Sandra Markle - Waiting for Ice

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123

Sandra Markle

Illustrated by

Alan Marks

With love for Nancy FarrellS. M.

To Samuel and Jacob, my great nephewsA. M.

Acknowledgments

Sandra Markle would like to thank Dr. Nikita Ovsyanikov, deputy

director of the Wrangel Island State Nature Reserve and senior research

scientist for Institute of Problems of Ecology and Evolution, Russian

Academy of Sciences, for sharing his enthusiasm and expertise.

A special thank-you to Skip Jeffery for his loving support throughout

the creative process.

Text copyright 2012 by Sandra Markle

Illustrations copyright 2012 by Alan Marks

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Charlesbridge and colophon are registered trademarks of Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc.

Published by Charlesbridge

85 Main Street

Watertown, MA 02472

(617) 926-0329

www.charlesbridge.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Markle, Sandra.

Waiting for ice / by Sandra Markle ; illustrated by Alan Marks.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-60734-086-7

1. Polar bearJuvenile literature. 2. Polar bearEffect of global warming onJuvenile literature.

[1. Polar bear. 2. Polar bearEffect of global warming on.] I. Marks, Alan, 1957

II. Title.

QL737.C27M3455 2012

599.786'1722dc22 2011002113

Illustrations done in watercolor and pencil on Fabriano 5 paper

Display type and text type set in Elroy and Fairfield

Color separations by KHL Chroma Graphics, Singapore

Printed and bound September 2011 by Jade Productions in Heyuan, Guangdong, China

Production supervision by Brian G. Walker

Designed by Martha MacLeod Sikkema

ISBN-13 978-1-68444-661-2 (e-book)

Synchred Read-Along Version by

Triangle Interactive LLC

PO Box 573

Prior Lake, MN 55372

A polar bear cub, barely ten months old,

leaps out of the waves onto the gravel beach.

She shakes the sea off and looks around.

There are lots of other polar bears on this spit of land.

But she doesnt see her mother.

Screaming, the young cub searches

in one direction, then another.

She sees lots of adult females

but none is her mother.

The cub runs away, screaming even louder.

Whether orphaned or lost,

the cub is among strangers

most much bigger than she is.

Its early October. The polar bears have spent the summer

on Wrangel Island, far north of Russia

in the Arctic Ocean, trapped

because the drifting pack ice they roam has melted.

They must wait for the patchwork quilt of ice

to return, so they can hunt for seals and whales

from these floating life rafts.

But this summer has been warmer than usual.

The polar bears crowd together

on a spit of land stretching out into the sea and wait

for the ice that is late in coming.

The young cub roams among them,

searching for her mother.

When another female with a cub blocks her way and growls,

the young cub bolts from the spit, heading inland.

She runs over rock-studded, ice-crusted tundra up a steep slope.

This past December, on another hillside, she was born in a snow den.

Her mother kept her close, safe, and well fed,

even after she climbed out of the den in early April.

Polar bear cubs usually stay with their mothers two to three years.

But this cub is already alone on her own.

Slowing to a walk, the cub crosses a ridge.

She stops from time to time to lift her head and sniff.

Nearby are jagged cliffs, where all summer

thousands of black-legged kittiwakes nested, raising chicks.

The flock has flown south, but the cub follows her keen nose

and finds a dead bird.

She feeds on this and then walks on,

carrying whats left for later.

After a while the cub curls up

and naps with her back to the wind.

Some signal alerts hera scent or a sound

and she opens her eyes to an Arctic fox sneaking up close.

She chases this prey.

But with bushy tail flying, the fox sprints away.

And by the time the cub returns, the fox has circled back

and stolen what was left of the bird.

Several days later, hunger

drives the cub back to the beach.

Now even more polar bears wait on the spit.

Theres ice offshore,

but its the size of giant lily pads

and pancake - thintoo weak to support polar bears.

With the migrating prey gone, the hunters are hungry.

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