The Porcupine Year Read Online Free PDF Page A

This one was bigger, unafraid, and definitely more difficult to deal with. It made an awful noise. A surprising noise.

    â€œGego! Gego! Gego!”
    Omakayas ran forward and jumped in front of Bizheens.
    â€œSaa, shame on you bears! He’s my little brother!”
    Omakayas held Bizheens back with her legs and waved her arms at the bears to make herself bigger. She let them know they wouldn’t get to the sweet little morsel behind her so easily.
    â€œMajaan!” She shouted at them to shoo, to get out of the way. Mama ran up too and began to bang on her pail. Nokomis yelled as loudly as she could. Bizheens began to whimper, surprised and frightened at the commotion. Then he screamed, and his scream was as loud as his namesake’s, the lynx’s, or even a bigger cat, the cougar. That did it! The startled bears stepped backward and then panicked, tumbled over each other, whirling to get awayfrom these furious beings who had just moments before seemed so calm and vulnerable.
    Omakayas had to laugh—they looked almost embarrassed by what had happened. She had been close to bears many times, and although she respected them, she was somehow not afraid of them. That was because when she was very little she had had a dream in which bears were her protectors.
    â€œThere they go,” said Nokomis, fanning the heat from her face.
    Scooped into Mama’s arms, Bizheens stopped crying and began to play with her bead necklaces. After this, although the three women continued to pick, they kept themselves in a circle around Bizheens. At last, his belly tight, his mouth, cheeks, and face red with berry juice, he tumbled over and slept. Mama hoisted him onto her back and tied him to her with a cloth. Now he would be safe.
    Nokomis sighed, looking at him.
    â€œThere was a girl who was a bear, once, in the old times,” she said.
    â€œReally?” said Omakayas, and in spite of herself she asked for the story.
    â€œI can’t tell you about it until the frogs and snakes are sleeping,” said Nokomis, predictably. “Don’t forget to ask me once the snow falls.”
    Omakayas stood up, grumpily wishing for that story. But she knew that if underground and underwater creaturesheard the stories, they might repeat them to the powerful underwater spirits, or the great spirits of the animals, who might be angry at the Ojibwe for talking about them. But her disappointment melted at the sight of her little brother’s rosy, stained face. She loved him so dearly and she’d never let the bears steal him away!
    They were soon done, except for a patch by the place they had seen the bears.
    â€œWe should leave them some,” said Nokomis.
    â€œAfter all,” said Omakayas, “they didn’t bother us much.”
    â€œHuh, what we left them is hardly a mouthful to a bear,” said Mama.
    â€œStill, they’ll know we thought of them,” said Omakayas, staring thoughtfully at the place the bears had vanished.
    WORKING HIDES
    W hen they returned to the camp on the shores of the wide, calm lake, Mama added some of the berries to the stew that she was making and spread the others out to dry on a big piece of birchbark. She sat down near the berries to work on reed mats for the floor of their wigwam, and to shoo away birds. Nokomis had one hide draped over a log and she was working on it with a thick piece of wood. Using a sharpened deer’s horn, Omakayas began to help her sister, Angeline, scrape and work a deer hidestretched out between two trees.
    She sighed deeply. When the family had left the island, she’d also left the special scraper that her father had made for her out of an old gun barrel. Perhaps she’d imagined that she’d get out of the constant hide-scraping. No such luck! Now she wished she had the old scraper, which was better. It was boring work, and stinky too. But doing chores with Angeline was not so bad anymore, because ever since they’d