The Weirdo by Theodore Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

pretty well hidden."
    "That they do," agreed Telford, watching Chip. "I was on a study in Pennsylvania three years ago, and it's catch-as-catch-can."
    Chip was listening intently now, Telford noticed.
    "I see them across the lake now and then, snooping around on the shore. I've even seen mothers and cubs several times. They disappear fast, don't they?" Clewt said.
    Telford nodded. He had a pleasant, craggy face and sandy hair; an outdoor look about him.
    "I really came up here for another reason. I asked Dunnegan if he could recommend some bright young person I might hire as an assistant. But I can only pay minimum wage."
    Telford glanced over at Chip. "Dunnegan recommended you. He didn't know what your schedule was or whether or not you'd be interested...."
    Surprised, frowning a little, Chip said, ever so slowly, ever so uncertainly, "Well, I don't have any particular schedule...."
    "You'd be helping me track bears."
    "Helping you track bears," Chip repeated, looking over at his father. Was this visitor serious?
    Telford remained silent for a moment but thought he saw a light coming on in Chip's eyes.
    "It takes two people to do what I have to do," Telford explained.
    Chip glanced over at his father again, looked back
at Telford, then took a deep breath and nodded. "I don't know anything about bears, Mr. Telford, but I'll try to learn."
    "That's good enough for me. I'll be back next week with radio-collars, snares, tranquilizers, the usual equipment. We'll start then."
    Chip suddenly grinned at the young scientist, brown-bag skin tightening around his mouth on the left side.
    The grin was devastating and tugged at Telford. He tried to fight off any sign of pity.
    "One more thing, Mr. Telford. I've got a bum hand."
    Chip held up his withered and gloved left hand apologetically.
    Telford shrugged. "Call me Tom. I'm too young to be a Mister. We can work around it."
    "Okay."
    Telford smiled again, saying, "See you next week," and trudged off toward Dunnegan's boat.
    ***
    CHIP watched him go, thinking that luck had finally touched him.
    He'd arrived in the Powhatan the previous month. After the first three weeks exploring the swamp in the old Jeep and by boat, free time had become deadly dull time. How many books could you read? How much TV could you watch? Telford had come up the ditch
at the exact right moment, Chip decided.
The exact right moment.
    Bears? Black bears, brown bears, polar bears. He'd never thought much about them. His father had told him he might see one now and then.
    "You have any books on bears?"
    John Clewt shook his head. "But we can try in Elizabeth City. I've got a library card."
    In the afternoon, he was reading to his father as the Volvo returned from Lizzie City: "The only distinctly American bears, the blacks came down from the Bering Strait a half-million years ago. Experts at hiding in woodlands, they manage to survive even fifty miles from cities as large as New York and Chicago, often moving by night near populated areas...."
    Chip saw that the book had general information about black bears throughout the country and up in Canada.
    Chip wanted to show Telford just how interested he was in the project, so he asked Dunnegan to recommend someone who might know about Powhatan's bears. Dunnegan suggested an old swamper named Slade who'd trapped mink and muskrat back in there for more than fifty years, almost to the day the government outlawed it. Slade lived in a converted yellow school bus in Skycoat, a hamlet on the southwest edge.
    Chip drove the Jeep along Trail Nine until he was
opposite Skycoat, parked off the trail, then crossed the last few yards of swampland and into the tiny settlement.
    Slade had white hair and badly fitting false teeth. He drooled out of the right corner of his mouth. But his mind was still working, Dunnegan had said. His eyes were sunken and milky blue. His straggly beard was the color of his hair. He was seventy-seven, Dunnegan had also said, a gossipy hermit.
    No