Secrets of Bearhaven by K.E. Rocha Read Free Book Online Page A

envelope before crossing the room and stuffing it under the pillow on the top bunk. He would read it later, before he fell asleep. Uncle Mark would be coming in any minute, and he needed to change into clothes that didn’t look and feel like they’d been chewed up and spit out by a . . . well, by a bear.
    Spencer pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants and a Car and Driver T-shirt just like the one he had at home. As soonas he’d transferred his jade bear from the dirty heap of his school uniform and into the pocket of his sweatpants, there was a knock on the door, and Uncle Mark poked his head in.
    “Not too shabby, huh?” he said as he pushed open the door and came in. “Your mom did a great job. You like it?”
    “Yeah, it’s cool,” Spencer said.
    Putting Spencer’s backpack down beside the desk, Uncle Mark tossed his own duffel bag onto the bottom bunk. “How are you holding up, Spence?” he asked, shrugging out of his leather jacket.
    “Uncle Mark!” Spencer exclaimed. Holding up? Is Uncle Mark serious?
    “Right.” Uncle Mark hung his jacket on the back of Spencer’s desk chair, and then pulled it out to sit. “Might as well get comfortable.” He nodded to the bunk bed. Spencer pushed the duffel bag aside and sat down. As soon as he had, the questions started tumbling out.
    “How’d you get away from that car? Do you think Dad’s okay? Wherever they’re keeping him . . . He’ll be all right, right? Until—”
    “One thing at a time, Spence. I managed to outpace the Corvette long enough to make it into a hidden railway tunnel. It’s another entry point for Bearhaven, and it’s big enough to pull the Porsche into, but I had to lose the Corvette first. As for your dad, he’ll be all right until we can get him out of there. Your mom is going to do everything she can to make sure of that.” Uncle Mark sat back in his chair, looking at Spencer solemnly. “Why don’t I start at the beginning.”
    “Okay,” Spencer answered, not sure he even knew what the beginning was.
    “Honestly, Spence. I never agreed with your mom’s decision to keep Bearhaven from you,” he started. Sometimes Uncle Mark and Mom didn’t agree on things, but Spencer figured that was just typical brother/sister stuff. He didn’t know it had anything to do with him. “She kept it secret for so long in order to protect you and to give you a normal life. But Bearhaven is in your blood. It was just a matter of time before—”
    “But what is Bearhaven?” Spencer cut in. “And how did these bears become—”
    “These bears? It’s a long story.”

“Back when your mom, dad, and I were in college together, Gutler University kept three bears on campus as mascots,” Uncle Mark began. “They were treated badly, and that didn’t sit well with us. Your dad and I were in the science department. We’d gotten close to one professor, a brilliant bear biologist and a really wonderful guy named Weaver. Aside from his work at the university, the professor had been working on his own secret project, and when we went to him with our concerns about the bears, he finally revealed the details of his work to us.”
    Uncle Mark leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his thighs. There was excitement in his tired eyes.
    “With the help of a bear that he’d found as a cub and raised in his home, Weaver had developed the very first prototype of the BEAR-COM. When we went to see the technology, and when we met his bear, we all realized that there was no going back. Weaver and this bear were able to communicate!”
    “Weaver?” Spencer broke in, the name finally clicking into place. “ Professor Weaver?”
    “Right. Our professor at Gutler passed his name on to his cub and secretly designed the BEAR-COM with the bear’s help. That bear is the Professor Weaver you met tonight.”
    “No way!” Spencer exclaimed. “And the mascots?”
    “We were able to spring two of the mascot bears from Gutler, and with the help