but ours seemed to have done so!
        Of course, since we were in school during most of the year and didn't get to go exploring as much as we'd have liked we didn't know right away that the bears had gone. We finally learned about it in the newspaper, and by then they'd been gone for several weeks.
        The bears had always bothered Tony when we'd go fishing or walking or something: he was afraid that we'd surprise one with cubs or one that was hungry and as we were running away he'd trip and the bear would eat him. No matter how many times we assured him that, should this happen, we wouldn't supply the bear with catsup, Tony was still afraid of being eaten. So when the news that the bears had left finally broke he wasn't very disappointed, and Mom asked Ted and me about the little packets of catsup she kept finding in our pockets and hidden away in our room.
        Even Tony admitted that it did take some of the adventure out of going fishing and mushroom hunting and picking blackberries, though. Ted and I had sort of liked the way he'd jump if we'd break a stick or throw a rock in the water, and since the bears had left Tony would just laugh or something.
        So on that lovely Fall afternoon, when the trees were exploding with red and yellow and gold and orange against a blue sky which seemed to go up forever, when the fish were biting in Cedar Creek, we were surprised to see the fresh footprint of an Ursus Arctus Middendorfii. Right there on the bank! A really big one, too!
        Ted and I debated whether to tell Tony about the footprint, but Tony tripped over it as he was walking towards us to get some more worms. He looked around to see what he'd caught his foot in and said, in a small voice, "Cripes. The footprint of Ursus Arctus Hiddendorfii. Oh boy."
        Tony came to where we were standing and pointed at the footprint. Ted and I nodded knowingly and assured him that we wouldn't supply catsup to any bears. Then Ted looked at me and whispered, "You bet we won't. Mom took it all."
        At that point there was a really terrific snarly growly sound and the suddenly the air was also full of the sounds of trees being torn up and broken into tiny little bits -- big trees! Into the clearing where we were walked a massive example of Ursus Arctus Middendorfii, and he was really, really mad! His eyes were like fire and spit from the corners of his mouth was thrown back towards his ears by the speed of his rush. His claws, each ten or more inches long, tore the dirt like a plow as he ran towards us. We dug three trenches as we tried to run away, throwing dirt up behind us with our feet.
        We ran, alright. We ran right smack into the middle of a pile of fallen tree limbs and pricker bushes and bearbane.
        There we lay, scratched and dirty and very much out of breath. The bear tore at the pile of brush, but because of the bearbane couldn't get to us. We could hear him sneezing whenever he tried.
        "Lucky," gasped out Tony. "Bearbane. Lucky"
        "Yeah," gasped out Ted in agreement.
        "Yeah," I also managed.
        We lay there for some time, listening to bear rampage around and above us.
        Finally, our breath recovered, I asked what we were all thinking: now what do we do?
        "I dunno," said Ted, "What do you want to do?"
        "I thought Ted might have an idea," said Tony.
        So we laid there longer.
        "Anybody got any ideas yet?" I asked.
        "Nope," replied Ted.
        "Nope," replied Tony.
        "ARGHARGH choo!!!" said the bear.
        "Gesundheit!" we chorused.
        "Thank you," said a saurian voice from the brush behind us. "You're quite well brought up, you know."
        "Everett!!" we said together.
        "That's me!" agreed the little dinosaur. "How are you guys? Keeping busy?"
        "Boy, are we!" we said together. "School, homework -- and now this bear!"
        "You know, whenever I see you guys you seem to be in some sort of trouble. I just don't know how you do it," he observed.
        "Say, Everett," Ted began, "Do you think that you could, you know, do something about that bear?"
        "What? That bear? That's just old Prunk. He's mad 'cause the other bears moved when he was visiting down in Hannibal and he doesn't know where they went. He thinks that they moved to avoid him. From the way that he's acting right now, he might be right. What did you guys do to make him so mad, anyway?"
        "Nothing I can think of," I said. "We were doing a little fishing here, that's all."
        "Well, that's it. This is his fishing ground, that's all, and Prunk doesn't want you fishing here. So you'll have to leave."
        "Right," said Ted. "And how do we do that?"
        "Yup," agreed Everett. "That's a problem all right. You guys come up with a solution?"
        "Nope," we said together.
        "Well, I'd hoped that you had," replied Everett. "He's a heck of a lot bigger than we are."
        "Hmm," Tony mused. "Could you, maybe, call Binky or someone to come and help? He's not bigger than a Brontosaurus or an Albertosaurus, I'll bet!"
        "I'd say he couldn't! I can just see his face if he saw someone like Bobby or Tina, the tyrannosauruses! Hehehehehe!" Everett giggled. Then he said, "Too bad I can't call 'em."
        "ARGHARGH! choo!" said Prunk.
        "Why not?" asked Ted.
        "'Cause Binky called me yesterday and told me to find you guys and tell you that they were moving again and that I was to come on up and join them and that they would be out of touch until they got to Inuvik. So I set out to find you and I found you and now you know so bye!" and Tony grabbed Everett so that he couldn't dash off.
        "Why are they moving?" I asked.
        "Oh. I knew I forgot to tell you something! It's that it's getting too crowded around Yellowknife. Binky says that there must be nearly two hundred people up there now. So they're out of there. Inuvik has a lot fewer people, and some of the folks are going to spread out towards the northern slope of the Brooks Range, so we'll have lots of space and not many people. I mean, you guys are okay, but most people, well...I personally really prefer the company of dinosaurs, no offense. And besides, you ever see the Beaufort Sea? At midnight under the Northern Lights? Talk about cool!"
        "So, what do we do about Prunk? You can't take off, 'cause he'll get you, too," explained Ted.
        "Oh, yeah. Prunk. Well, we're safe enough here, I guess, as long as the bearbane is fairly fresh and we don't get hungry or something," said Everett.
        "We've got to get home for supper! Mom'll be really upset if we're late!" exclaimed Ted.
        "Well, we've got a problem then," observed Everett.
        Just then, there was another really, really loud "ARGHARGHARGHAR!!! RrowRR ARGHARGH!" and another bear, bigger than Prunk, ran into the clearing and swatted Prunk and bowled him head over heels!!
        "Oh, Jeez!" said Everett in awe. "It's Mrs. Prunk! And she's madder'n heck about Prunk not being there when the bears left and she had to move the kids all the way to...well, let's just say that I'm really, really glad that she's not mad at me!"
        And Mrs. Prunk bit Prunk's ear and dragged him off with her to the north, just like the time Mom grabbed Ted by the ear and walked him out of the ice cream store and into the car. Prunk was whimpering, too, just like Ted did.
        "Well, that's over," observed Everett. "Let's go now. I have a long way to go today."
        "Hey," we said, "Good luck. Tell Binky and the rest that we're still grateful for their help and that they're always welcome at our house. But you guys know that, huh?" And we each gave Everett a hug and he bounced off towards the north, waving as he went.
        "Hey, it's getting late!" exclaimed Tony. "If we don't hurry, we're going to be late for supper!"
        "But...but...we didn't ask him why the bears left!" said Ted and me together.
        "Yeah," mused Tony, "We didn't. But I bet I know. I'll bet that there were too many people. They went north, I bet, just like Binky and his friends."
        So we started home and we took the shortcut through the Swamp and through the cemetery (stopping by Daddy's grave, of course, on the way) and were home in time for a really great dinner of hoki, hackleback, harissa, herring, hyssop, humus, and hushpuppies. There were hazelnuts and honey for dessert, and hot chocolate to drink. We told Mom all about our adventure and the dinosaurs moving again and why we thought that the bears left. She understood, but she said that it would probably be better if we didn't write the school report on it we had talked about on the way home.