to speak is Edwin, who explains that though people cannot change overnight, they can change direction. He thinks Cole has changed the direction of his life and is learning to control his anger, among other things. He would only allow the boy back on the island if he built his own cabin and paid for his supplies by selling things he values. As for the story about the Spirit Bear, Edwin says there were fishermen, men he trusts, who saw a white bear near the islands six months ago. He does not, however, go as far as saying he believes Cole encountered a Spirit Bear. Cole is adamant in his claim.

In the following weeks, Cole spends his time waiting and exercising his body. He discovers his anger can be assuaged by sweating and working, though his right arm is still virtually useless. The Circle meets several times without him; Edwin stays in town to attend the meetings and visits Cole occasionally, asking pointed questions and grunting at the responses.

Cole’s lawyer unexpectedly stops by to tell Cole he will no longer be representing him because his father has refused to pay the legal fees. A public defender will be appointed. A few days later, Edwin and Garvey visit Cole together, and they grill the boy about how he has changed and what happened on the island. Cole is frustrated by his inability to explain what happened and tells them they should just quit wasting their time on him. They finally tell him they have taken a huge risk: they have convinced the Circle to release him to their custody. He will be going back to the island.

A month later, the three of them are arriving at the island again. This time it is spring instead of fall, Cole is not in handcuffs, and the two men are joking around a bit. The supplies in the boat, as well as the building supplies that had been transported to the island earlier, have been paid for by the sale of all his sports equipment.

Edwin and Garvey will stay for a few days, until the boy completes his shelter; however, Cole will do all the work. They leave him alone for the day with the empty skiff. He knows he would already have made his escape if he had not changed, but there is no temptation to leave this time. He later finds out they took the sparkplug; they believe in his potential, but he has not yet earned their trust.

They roast hot dogs for dinner, and the men encourage their charge to make the most of this second chance, discover himself, and celebrate being alive. That night Cole is restless and allows anger and bitterness to stir up inside him again. Edwin wakes him before sunrise and takes him to a place he found calming during his time on the island.

As they sit in a soaking pool, the elder tells Cole that anger never really goes away; however, choosing to focus on it is a choice. He warns the boy that winter will be the most difficult, for he will not want to leave his warm cabin; his anger will grow and fester in such an environment, so he must get out. This place by the stream will be a good place to come.

That morning Edwin and Garvey show Cole how to make an airtight shelter to fend off the bitter winter winds and keep the mice away. They encourage him to eat more than cereal for breakfast and to wear gloves, but he good-naturedly ignores their advice—until noon when he is starving and has blisters on his hands. His right arm is virtually useless, but he is getting better and stronger with his left hand. After dinner that night they dance.

Edwin says they saw whales breaching that morning, so they will do the dance of the whales. Each of them moves as an expression of what they learned from the whales. Edwin learned whales are graceful and gentle; Garvey learned whales are smart and powerful. Cole feels ridiculous and self-conscious, but soon he is a whale, migrating to the fire. As he dances, he learns that whales migrate but have no home. He is like a whale. When Cole asks when they will do the dance of anger, Edwin tells him he will do that dance alone and only when he is ready.

There are no nightmares this night, but Edwin wakes the boy up early again to go to the pond. Once again they strip and wade through the frigid water to soak as the sun rises, and they make a choice about whether to be angry this day. When they leave, Edwin picks up a large, smooth rock and tells Cole to imagine it is his ancestors, the people who helped shape him into who he is today and who may still have things to teach him.

Cole carries the rock begrudgingly up the hill; Edwin tells him he has carried that rock up this hill many times. Cole is confused about how the rock gets back to the bottom of the hill until Edwin tells him to roll it down, releasing his anger as he does so. Cole is perturbed that both men keep telling him he must find his own way but seem just as adamant about following their patterns. Edwin says he and Garvey want some redemption for their own pasts and may achieve it through him.

When they arrive back at camp they see a wolf, and Edwin says they will do the wolf dance tonight. Cole is silent most of the day, though he works hard. When things get frustrating he looks to the men for help but gets none. Instead, he develops an attitude. At the end of the night he prepares to go to bed without fixing any of them dinner, and the adults say they will take him back to Minneapolis in the morning.

Cole stammers his apologies and insists he has changed, but his words are empty for the men who need to see that his attitude has, indeed, changed. They go to bed, and Cole asks about the wolf dance. He can do it himself, alone, they say—since that is the way he does everything else in his life. Soon Cole is thinking about the wolf and begins crouching and circling the fire. He understands what it must be like to be separated from the pack and vulnerable to attack. When he crawls into bed, Garvey asks him what he learned. Cole says he needs the help of others, just as a wolf needs the help of a pack. Edwin tells him to go to the pool for a soak and roll his rock alone in the morning and tell him what he learns.

