Chapter 1
Bear went over like a felled oak. One moment he was walking through the Forest, perfectly upright; next he was down on his knees, adjusting to a new, unexpected position.
'Ow!'
The cry echoed down the path ahead of him, into the trees on either side, and up into the sky.
'Ow, ow,' he yelled, still louder, disturbing a crow, which flew up from its roost with a clatter, throwing a shower of pine needles down. Bear got up slowly and looked back to see what had tripped him. It was a hole in the ground, the entrance to a small animal’s burrow, now partly destroyed. He shook his foot, testing the ankle with a tentative stride, and was relieved to find it still worked. The crow flew back down to its branch, lifted a black wing and started preening.
‘You should be more careful,’ it said.
‘Sorry,’ said Bear. ‘Do you know who lives in it?’ He was referring to the burrow.
‘No idea,’ said the crow.
‘Well, if you find out, tell them I am sorry,’ Bear told him. The crow carried on preening. ‘It’s just that I have lost my friend, Not Bear, and I wasn’t looking where my feet were. You haven’t seen him have you?’
‘Not Bear? That’s a strange name. What does he look like?’
‘Well…,’ how was he going to explain, ‘…he’s young, goes on all fours, with a longish snout, and….’
‘Yes?’
‘…good teeth.’ He didn’t want to describe them as sharp; some animals were offended.
‘Haven’t seen anything like that,’ said the crow. But there is something rooting around a bit further down. I saw some bushes move when I was up there.’ He lifted a wing to the sky.
‘Oh,’ Bear said. ‘ I’ll go and….’
‘You from the Inside?’ The crow interrupted.
‘Yes,’ Bear replied.
‘Thought so.’
Bear brushed the dirt from his knees. He started walking down the path, taking a little more care where he was treading this time. The trouble with crows was, they never stopped talking, and he didn’t want to get involved in a long conversation and lose time.
The crow fluttered down just ahead of him. Then he flapped from branch to branch, tree to tree, as Bear continued down the path. ‘Your friend – you should tell him not to wander off in the Forest. It’s not the Inside you know. Lots of things about.’
‘I do tell him, but he takes no notice,’ Bear said. ‘It’s his first time.’
‘Might be his last, if he isn’t more careful. I’ve seen it before, you get to see lots of things, where I am, on top of it all, I suppose…’
‘I don’t want to be rude,’ Bear interrupted, ‘but we are in a hurry.’
‘Of course you are, don’t mind me, just trying to help.’
Bear called out, and an echo came back from the trees like a stranger’s call, making his fur tingle. As it faded silence seemed to ooze from the dark spaces between the stiff conifers that surrounded him.
‘I wouldn’t do that either,’ said the crow.
Suddenly Not Bear emerged from the undergrowth further down the path.
‘Watch out!’ said the crow, fluttering up to a higher branch. Then it squawked and flew off, back up the path to its roost.
Bear looked round to see what had startled it, but saw nothing. This just confirmed what he had always known about crows.
‘I thought you were lost,’ he told Not Bear when he reached him.
‘Well I wasn’t,’ Not Bear explained, ‘and I have found something important. Come and see.’ He slipped through the undergrowth, and Bear went after him, squirming through the bushes, determined not to lose him again. He found Not Bear beyond them, in among the trees, looking at the ground. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘here, and there’s another one over there.’
Bear knelt next to him, then groaned. 'Your footprints,’ he said, 'I knew it, we have been going round in circles for the past hour. This proves it; all the paths in this filthy forest look the same, and now we shall never get to the Occasion in time.'
Not Bear stared at him. ‘They're not mine,’ he said, and placed a paw next to one of the prints.
Bear stared at his friend's foot, then again at the impression next to it. A shiver went through him. He could see that that they were similar, but not identical. And they led off into the trees, onto ground that was littered with pine cones and fallen branches, too far off for even Not Bear to have wandered. ‘Come on,’ he said, and they pushed back out onto the path.
