Mr Bear and the Snow Angels

Mr. Bear and the Snow Angels

December 1991

21 years old

Sammy sighed and stared out the window, her breath fogging the cold glass. She clenched her small hand into a fist and pressed it against the misted-over area.

“Bear paw,” she said.

She continued to make little paw prints—breathe, press. Breathe, press—until the window was covered with them, as if a little bear had, indeed, walked across it. Each time a print disappeared, Sammy was quick to replace it. Breathe, press.

Soon, her mother walked into the room. “There you are!” she cried. “I’ve been looking all over the house for you.”

“I’m right here, Mommy,” Sammy replied.

“I can see that.” Patricia Petersen reached out and ruffled Sammy’s hair affectionately.

Sammy moved her head away. She hated it when her mother did that.

Looking out the window, her mother asked, “Is Mr. Bear visiting again?”

“Uh huh.”

“And how is he, today? Any better?”

“Not really,” confided Sammy. “He’s lonesome again. He wants to play outside with his friends. He likes to play in the snow.”

“Well, I’m sure he does,” Patricia replied, knowing that Sammy also liked to play in the snow. “Would you like to take him outside to play?”

“No. He wants to play with his friends, but he can’t find them.”

Patricia frowned. “You’re his friend, aren’t you? Don’t you think he’d like to play with you?”

Sammy shook her head and said quietly, “He wants to play with his bear friends.”

“Oh, I see” said her mother. “I’ve got an idea. How would you and Mr. Bear like to help me bake some cookies, hmm? How does that sound?”

Sammy shrugged her shoulders.

“Peanut butter chocolate chip,” her mother enticed. “With a double dose of chocolate chips...”

“Okay,” said Sammy. She slid off the window seat and shrugged sadly past her mother.

As her daughter walked out the door and into the hallway, Patricia sighed and looked again out the window where Sammy had sat making paw prints. Most of the prints had already evaporated. But the ones that remained, the ones pressed into the condensation and not the temporary fog created by Sammy’s breath, dripped and ran into each other in tiny rivulets.

“Like teardrops,” she said to herself.

She turned around and followed Sammy into the hallway.

“What did you say, Mommy?” Sammy asked when her mother rejoined her.

“Nothing,” said Patricia. “Maybe Mr. Bear was trying to tell you something.”

Sammy seemed to pause for a moment, considering the idea. “No,” she said finally. “He’s gone now.” She grabbed her mother’s hand and smiled up at her. “Let’s go make some cookies, now.”

Patricia smiled back and tried to sound cheerful. “Let’s do that.”

The next day when school let out, Sammy walked home by herself. Every dozen feet or so, she scooped up some fresh snow and tried to make a snowball, but the snow was too fine and dry to pack, and it crumbled lifelessly through her mittened hands to the ground. She knew that it was the wrong kind of snow to make snowballs with; she learned that from her father. Nevertheless, she kept trying. She needed something to keep her mind off the kids who were laughing and playing around her. Someone, she knew, would soon notice her and start laughing and jeering at her again, just like they did every day.

“Hey! There goes Sammy!”

“Reject!”

“Look! She’s trying to make snowballs!”

“She can’t even make snowballs right!”

“Let’s go get her!”

“Yeah, c’mon!” It was their war cry, and the boys began throwing handfuls of soft, cold snow at Sammy.

She didn’t run, she continued to walk past the group at a steady pace. Once in a while, a piece of ice would hit her face and she would flinch, her eyes squeezing shut with a pain that ran deeper than that caused by the ice itself. But still, she ignored them. Always ignoring them.

“Soon,” her mother always said, “they’ll get tired and leave you alone. They always do.”

But it seemed as if they never got tired. They just followed her to the very corner of her street, yelling, laughing and throwing snow at her. She was glad the snow wasn’t wet enough to make real snowballs with.

Every day, it was the same. In class, she was able to get by almost unscathed, with only a little hair-pulling, or a sign or two taped to her back. There wasn’t much that could be done with their teacher, Mrs. Simpson, right there all the time. But during recess, it was the usual: a game called Sammy Germs. The kids would run around her, pushing each other in her direction, squealing in mock fright. If anyone touched her, they had Sammy Germs and then had to go to the “doctor” to get an invisible can of disinfectant to spray themselves with.

During the recess period, which ran upwards of a half-hour each day, depending on the weather, the playground was filled with the sound of pretend aerosol cans spraying pretend germs away.

To Sammy, though, it wasn’t pretend. It was as real as she seemed to be. She tried desperately to ignore it, just as her mother had told her to do, and fought hard the tears that welled up in her eyes and threatened to spill down her rosy, pudgy cheeks.

