You sleep more often and for longer than most babies. Wotjeo, your bear cub brother, sleeps even more than you do. When you wake, your beautiful mother is always already up and ready to feed both you and your brother’s ravenous hunger. Soon after eating, you go back to sleep in a pile of animal furs.

Time passes, and your baby teeth come in. It is painful for you, but you sleep through the worst of it. Much to your parents' relief, you soon learn how to eat solid foods, mostly fruits, and boiled vegetables. Very rarely, your father feeds you fish or red meat. Sometimes you see Mama frowning behind Papa's back while he feeds you meat, but she is always quick to hide her expression before he turns around and does not otherwise object.

More time passes, and you learn how to crawl. Your brother, Wotjeo, starts crawling before you do. When you do start crawling, he is faster than you. You try to imitate the way he walks, but your feet don’t bend the same way your bear cub brother’s do.

Shortly, you learn how to control your bladder much to your parent’s relief, and the cave mouth you live in starts to smell better. You still sleep most of the time and have a hard time telling the difference between sleeping and waking. Often you’ll dream that one of the toy sticks you and your brother play with was moved by your parents and when you wake up it is where you imagined it was moved to.

You begin to recognize the people in your life. Your bear cub brother, Wotjeo, is and has always been, the most important person in your life. Right now, his fur is a rich, earthy brown, but he told you that it will change color when he is bigger, and he will be a silver bear in truth as well as name. Wotjeo is always warm, friendly, and nice to sleep next to. He is also very lazy. He sleeps all the time, only waking up to eat or go outside to void his bowels. You often play together in your dreams.

Mama is often gone while the sun shines. When she is home, she cleans you and feeds you your second favorite food, soft sweet fruits. She also feeds you tasteless vegetables. Mama is so pretty, even the light of the sun clings to her as if it can’t bear to be away from her.

Mama’s sister is a crystal butterfly and lives with you. She never talks to you and won’t let you touch her. She is magnificent and shiny, so you often chase after her. Trying to catch her was a large part of what motivated Wotjeo and then you to learn how to crawl.

Papa is huge. A huge giant! He is the largest person you know. He is much taller than Mama and even taller than his silver bear sister, Arely. Not only is he tall, but he is also bulging with muscles. His muscles have muscles. Like Wotjeo, Papa’s sister is very furry, so it is hard to tell, but you think Papa is almost as broad across the shoulders as his silver bear sister. Papa has a thick, shaggy mat of robust dull-black hair covering not just his head, but almost his whole body. Even though individual hairs on Papa’s body are thinner and less frequent than Arely’s, his hair is so sturdy you can’t bend it unless you pick out an individual strand to play with. He is the only person in your family who feeds you meat. It tastes really good, even better than fruit.

Papa’s spirit sister is a silver bear like your brother. Although she is warm and gentle, Arely is huge like Papa; not small like you and your brother. You see her watching over you in your dreams. When nightmares try to scare you, she chases them away. Her fur is a thicker version of Papa’s hair. Dull-black and very strong. The tips of her fur are almost as piercing as your father’s bone sewing needles. When you were first learning to crawl, she often had to stop you from hurting yourself on her fur by interposing one of her huge, soft paws. Wotjeo tells you that Arely has the same mother as him and so she is your sister too. Young as you are, you accept this without question.

Your second winter begins at about the same time you start learning how to speak to your parents. Speaking with Mama and Papa is much more difficult than chatting with your brother, Wotjeo. They have all sorts of confusing rules, and the meanings of words change sometimes. You can still only communicate with them in short phrases, and often resort to wordless screams or tears.

When winter ends, your father starts teaching you how to meditate. It comes to you quickly and easily. It is not much different from your dreams. You can walk now, as long as you have something to hold onto, but it is still slower than crawling. Despite this, every morning your father insists that you walk with him down a tunnel at the back of your home leading through a complex of connected tunnels and caves. He is always patient and walks only as fast as you can keep up. Your destination is a cave large enough to hold the entire clan you and your family are members of. By the time you arrive, the rest of the clan, except for Mama, is already there and meditating on their dreams like Papa taught you. You join them for however long is left after your late arrival and then return home.

These morning trips are almost the only time you see Papa awake. He sleeps most of the time, when the sun is up. He goes to bed right after morning meditation and only wakes up to make you dinner before you go to bed. Mama says Papa has a very important job. He guards not only you but also the whole clan from people who might try to come in the cave mouth at night; when there is no light because the sun is hidden. You know it is true because Arely protects you from nightmares and when you wake up in the middle of the night and crawl out of bed you see Papa, sitting in the cave mouth and sewing all night long to make the clothes you, and he, wear.

The year continues to turn, and one day, Wotjeo shares a dream with you of a liquid as sweet as fruit made by small flying things with single strands of pointy hair coming out of their butts. Then he shares a dream of the two of you going to get some of the sweet liquid from a neaby place outside the cave mouth where it is being made by the flying things. Wotjeo thinks the flying things are smaller than Mama’s spirit sister, and she always runs away from the two of you so they probably will too. Wotjeo and you wake up from your midmorning nap. Papa is asleep as he usually is and, unusually, so is his spirit sister Arely. Mama is gone too.