‘What does it mean?’ Not Bear asked. Bear looked around. There was nothing but silence, and the pervading smell of pine, and a low mist that hung around the damp fringes of the path. Above them clouds moved briskly across the sky in the face of a strengthening breeze.
‘I don’t know,’ Bear said, 'but whatever made them is long gone, and thankfully in a different direction to us.'
‘They did look like mine,’ Not Bear said helpfully.
‘Yes,’ said Bear.
‘So who do they belong to?’
‘What does it matter?'
'Well, does it mean there might there be another one of me, out here in the Forest?’ Bear didn't know what to say, because there was certainly nothing like him on the Inside. As they passed a solitary oak tree, growing among the pines at the side of the trail, he jumped up, grabbed a branch and hung from it. A flurry of brown and gold leaves fell to the ground. A squirrel, disturbed by the sudden activity, scampered out of the bushes right in front of him. They both watched as it ran across the path and disappeared up a tree.
Not Bear glanced up. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
Bear dropped back down. ‘Nothing,’ he said.
Nearly two years before the Elders had asked him to be Not Bear's teacher. At the time he assumed he had been chosen because of his experience teaching other young animals about the history of the Inside, respect for the Elders and the customs of their homeland. But the creature he found lolling before him during the interview was unlike any he had ever seen. ‘Why me?’ he had asked, unsure if his appointment was a privilege or punishment.
‘Because he will need you,’ the District Elder told him as they stood before him in the Council chamber.
He had thought of those words a lot, at the beginning of their time together, when he looked at the cub, with its thin legs and long snout. Then Not Bear had begun to grow: his body becoming stronger, his mind sharper. And he had turned out to be a good pupil, and friend, if perhaps a little too fond of questioning everything, and following scents and movements that wouldn’t bother other animals. But on the Inside differences didn’t matter much, because the animals kept to their own space. They never wandered far from their domain, except perhaps to go down to the River for a picnic. Out here in the Forest, however, the same rules did not apply.
The Inside was a gentle habitat, filled with streams, meadows, rivers, and open spaces; as light and airy as the Forest was dark and dense. The Elders were its arbiters, administrators of the Rules and customs. Apart from the Elders themselves, the Insiders were animals: law-abiding; content in their democratic state; mostly happy. A few times a year they left the safety and comfort of their homes to attend the Occasions. These took place in an enormous stone Circle, set in a clearing near the edge of the vast Forest.
Some of the Insiders, who had never been there before, questioned why they could not take place on the Inside, yet when they got there they knew, for the Circle was far too big to be moved.
This was where they were heading then, the reason why they had set off earlier that morning in the mist. Bear wanted to get a head start, for soon the paths would became narrower, and the trees begin to press on all sides. Then other animals would join them, coming from different domains on the Inside, bringing their own worries with them; about the dark Forest, the prospect of spending the night out in the open, and the fact that, as they travelled further from their homes, they came closer to the Outside.
Although it was his first time in the Forest, Not Bear didn't seem worried at all. In fact, the further they went, the more cheerful he became. So much so that, for half an hour after the incident with the footprints, Bear had been forced to listen to him gurgling and wheezing to some kind of rhythm.
‘What are you so happy about?’ he asked.
'Nothing in particular,' Not Bear replied.
'What are you doing then?'
‘Singing,'
‘Singing!' Bear exclaimed. ‘What?’
‘A song.’
‘But you don’t know any songs.’
‘I do, I’m singing one, aren’t I?'
'Humph.' Bear was nervous, and his friend’s cheerfulness wasn’t helping.
'Where did you learn it then?’ Bear asked him. He had never heard him sing anything before. ‘You haven't been sneaking off, at night, into the Forest, against the Rules, have you?’
'Of course not,' Not Bear replied. 'An otter taught it to me, down by the River.'
‘Oh.’ Bear said. 'So what is it called?'
'A song,' Not Bear replied.
‘Yes, but what song? The otter must have told you.’
