The envelope was addressed to "Mr. H. Bear". Mail for him? Yay! The polar bear waved a massive paw at the departing mailman, whose snowshoes were crunching softly in the Arctic snow. Eagerly, he went back into his den to see what the mysterious package could be. The last time he got any mail was months and months ago, when Cousin Berg sent him a postcard from New Zealand.
He used a sleek sharp claw to slice the envelope open. Inside was . . . himself! A picture of him, surrounded by a yellow border. He was on the cover of a magazine! He was making his best menacing snarl, a pretty scary sight for sure. Attached to the magazine was a sticky note that read, "Hey man, thanks for being such a great model! My first cover!", signed by that nice photographer fellow he had met over a year ago. He had forgotten all about that guy. Now he was doubly glad he decided not to eat him. It had been fun taking all those pictures, posing and making faces. He had no idea he would make the cover of National Geographic!
There were more pictures of him inside, in the article on polar bears and PCB contamination. Yuck. He knew all about that, so he flipped through the rest of the magazine. A story called "In Search of the Giant Squid" caught his eye and he began reading. It was so interesting- this article said that squids have blue blood, since they use copper rather than iron to bind oxygen. And they have ammonia inside of 'em! Yuck! Almost as bad as PCBs. But the most intriguing thing about giant squids is that no one had ever seen one alive. Well, the article mentioned one guy in New Zealand (maybe Berg knows him)who caught a few larval ones, but no one had ever seen a big one. No people. And no bears either- until now! Mr. H. Bear decided to go and see a giant squid that very day.
Grabbing his goggles, he headed outside. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, Bear estimated it was not quite midnight, so there should still be a few more hours of daylight. Plenty of time to go to that lead he had passed the other day, where, if he was lucky, that pod of whales might still be hanging around.
The lead, a large swath of open water that remains ice-free year round, was a short distance away, an easy walk for a polar bear. When he arrived, he was pleased to find some whales lounging about, feeding and resting. They were big, much too big to worry about being eaten by a bear, so Mr. H was able to approach without frightening them away. Selkies, seals and even belugas would never let him get so close.
"Hey there!" he called. "Hallo?" Most of the whales ignored him, or maybe just didn't realize he was talking to them, but one swam over to him. "Hi!" she said in a sort of whistly voice. "Who are you, silly bear?"
"I am Mr. H Bear."
"Well than I am Miss C Tacean. Esquire." She giggled. "What can I do for you?"
"Have you ever seen a giant squid?"
"All the time! Why, you don't want to eat one, do you?"
"No, I just want to see one. Will you take me to see one?"
"Well, since you have such nice goggles, I guess I will! But mostly I see squid around New Zealand or Newfoundland, not up here in the Arctic. And you have to go pretty deep, and it gets pretty dark and cold down there, so I doubt we'll see one today. But it'll be fun to look! Hop on!"
And so Mr. H carefully climbed on Miss C Tacean's back, just behind her dorsal fin, and took a deep breath. Although he swam pretty much every day, he had never dove much below a couple of meters. He was excited. "Ready?" C called.
"You betcha!" H answered, and down they went.
The water was cold, but of course polar bears aren't bothered by that. At first, it was clear, blue and familiar in the way the sunlight diffused into straight edges. He could hear whale song, and see vague shapes nearby. But as they went deeper, the water turned black, and Mr. H could feel the pressure increase steadily- his goggles seemed to be trying to suck his eyeballs out. He kept them open, though, not wanting to miss the hordes of giant squid he felt sure were down here. Still they went deeper. And deeper.
Deeper still- farther than any bear had ever gone. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and the pressure was threatening to turn him into a furry snowball. With one last look, he scanned all around, but couldn't see anything. Finally, he tapped Miss C Tacean's fin and she started the ascent. Slowly, so he wouldn't get the bends. It was agony, but Mr. H didn't really mind- what a great adventure! Even if it was a failure.
When they broke the surface, Mr. H rolled onto the snow, gasping for breath. He looked like some exotic new species of drowned Arctic rat, and Miss C Tacean laughed. "Are you alright, silly bear?"
"Yeah," he said, between breaths, "I'll be okay. Did you see any?"
"No, there weren't any down there. Just us whales."
"Oh well. Thanks for the ride! I'm going to go home now. Bye." And he turned for home. Despite not being successful in his quest, he was still excited to learn more about all the crazy things in this world. He loved that there were still things on Earth that no one had ever seen. Maybe someday he would be the first to meet a hitherto-unknown species. Wouldn't that be exciting?
Miss C Tacean watched the funny creature walk away. One of the calves in her pod of Longman's Beaked Whales swam up to her and asked, "I saw you underwater and there was some white alien or something on your back!!! What was it?"
"A polar bear. I bet as long as you live, you'll never see anything like a deep diving polar bear again."
"Wow, cool."