But three weeks in Valdez was always enough for Jackson. The noise, the cars, the people … it was all too much. He never liked saying goodbye to Uncle Solly. But he couldn’t wait to get back home to the quiet of the bush.

  “How long will we stay in Valdez?” Jackson asked as he pounded a tent pole into the frozen ground.

  “Dad and I will have to get jobs,” Mom said. “We’re going to need to save up money to buy supplies to rebuild.”

  “Maybe we can get back here by August,” Dad said.

  Four months.

  Already that seemed like forever.

  Roooooooooaaaaar!

  The winter bear was in the cabin! And now it had come for Jackson, and there was no escape. Jackson stared in horror at the bear’s dripping teeth, smelled its bloody breath. He braced himself for the bone-crunching bite.

  And then … Jackson’s eyes snapped open.

  It took a few seconds for his groggy head to clear.

  There was no bear. He wasn’t in the cabin. He and Mom and Dad had made it to Valdez last night. They’d gone to sleep in Uncle Solly’s attic guest room.

  Jackson could hear Mom and Dad breathing softly from their bed a few feet away. In the moonlight, he could see the clock on the dresser — 4:45 A.M.

  Jackson pulled the quilt around him. He shivered as he remembered the three bitterly cold nights they’d spent in their tent. His bones and muscles ached from the twenty-mile walk. But they’d been lucky. No blizzards. No sign of the winter bear.

  They’d made it to Glennallen with no trouble. The owners of the general store made them bowls of chili while they waited for Uncle Solly.

  By sunset last night, they were finally here, safe and sound.

  Jackson eyed the clock again. Should he get out of bed now? Back home Jackson was always up at five o’clock. That way he could do some of his homeschool work before chores. But his school supplies and books were all burned up now. It felt so good to be warm. Just a few more minutes, Jackson thought, closing his eyes.

  The next time Jackson woke up, the sun was streaming through the window. Mom and Dad’s bed was empty. He looked at the clock. What?! Eight o’clock?! He’d never slept that late in his life! One night in Valdez and already he’d turned into a lazy slug.

  He scrambled out of bed and threw on his clothes. They stank of smoke and sweat and moose jerky. In a flash he was down the stairs.

  “Good morning!” Uncle Solly boomed when Jackson walked into the cozy kitchen. He was at the stove. Mom and Dad were sipping coffee at the table. Jackson was glad to see his parents looking cheerful and bright eyed. They’d all been dragging last night when they finally got to Valdez.

  “Sorry I slept so late,” Jackson said.

  “I could have slept all day,” Mom said with a yawn.

  “Be glad you weren’t up early,” Uncle Solly said to Jackson. “You escaped helping me shovel the driveway. It snowed last night. Again.”

  Jackson looked out the window.

  Whoa! There was at least a foot of fresh snow, on top of the five feet that had been there last night. Drifts rose up past the first-floor window of the house next door.

  “Did you know we get more snow here in Valdez than anywhere else in Alaska?” Uncle Solly said as he cracked an egg into a sizzling skillet.

  Dad and Mom smirked at Jackson over their mugs of coffee. Uncle Solly loved reminding them that Valdez was extra special.

  “Most beautiful town in Alaska,” he would brag. “Everyone agrees.”

  Out the window, Jackson could see straight down the street to the waterfront. Fishing boats bobbed in the bright blue water. Across the harbor, a zigzag of sparkling mountains rose into the morning sky. It was pretty, Jackson thought. But he missed the pine trees that surrounded the cabin.

  Uncle Solly put a heaping plate of fluffy eggs, thick bacon, and toast in front of Jackson. Now, that is beautiful, Jackson thought. They never got to eat eggs at the cabin. And Uncle Solly’s toast was made with the squishy white store-bought bread Jackson loved.

  “Thanks, Uncle Solly,” Jackson said as he shoveled the first forkful into his mouth.

  “You won’t believe it,” Mom said, sitting back in her chair. “Dad and I already have jobs!”

  “How did that happen?” Jackson asked through a mouthful.

  “Uncle Solly hired us,” Dad said.