Once, she’d tried to go to Mrs. Simpson for refuge, but all her teacher had to say about it was, “Nonsense, Sammy. Go run along and play, now.” The woman was blind to the fact that the children to whom she taught the fundamentals of education were really vicious, cold-hearted beasts. To her, nasty bits of reality, like scapegoating, were things that happened “in other places,” and definitely not in her classroom.

Sammy never went to her teacher for help again.

Sammy was also ridiculed after school. She experienced ambivalent feelings toward the end of the school day for this very reason. She was relieved that the day was finally over, eager to get home, and yet she dreaded walking home by herself. She used to beg her mother to come meet her at school, the tears that she held in check during the day finally finding release and streaking pathetically down her face.

Patricia was heartbroken to refuse her only child what she obviously so desperately wanted and needed. “Sweetheart, I can’t simply leave work. I have a job to do and I have to do it,” she would explain. Patricia didn’t expect her daughter to understand, but she seemed to. It wasn’t long before Sammy stopped asking altogether.

Sammy also stopped telling her mother about the things the children did to her. Nothing really ever changed, so there really wasn’t anything new to tell. When Patricia asked how things went at school, Sammy simply replied, “Fine,” in a small voice. It was obvious that things hadn’t improved, and that poor Sammy was hurting more than she admitted, and this worried Patricia.

“Dan,” she would often begin as they lay in bed together at night. “I’m worried about Sam. She’s having such a hard time of things and—”

“Patricia, she’s fine,” her husband would say. “She’s building character. Think of it that way, if you have to. When she’s grown up, she’ll be strong and self-reliant. Besides, if you show up at her school to protect her, it’ll only make things worse for her.”

Building character. Strong and self-reliant. That wasn’t the reason why her dear Sammy was treated so badly by her classmates. Children did not tease each other to build strong and self-reliant characters. They teased each other because there was something different about the child in question. In this case, Sammy.

“Well, of course Sam’s different, hon,” he husband explained. “She’s a bright and beautiful child.”

“But bright and beautiful children aren’t supposed to be ostracized,” Patricia argued.

“Since when do children follow rules, sweetheart?”

And the argument ended there, every time. Children never followed rules if they could help it. It was Rule Number One in the Childhood Handbook. All Patricia could do was sit back and watch her daughter suffer her role in life as outcast, and comfort Sammy when she could. Other than that, it was out of her hands. She felt so helpless.

Sammy spent the majority of her time daydreaming. It was her only means of escape from her harsh cold reality. Sometimes, she pretended she was a forgotten princess in a faraway kingdom. There she lived as a lowly peasant only to be found and declared the dying king’s only daughter, hidden away at birth because of an evil sorcerer’s wicked ambition to do away with all the royal offspring and to subsequently be named heir apparent at the king’s deathbed. When that time finally came, she would be married to a handsome prince, and they would rule the kingdom together in loving bliss.

Other times, when things got very bad for her, Sammy pretended she didn’t exist at all. She simply tuned everything out, and turned off her mind. This often frightened her teachers, and especially her mother, so Sammy didn’t resort to this tactic often. Like a highly addictive drug, Sammy had to carefully regulate when and where and how often she did this.

Most times, however, Sammy simply called Mr. Bear from his hiding place. Mr. Bear followed Sammy everywhere she went. All she had to do was turn around or look behind a tree and there he’d be, waiting for her with a great big benign smile, arms outstretched in a big loving bear hug. She loved Mr. Bear, and she knew he loved her, too. The only other person who knew about Mr. Bear was her mother, though Sammy suspected that her mother had told her father about it, too. But that was okay. She didn’t mind. She loved her father, too, and she knew he loved her back just as much.

One day, while Mr. Bear was visiting, he told her that he would have to leave someday.

“But when?” she asked plaintively.

“I don’t know. But I can’t stay with you, forever.”

“Why not? I want you to stay.”

“Sammy, I need to find my friends.”

“But I’m your friend.”

“I have to find my bear friends. You’re my best friend, but you’re not a bear friend. You’re only pretend.”

“But you’re only pretend to me, too, and you’re my best friend. I’m not going to leave you,” Sammy reasoned.

“I’m not a human, and you’re not a bear. We can’t stay together. We have to find our Own to be with. Things will only get worse if we don’t.”

“Our Own,” little Sammy repeated, and Mr. Bear disappeared for the moment, leaving her to her thoughts.

That weekend, Sammy sat at her window and watched the new family moving in next door. She made paw prints on the cold glass, summoning Mr. Bear. But when he finally came, he seemed reluctant to be there. He sat at the window seat with Sammy as she held him protectively in her arms.

“Look, Mr. Bear. We’re getting new neighbours. I wonder who they are.”

“I’m sure they’re very nice people,” he said. “It looks like they’ve got a little girl just your age, Sammy.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s right there,” he said, pointing with his paw to the little red-haired girl playing in the snow down below.

