FanStory.com - The Bear Brothersby T B Botts

Smokey looked up through the still green boughs and saw his older brother, Sparky, peering down at him, whiskers curled from the heat and fur singed and smoking from a too close encounter with what should have been their common enemy, fire.

" What are you doing up there?" Smokey asked. "You know you can't stay there, the fire is coming this way quickly and we have to get down to the river soon if we're going to make it out of here alive!"

Smokey thought back to previous encounters with his annoying step brother. Sparky was two years older. Though he and Sparky had the same mother, they had different fathers. They seldom spent time together. Sparky had been chased off by his mother prior to her rendezvous with Smokey's dad, who didn't stick around to help with the upbringing part of fatherhood. Though it was common practice in the bear kingdom, perhaps that's the reason behind Sparky's constant brush with trouble. He'd been caught more than once chasing humans away from their campsites and rummaging around in their coolers and food caches. He seemed to have an unnatural infatuation with fire and more than once had been singed. He and his rowdy friends seemed to delight in scaring away campers, usually when the divine smell of roasting meat filled the forest. Sparky was always showing off to his buddies.

"Watch me," he'd say, "I can do the Indian Fire Dance", as he stood on his hind legs and walked through the flames of a camp fire, scattering the embers across the ground and setting off small blazes in the pine needles which usually died out after a few brief seconds. His knucklehead friends would laugh with glee as the black pads on his feet steamed and the fur on his legs sparked and fizzled, much to the delight of his audience. This time though, things had gotten out of control.

The band of miscreants had entered the campground and chased off the humans as they had done so many times before. When Sparky stood up to do his dance, he had inadvertently kicked some illegal fireworks into the fire. Roman candles flew off in all directions. One hit the trunk of a large Norwegian pine and bounced from limb to limb, finally lighting on the dry bed of needles that covered the forest floor. At first there was just a wisp of smoke, then a small orange flame appeared. In no time at all the fire was born, and like all newborns, it was hungry. While his two companions high-tailed it down the hill, Sparky panicked and ran up the nearest tree.

Smokey had been out on patrol, ever vigilant, moving on the outskirts of the various camps, checking to see that the proper precautions had been taken to prevent a forest fire. It was while he was out doing his rounds that he caught the unmistakable smell of wood burning, more than what a campfire could produce. Rabbits and chipmunks were bounding down the hill, panic on their whiskered faces. In the high boughs, several squirrels scolded before leaving their perches and joining the rest of the animals in a headlong plunge towards the river. From the corner of his eye, Smokey spotted Sparky's two friends galloping as fast as they could away from the approaching inferno. He worked his way towards the flames, sensing that he was needed when he heard the familiar voice of his step-brother.