  Uncle Solly turned from the stove, his smile bright under his big bushy mustache. He was a carpenter, and it turned out he needed help with a new house he was building.

  “I’m lucky you showed up,” he said.

  “We’re the lucky ones,” Mom said, smiling at Uncle Solly. “You’ve always been there for us.”

  That was true. Mom and Dad had met Uncle Solly during their miserable first year in Alaska. He was living in the bush back then, in a cabin about six miles from theirs. When Mom and Dad ran out of food that winter, Uncle Solly shared his. He’d taught them about hunting and fishing and living off the land. Without Uncle Solly’s help, Mom and Dad always said, they wouldn’t have survived the winter.

  “Uncle Solly,” Jackson said, swallowing his last bite of eggs. “I’ll help with that house, too.”

  It was the least he could do to show his thanks to Uncle Solly. Plus, he needed more practice if he was going to help Mom and Dad rebuild the cabin.

  “Jackson,” Mom said. “You’re not going to have time to work. You’ll be in school.”

  “I can get my schoolwork done early in the morning,” Jackson said, mopping up the last of his eggs with a crust of toast. He and Mom had always managed to squeeze three or four hours of school into their busy days.

  “We can’t homeschool from here,” Mom said. “I’m going to be working too much. Dad and I are going to sign you up at the elementary school down the street. You’ll start Monday.”

  Jackson dropped his toast.

  “I can’t do that!” he said.

  He’d never set foot inside an actual school. But he knew what it would be like: A grumpy grandma type as a teacher. Lessons so boring he’d fall asleep. Six hours a day stuck at a desk. Jackson was used to spending his days outside, always on the move.

  Going to school would be like being in jail!

  “Come on,” Dad said with a frown. “Millions of kids go to school every day.”

  “It’s only for a couple of months,” Mom said. “You’ll make some friends.”

  Jackson didn’t need friends, thank you. He’d always gotten by on his own. And besides, what did he have in common with stuck-up town kids?

  He opened his mouth to explain all this. But then he shut it again. Mom and Dad had made up their minds.

  And Jackson wasn’t a whiner. He’d made it through a blizzard. He’d trudged twenty miles in the freezing cold.

  He was pretty sure he was tough enough for fifth grade.

  “Welcome, Jackson! I’m Miss Lawrence. Please come in!”

  Jackson stood in the doorway of the classroom and tried to hide his surprise. This teacher was no grumpy grandma type. She was young and tall, with long black hair and a bright smile.

  Jackson scanned the classroom. It was sunny, with colorful maps and posters on the walls. About twenty kids sat at desks lined up in rows.

  The boys all had short hair and were dressed in neat shirts and pants. Jackson glanced at his rumpled secondhand flannel shirt Mom had found yesterday in a church used-clothes bin. He patted down his overgrown curls — maybe he should have cut his hair.

  Too late now.

  “Class, this is Jackson,” Miss Lawrence said brightly.

  “Hello, Jackson,” the class all said together.

  Jackson’s stomach started to churn, and the pancakes and two glasses of milk from breakfast sloshed around in his stomach.

  Was he going to puke? All over the floor? He’d never been to school before. But he was pretty sure puking was the worst thing that could happen to a kid.

  He took a breath … Get a grip.

  Miss Lawrence led him to the closet where he could hang his coat and leave his lunchbox. He took off his beat-up army backpack, still filled with his emergency supplies. No, he probably didn’t need them here in Valdez. But you never knew.

  Miss Lawrence pointed out an empty desk in the middle of the room. As Jackson sat down, a girl with short brown hair and cat-eye glasses leaned over and smiled.

  “I’m Leonor.”

  “I’m Chris,” said a short but muscular boy with fox-colored hair.

  “I’m Nora,” whispered a smiling girl with long yellow braids.

  “I’m Mary,” said the rosy-cheeked girl next to her.

  Other kids looked at Jackson and waved.

  None of them seemed stuck-up, as far as Jackson could tell.

  “Jackson,” Miss Lawrence said, “you’re just in time for our morning geography lesson. Is everyone ready?”

