“Conservation officer,” said Al, and spat at the ground. “That bear never did a lick of harm to anyone.”

Before Fiona could reply he had gone back in and slammed his door.

Well, it’s not my fault, thought Fiona, stomping angrily home. Does he want the bear to actually eat someone before we call the conservation officer?

Charlie didn’t get back until after the girls had had dinner and it was almost dark. Mr. Pettinger dropped Charlie and Miss Webster where she’d left her car at the side of the house. Miss Webster said a quick good-bye and before Fiona could say no, Charlie had grabbed the bike.

“I just want to tell Al where Billy went,” she called over her shoulder. “He’s going to be worried.”

When Charlie came back she looked subdued.

“Did he yell at you?” asked Marlin finally when Charlie had come in but offered no information.

“No. I told him there’s a river where we took Billy with a lot of salmon and Mr. Pettinger said Billy could fish there and would like that. But Al said what Billy really liked were Oreo cookies. He said it’s against the law to put food out for bears but he always put some cookies out for Billy anyway on garbage day.”

“What else did you talk about?” asked Fiona. “I almost came to get you, you know you shouldn’t be out when it’s getting dark.”

“Mostly we didn’t talk about anything,” said Charlie. “We just sat together and looked at two empty garbage cans still on the road and later I told him I saw Billy dancing one night and he said that he’s seen him do that too but he didn’t know what it was or what Billy was thinking when he did it. That animals may have a whole lot of thoughts and reasons that humans never experience and cannot know. Just as there may be all kinds of colors that no one has ever seen. That the number of things humans don’t know is stagging.”

“Staggering,” corrected Fiona absently.

“He said the animals probably don’t know why we do anything either. Why we put garbage out but they can’t have it. We can’t tell each other because we don’t speak the same language.”

“Science has found out a lot, though,” said Natasha matter-of-factly as she joined them at the kitchen table. “We do know a lot about animal language. Did you know that ravens have syntax?”

“What’s that?” asked Charlie.

“I forget,” said Natasha. “But it’s something to do with language and it’s way more sophisticated than you’d think.”

“I told Al that you can’t know what bears are thinking and he said I was right. Then he said you can’t really know anyone. That most people don’t even know themselves. He said he thought he knew Martha, though. If there was one person he knew it was her. He moved where he is to be by her and he said she and Billy were the two real friends he’d had in life and now they were both gone.”