Wotjeo is the most important person in your life, so it doesn’t take much convincing to get you to follow him. The pair of you crawl out of the cave mouth. You follow Wotjeo, and the path you take is familiar to you from the dream Wotjeo shared with you. One of your bed furs is still clinging to your back. It makes you feel as if you have fur, just like your silver bear brother, so you make every effort to keep it from falling off.

Your bear cub brother is very excited and keeps prancing ahead of you, then scurrying back impatiently when he notices you fell behind. You try to keep up, but he’s better at crawling than you. Despite your best efforts, the bed fur slips off your back several times. Whenever this happens, Wotjeo comes back and helps you get it on your back again, where it belongs. Frustrated, you wriggle under the bed fur so it is draped across your back for the... manyth time (you’re not good at counting) and seize part of the bed fur in your teeth. Finally, the thing stays on, and you growl in triumph as the two of you crawl into the forest outside your cave mouth home.

You know you are getting close to the sweet liquid place when you start seeing flying things. One of them flies past you and lands on a flower. You charge towards it as fast as you can crawl. Unlike Mama’s sister, it isn’t scared of you and does not fly away. You catch it between your hands *squish* *ow!*

Its tiny body falls motionless from between your hands, but it leaves part of itself behind. The single sharp hair on its behind that is like sister Arely’s hair, but shorter is stuck in your palm. *ow!* You start crying and Wotjeo comes over. He pulls the hair out with this teeth and then licks your face. You stop crying and hug him. Wotjeo sends you another image of the sweet liquid, then hurries onward.

You crawl after him as fast as you can, but the bed fur slips off your back again because you stopped holding it in your teeth when you were crying. Wotjeo trundles back over to you with an annoyed grunt and helps you get it back in position. You bite down on a corner of the bed fur again. You’re not going to let go this time, no matter what! Wotjeo hums in approval and the two of you crawl towards the home of flying things which is where they store the sweet liquid.

The flying things are coming out of the ground nearby, and you hear a soft droning noise as you approach. Wotjeo rushes forward filled with excitement and gets there ahead of you. His claws quickly digging up the ground and tearing open the sweet liquid storage place. The droning sound increases to a furious buzz, and many, many lots of manys of flying things burst out of their home. Many lots of them swarm around him. So many of them land on him that it looks like he has yellow streaks in his fur.

The yellow and brown flying things sting him with their sharp hairs! They sting him many lots of times, and he whines in pain. You charge forward to rescue him. You growl furiously as you swat at the flying things as they buzz around him. Ow! Their single sharp hairs sting your hands when you hit them sometimes, but you keep swinging. You knock them out of the air by the baby-sized handful. There are so many of them flying around now that you kill several with every furious swing. You have to protect your brother!

Wotjeo rolls over, crushing the ones on him but there are still many, many lots of the flying things everywhere! More of them settle on him and on you! Most of their sharp hairs are blocked by the bed fur on your back, but some land on areas that aren’t protected by it. Ow! Ow! Ow! It hurts! You want Mama or Papa! Where are they! You start crying with pain, but your earlier failures with the bed fur taught you well. Even while you sob in pain, you keep your teeth clamped down on the bed fur, so you don’t lose its protection.

Your wails are muffled by the bed fur. Mama doesn’t show up to save you. Wotjeo is just as hurt as you are, and can’t save you either.

The two of you keep fighting desperately against the furious swarm of flying things. Slowly the cloud of flying things thins out; the tiny bodies of your implacable foes carpets the forest floor all around you. In some places, they are stacked up higher than Wotjeo’s knees! A small cloud of flying things bursts out of the sweet liquid place and buzzes up and away. Most of the remaining defenders fly off with them, leaving only a few behind to continue fighting you. At last, you collapse, panting with exhaustion and crying. The field is yours, but you hurt too much to care. Ow! Ow! Ow!

Wotjoe stabs his baby bear paws into the sweet liquid maker’s home. When he pulls it back, it is coated in the sweet liquid. He licks it happily. After dipping his paws in again, he thrusts one of his sweet liquid covered paws into your mouth. Yummy! You stop crying and follow his example. You dip your baby hands into the hive, pulling out gooey handfuls of sweet liquid and settle in to eat your fill. Mama finds you there; surrounded by the corpses of your enemies. You are covered in sting marks, your face is streaked with tears, snot, and sweet golden liquid. Your belly looks swollen because you’ve eaten so much, but there’s still lots of the sweet liquid left.

Mama gasps in horror and scoops both of her young daredevils into her arms before running back home. You wail in frustration because she’s carrying you away from your prize. Mama doesn’t stop, no matter how loudly you scream. It’s not fair! You earned that sweet liquid! You want more and more and more!

When she gets home, Mama puts you down on a stone shelf carved into the side of the cave, and you try to crawl away when she turns her back to get the water jug. Mama sees you before you can crawl off the edge though, and invisible hands hold you in place. She tenderly cleans your many stings which only makes you cry louder. It hurts when she pulls the pointy hairs out! Despite her efforts, every part of your body swells up to twice its usual size. A fever seizes hold of you, and you drift seamlessly in and out of wakefulness.