  “Yes, Miss Lawrence!” everyone sang.

  She stood in front of a big map of Alaska that hung in the front of the room.

  Jackson’s stomach settled. Finally, the kids weren’t all staring at him.

  “Alaska’s capital is … ?” Miss Lawrence said.

  “Juneau!” chanted the class.

  “Biggest city?”

  “Anchorage!”

  “When did Alaska become a state?”

  “1959!”

  “When did people first come to Alaska?”

  It was quiet for a few seconds.

  A few kids tried.

  “In the 1800s, during the gold rush!”

  Miss Lawrence shook her head.

  “1700s, Russian explorers?”

  “No …” Miss Lawrence said.

  “During the Ice Age!” Nora called out.

  Miss Lawrence smiled. “Yes.”

  Wow, Jackson thought. That was a long time ago.

  “Nobody knows exactly when the first people came to Alaska,” Miss Lawrence said. “But it was definitely more than ten thousand years ago. And some of those people were my ancestors. As you all know, I am Unangax.”

  That’s one of the main Alaskan Native Cultural groups, Jackson thought, thinking back to the books he and Mom had read about Alaska. There are many groups — Inupiaq, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Yup’ik, Cup’ik, Athabascan, Eyak, Tsimshian, Tlingit, Haida, Sugpiaq … and each is different. They have different languages and customs, different myths and arts.

  “Hey, Miss Lawrence!” Chris said with a sneaky grin. “You don’t look ten thousand years old!”

  Kids giggled, and Miss Lawrence let out a big laugh — almost as loud as Mom’s.

  “I was not born during the Ice Age, thank you,” she said.

  “Where did your ancestors come from, Miss Lawrence?” Leonor asked.

  Miss Lawrence pointed to a big piece of land across the sea from Alaska. “They came from here,” she said. “Today it’s called Siberia.”

  She went on to explain that the sea between Siberia and Alaska was called the Bering Sea. “But back during the Ice Age, the land and oceans around the world looked very different. Part of the Bering Sea was dry land. So people could walk across to Alaska.”

  Staring at the map, Jackson tried to imagine what a hard journey that must have been. And what was Alaska like during the Ice Age? Even colder and icier than today. There were fewer trees to cut down and burn to stay warm. And even scarier animals. Like saber-toothed tigers, giant wolves, and bears twice as big as today’s grizzlies. Jackson shuddered.

  “Jackson,” Miss Lawrence said, jolting Jackson out of his thoughts. “Where were you living before you came to Valdez?”

  “Uh …” How should he answer that?

  “About twenty miles from Glennallen,” he said.

  “Come up and show us on the map,” Miss Lawrence said with a wave.

  Jackson stood up. With every step toward the map, his beat-up work boots squeaked on the tiles.

  He pushed his curls out of his eyes so he could find Glennallen on the map. Then he pointed to a spot nearby where the blue line of the Copper River curved north.

  Miss Lawrence stared. “How exciting! You were living in the bush!”

  Jackson nodded.

  “Wow!” someone shouted. Jackson thought it might be Chris.

  “For how long?” Miss Lawrence asked.

  “My whole life,” Jackson said. “But our cabin burned down a week ago. So that’s why we’re here …”

  The ferocious winter bear from his nightmare flashed into Jackson’s mind. His stomach twisted. This time he really was going to puke … for sure!

  “Uh, be right back,” Jackson muttered.

  Then he bolted for the classroom door.

  Jackson ran down the halls. He’d seen the boys’ room on his walk to the classroom. But now he couldn’t find it. After three wrong turns he finally made it. He pushed his way into a stall and stood there. His heart pounded. Sweat dripped down his back. But the queasy feeling passed.

  A minute later the outside door creaked open.

  “Jackson?”

  Miss Lawrence.

  Jackson stepped out of the stall.

  Miss Lawrence was right outside the boys’ room, with the door open just a crack.

  “Do you need to see the nurse?” she said.

  Nurse?

  Last winter Jackson nearly cut his finger off chopping wood. The blood soaked his shirt. Mom sewed up the deep cut with a needle and thread. Jackson bit down on a stick so he wouldn’t yell out in pain with every stab of the needle.