‘Well she didn’t. And I don't see what difference it makes.'
'All the difference in the world,' Bear began. 'Things have to have names. That is one of the Secrets, you know.'
Not Bear knew about the Secrets, it was one of the many lessons Bear was always trying to teach him. He was not sure he remembered anything interesting about them though.
'I know, I know,' he said slowly. 'And the Secrets are part of the Rules, which everyone should know if they are to carry on the traditions of the Inside.' He had heard it many times before.
'Exactly,' said Bear, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘So what was it called?’
‘What?’
‘The song.’
‘I don’t remember,’ Not Bear replied. This wasn’t a lie; the otter hadn’t taught him the song at all. He had made it up himself, but couldn’t be bothered to tell Bear the truth. He knew he would start going on about proper procedures and delegation and songs only being allowed if the Elders were first told of them. Then a thought occurred to him.
‘Bear,’ he said. ‘If I invented a song, could I name it?'
‘Don’t be silly, no-one invents songs.’ Bear replied. ‘Whatever next.’
‘But if I did, just imagine, if I had, could I give it a name?’
'Well, I suppose there's no reason why you can’t name a song. It is only animals and things that need proper names.'
'Why?'
'So we can identify them.'
'But they’re still there, aren't they, before they are named?'
'I suppose so,' Bear conceded.
'And afterwards, they haven't changed because of them?'
'Well no, not exactly.'
'What do you mean, not exactly?'
'The way we think of them has changed, I suppose,’ he said.
Not Bear continued. ‘You haven’t got a name.’
‘I have,' Bear said. 'my family name, Brindal, if I care to use it. All Insiders do.’
Then why don’t you?’
‘Because I don’t like it,’ Bear said. Then, in the quiet that followed their brief interchange, Not Bear placed another question. ‘I don't have a name,' he said.
'No.'
'So why haven’t I, when you think that even a silly song should have one?’
Bear thought quickly. 'You will have, when it’s time,' he said. 'The Elders will give you one.'
'When will that be?'
'Soon,’ Bear told him, ‘perhaps very soon.’ As he said the words, he wished he hadn’t. Not Bear suddenly got very animated. He started jumping and flicking around, like a dog.
‘Do you mean at the Occasion?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, perhaps.’ Bear faltered.
‘What else is going to happen there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bear told him. With new enthusiasm, Not Bear set off at such a pace that soon Bear was struggling to keep up.
‘Slow down,’ he panted.
‘Sorry,’ Not Bear said. ‘I thought you wanted to get there as soon as possible.’
‘I do, but I don’t want to sleep all the way through it.’
‘Sorry,’ Not Bear said again.
‘Never mind. And we don’t want to bring attention to ourselves.’
‘How?’
‘By making too much noise. Like I did earlier having to shout to find you. And you going after those footprints.’
‘What about you falling down a hole, and groaning.’
‘How did you…you saw me, trip up?’
‘I saw that you were all right. What are you worrying about?’
Bear looked at him and spoke truthfully. ‘Everything,’ he admitted.
Then Not Bear stopped, in the middle of that fearful Forest, with the tall pine trees, and their hidden secrets, all around him.
Bear carried on a few more paces, then with slow steps walked back. ‘We can't stop here,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
'Because it is too dangerous. You know we are getting closer to the Outside.’
'And?' said Not Bear.
Bear looked around. ‘The Outside is a terrible place, you should remember that,’ he said quietly.
‘So you say,’ Not Bear continued. ‘Have you been there?’
‘Of course not,’ Bear said.
‘Then how do you know?’
‘Everybody knows,’ Bear said. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Are there really creatures there that eat each other?’
Bear nodded. ‘And anything else they find,’ he said.
Not Bear tried to imagine what the Outside was like. He knew it lay beyond the very edge of the Forest. Who lived there, he wondered? There must be other animals, different kinds of animals. What they would be called? He also knew, because he had heard stories about them, that also on the Outside lived Men.