Mel looked into the woods but couldn’t see a thing. It was too dark.

She put down the shovel and pushed away her jitters. She had no reason to feel scared. There was no crime in Glacier. Pops didn’t even have a lock for the cabin door. Their worst fear was that a skunk would sneak into the house and stink everything up.

Mel took a step toward the cabin.

And then she heard it.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

At first she thought it was thunder. But the sky was perfectly clear.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Mel stopped, her heart pounding. Should she run? Stay still? What was out there?

She remembered Grandpa’s story about the porcupine. Was this animal trying to scare her away? She swallowed hard and slowly turned to look.

She froze. The shape of an enormous animal hovered at the edge of the woods. A second later, it stepped out of the shadows, into a pool of moonlight.

Mel gasped. The creature had shaggy fur and dark eyes. But it was the hump that rose up between its shoulders that told Mel what it was.

A grizzly bear.

Mel blinked. It seemed impossible, like it had leaped out of Kevin’s imagination.

Except that Mel could see it. She could hear it. And now a voice in her mind was screaming in panic.

Run! Run!

But somehow Mel shut out the screeching voice in her brain. She didn’t run or shriek. Because if she did that, the grizzly would almost definitely come after her — and probably attack.

Mom had told her that. Over and over. Grizzly attacks were very rare. No person had ever been killed by a grizzly in Glacier. In fact, most people who came here never saw one, even if they searched for weeks. Still, Mom always wanted Mel to be prepared … for anything.

And so now Mel did exactly what Mom had told her to do. As the grizzly slowly rose up onto its hind legs, she didn’t look it in the eye. She didn’t want to make it feel threatened. With her eyes glued to the ground, she walked backward toward the cabin. Very slowly.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mel saw the grizzly drop back down onto all fours. She felt its eyes drilling into her. Its growls and grunts rumbled her ears.

Step by shaking step, Mel kept walking backward. The cabin was only a few yards away. But it seemed like hours before she got there.

And then Mel couldn’t stop herself. She turned and practically flew up the rickety wooden stairs to the porch.

She burst into the cabin and slammed the heavy wooden door shut behind her.

“Mel?” Pops said. He and Kevin were right there on the couch. Pops was reading Kevin his bedtime story. “What happened?”

Mel didn’t say anything. She was looking out the small square window in the door. It was very dark outside. But there was just enough moonlight to see that there was nothing on the porch. Mel’s knees went weak with relief. The bear hadn’t followed her.

She spun around and locked eyes with Pops.

“I s-saw … a grizzly,” she stammered.

Pops put the book down. “Where?”

“Right outside! It came out of the woods by the beach and … I thought maybe it followed me.”

Mel saw the doubt on Pops’s face.

“Are you sure?” Pops said. “Grizzlies don’t bother with people. You know that.”

“Of course I know tha —” Mel started, but Kevin cut her off.

“I want to see the grizzly!” He leaped off the couch. Before Mel could stop him, he’d flung open the door.

And there it was, standing on the porch. The grizzly was on all fours, staring at her little brother.

“Kevin!” Mel snatched her brother and kicked the door shut with her foot.

They all stood there for a moment, frozen in shock.

Mel couldn’t help herself. She held Kevin tight and stepped to the small window. Pops leaned in to look, too. The bear was still there. It was pacing back and forth, sniffing the ground.

“There’s something wrong with that bear,” Pops said. “Look how thin it is.”

Pops was right. The bear was very big. But its light-brown coat seemed to hang off its skeleton. Mel could see the outline of its spine poking up through its fur.

Kevin reached out and knocked on the window.

“Hi, bear! Hi, bear!”

“No, Kevin, don’t!” Mel warned him, grabbing his hand.

Too late.

The bear looked up at them. It slowly rose onto its hind legs. Then, with the speed of a striking cobra, the enormous bear lunged at the door. Its giant, clawed paw came smashing through the window right toward Kevin’s face.