  Jackson didn’t need a nurse for a queasy stomach.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  Miss Lawrence put her hand on his shoulder as they walked back to the classroom.

  “You’ll feel better,” she said. “First days are hard …”

  “Thanks,” Jackson said, breaking away.

  He knew Miss Lawrence was trying to be nice. But she didn’t understand. He wasn’t some spoiled town kid. He’d grown up in the bush.

  The rest of the morning went okay. Luckily, kids didn’t make a big deal about him rushing out of the room. Leonor leaned over and quietly asked him if he was okay, but that was it.

  It turned out Jackson was way ahead of most kids in math. He whipped through his long division problems. In grammar they worked on commas, which Mom had taught him about last year.

  And the work wasn’t boring. Miss Lawrence cracked jokes and even made stuff interesting. Jackson didn’t fall asleep once. Plus, they had music class. Jackson didn’t know any of the songs, but he liked listening to the other kids sing.

  When it was time for lunch, the kids all took their lunchboxes to the cafeteria. The noise in there was louder than a thunderstorm in the bush. The giggles and shrieks of the kids. The shouts of the frazzled-looking teacher trying to get the little kids to stop throwing food. The banging of chairs and slamming of metal lunchboxes.

  And Jackson had barely bitten into his bologna-and-cheese sandwich when kids started asking him questions about the bush.

  “What did you eat?”

  “Where did you sleep?”

  “Did you have electricity?”

  “How did you take a shower?”

  Jackson answered as best he could. The kids were especially amazed to hear how he had to lug water from the creek just to wash dishes or take a bath.

  “It sounds really fun!” Leonor said. “Like a camping trip.”

  Sure, Jackson thought. That’s what Mom and Dad had thought when they first got to the bush. Then they almost died ten times. But no reason to tell these kids any of that.

  “I don’t know,” Nora said, nibbling on a chip. “I couldn’t live without electricity.”

  “I’d miss listening to music,” Mary said.

  In music class, Jackson had noticed that Mary had the best singing voice.

  “I’d miss my Twinkies,” Chris added, picking up one of the vanilla cakes and giving it a kiss.

  The kids all laughed — even Jackson.

  “What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?” Leonor asked, leaning forward.

  Jackson felt all their eyes on him, but surprisingly, he didn’t get queasy like before.

  He thought about some of his favorite moments in the bush. A huge rainbow he saw after a big storm last summer. The sound of thousands of birds starting to sing at once right before a springtime sunrise. The time he saw an eagle snatch a huge salmon from the river with its pointy talon toes. To Jackson, every day in the bush was amazing.

  But he was pretty sure these town kids didn’t want to hear about sunsets and birds. They wanted blood, guts, and snarls.

  Jackson had the perfect story.

  “I had spent the day fishing,” Jackson said, wishing he could take all these kids back to that day. It was last June. The birds had come back from their winter getaways. Moose calves, fox kits, bear cubs, and baby rabbits were scampering around the forest with their mothers.

  “On the way back to the cabin, I climbed up onto a high ridge that overlooked the valley.”

  That view popped into Jackson’s mind — the endless green forest, the bright sparkle of the river, how the snow-topped mountains looked as if they were wearing diamond crowns.

  “When I got to the top, I looked down. And right below me, maybe fifteen feet down, was a pack of wolves.”

  The kids all gasped.

  “A whole pack!” Mary said.

  “I’d pee my pants if I saw a wolf pack,” Chris said.

  Leonor elbowed him. “That’s gross.”

  “Sorry!” Chris said. “It’s true!”

  Jackson understood why most people would be scared. Wolves were fierce predators — fast and tough, with jaws strong enough to bite through bones.

  But Jackson shook his head.

  “Wolves don’t usually bother with humans,” Jackson explained. At least not in the summer, when there was plenty of food. “Plus, I was up on those rocks — they couldn’t get up there. And there was a strong wind blowing toward me. I could smell the wolves, but they couldn’t pick up my scent.”