Sammy looked down and saw her just as her mother knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Sammy called.

Sammy’s mother opened the door and stepped in the room.

“Guess what, Sammy!” she began. “We’re getting new neighbours.”

“I know,” said Sammy. “I see them.”

“And it looks like they’ve got a little girl there you can play with.”

“I know...”

Mrs. Petersen walked to the window and looked out, pausing for a moment before she continued. “Why don’t you put on your coat and things, and go out there to meet her? I’m sure she’d like to have someone to play with. She’s probably lonely. You know what it’s like to be lonely.”

Mr. Bear looked on anxiously.

“I don’t know,” Sammy replied. She saw that the little red-haired girl was making snow angels. “It looks too cold out there.”

“Since when are you concerned with how cold it is outside, Little Miss Snowchild? You love to play in the snow.”

“I suppose...”

“What do you mean, ‘I suppose’? Come on, I’ll help you with your things.” Patricia took Sammy by the arm and led her to the door.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go.”

“Honey, I’m sure she’s a very nice—”

“I don’t want to do it!” Sammy broke her mother’s hold and backed away. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s okay, sweetie, you don’t have to.”

Mother and daughter stood looking at one another. Then, kneeling on one knee, Patricia held out her arms and Sammy ran into them, crying. All Patricia could do was cluck softly, soothingly, in a mother’s attempt to comfort her only daughter.

Mr. Bear waited patiently at the window.

The next day, Sammy sat at her window again, gazing down at the white ground below. She wanted so much to play outside, but she knew that it wasn’t possible. She knew that to step outside now, in her own backyard, was virtual death. She knew that the little red-haired girl would see her and come outside, too, and hate her as much as all the other kids at school did. She sighed, resigned to her fate, and made bear paws.

She could hear her mother talking on the phone, but could not make out the words. She wondered briefly who her mother was speaking to, until her father rapped lightly on the door and stepped into her room.

“Hi, Sammy.”

“Hi, Daddy.”

“What’re you doing here all by yourself?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Oh.” He paused to gaze out the window with his daughter. “My, it certainly looks like a nice day out, doesn’t it?” The sky was overcast and the sun had no chance of penetrating the heavy blanket of clouds. “Perfect snow-playing weather, if you ask me. Why don’t you go outside and run around some? You haven’t been out all weekend.”

Sammy shrugged again.

“Tell you what? Why don’t you get dressed and go outside, and I’ll meet you in the back in a few minutes. How does that sound?” He smiled at her encouragingly, but something in his manner brooked no argument.

Sammy turned to Mr. Bear, still sitting on the window seat. He nodded at her. “Go on, Sammy. This is your chance. You need to find your Own. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

Sammy blinked back the tears that welled in her eyes. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest. Mr. Bear wouldn’t steer her wrong. She knew that.

She turned back to her father. “Okay, Daddy.”

Dan smiled and squeezed his daughter’s shoulder gently. “Good girl. I’ll see you out back in five.”

Sammy stood in the backyard, under the big oak tree. Mr. Bear stood beside her, and they chatted quietly. Before long, she heard footsteps behind them and Sammy turned, expecting to see her father approaching. Instead, the little red-haired girl from next door trudged through the snow toward her and smiled. There was a gap in front where she’d recently lost a baby tooth.

Sammy smiled back.

“I’m Annalisa,” the girl said. “What’s your name?”

“Sammy. You have a pretty name.”

“Thanks. I’m new here,” Annalisa announced. “We came from Arizona. I’ve never seen snow before. It’s great!”

Sammy laughed. “I saw you making snow angels, yesterday.”

“My daddy showed me how. He used to live here in New Hampshire. He says he grew up around here.”

“Oh,” Sammy said, and fell silent. She looked toward Mr. Bear, and he smiled at her as he stepped away from the tree.

“Tomorrow’s my first day at school, and I don’t know anyone.” Annalisa shuffled her feet in the snow. “Except you.”

Sammy waited quietly, expecting more to come but uncertain what it may be.

Annalisa took a deep breath. “Will you be my friend, Sammy?” she said, finally.

Sammy’s eyes grew wide. She didn’t know what to say. She looked again to Mr. Bear. He was hard to see now, but he nodded at her. “Go on, Sammy. You’ll be fine.”

Sammy grinned. “I’d like to be your friend.”

“Good. Um, who were you talking to before? When I came over here?”

One last time, Sammy glanced toward her old friend, but Mr. Bear could no longer be seen. His paw prints trailed toward the edge of the backyard and faded away. She knew he’d gone to find his Own and that she’d be okay, now. She’d found her Own, too.

“Oh, no one.”

Sammy and Annalisa grinned at each other, their breath pluming and mingling between them. As one, they dropped to the ground and made snow angels together.