Cole is afraid he will oversleep and feels restless. He finally gets up and prepares for the ritual Edwin has shown him. He hesitates, thinking perhaps he can skip the doing and simply tell them what they want to hear, but he does not want to take that risk. His soak is effective in calming his mind to face the day ahead; his climb with the rock is deliberate and thoughtful, and he rolls the stone back down the hill along with his anger. As he prepares to head back to camp, he sees a large white shape disappearing into the trees below him. Edwin asks what he learned that morning, and Cole tells him that no person is bad: people just act badly because they are afraid. Even his father acts badly out of his own fears.

Cole finishes the cabin that day, and it is built well. He prepares a feast that night, and when Edwin asks what dance they should do, Cole suggests they do the Spirit Bear dance. They ask the boy if he saw the bear this morning, and he tells the truth. When they ask if he is afraid to be left alone here with the bear, he answers truthfully: he is not afraid of the bear, but he is afraid of being alone. Edwin says he was so lonely it hurt when he first came here, but soon he felt peaceful inside. Cole must start the dance since he saw the bear, and he dances the series of events that happened with the bear the first time he was on the island. The men understand his dance.

In the morning Cole prepares for his soak and climb; Edwin and Garvey ask if they can join him, and he is happy to have their company. When it is time, Cole leaves the water and completes the climb and rock ritual. The men join him, and back at the cabin Edwin shows Cole how to properly install the stovepipe for his cooking stove. Then it is time for the men to leave and for the boy to begin his exile. Edwin presents him with a gift, a large hunting knife. He encourages the boy to carve, for when he discovers what is inside the wood he will discover what is inside himself. He promises to return in a few days to check on him, then he and Garvey leave. By the time Edwin returns, Cole has settled into a routine and created some furnishings for his new home. He promises to carve something special.

After the skiff disappears, Cole walks along the shore and discovers a long log; he is inspired to carve a totem like the one on the at.óow. He manages to haul the log to his camp and has the frightening thought that this log would also make a good canoe. He sleeps restlessly that night and decides to skip his morning ritual.

His day is filled with anger and frustration, and he even shapes one end of the log into the point of a canoe. When he realizes what has happened, that for the first day on the island he is experiencing the old anger and the old thoughts, he takes the ax and slices into the middle of the log. Once it is no longer usable as a canoe, he begins carving the eagle he saw earlier that day. After dinner, he does the dance of the eagle, feeling as if he can see things from a new perspective, like the eagle. Even his hip and arm are not so stiff after the dance, and he sleeps hard, dreaming of soaring high.

When Edwin returns with more supplies, he is surprised at the totem log. He asks the boy about making a canoe, and Cole is truthful with the elder. Cole submits his homework and asks if there is any mail. He is not allowed that kind of contact, but Cole does learn that his mother calls Garvey nearly every day to check on her son.

Cole wonders why he has not seen the Spirit Bear; Edwin suggests perhaps after the attack Cole became invisible but would not explain what that means. Edwin tells him to continue carving whatever he wants, for a totem is a personal story. Cole finishes the eagle and starts to carve a wolf. He also tries to make himself invisible by changing his clothes and masking his scent with nature’s smells. It does not seem to be working. He still attempts to dance the dance of anger, but it will not come to him. He has left a large space at the bottom of the totem for his anger carving, but he cannot finish it.

One night Cole wakes up and knows how to be invisible. It is simply a matter of clearing his mind and entering an almost trance-like state so the animals cannot sense him. He wonders what things people miss because they are not calm enough or empty enough to experience them. In the morning Cole determines to become invisible—not to the bear but to himself. He stands in the mist and loses himself in the natural patterns he sees around him. When he finally opens his eyes as if coming out of a deep sleep, he sees the white Spirit Bear. It is only for a moment, but the boy now knows he is ready to perform the dance of anger.

He prepares a celebratory dinner and enjoys it. After cleaning up, he stokes the fire and waits for his feelings to come alive. As the flames flare, he emits a loud scream and begins to dance. He approaches everything around him as an adversary, pulling and hitting and fighting. Eventually he even kicks the fire, and the embers scatter all over his campground. He is crying and expressing his sorrow for what he did to Peter; he throws a representative ancestor rock into the ocean and cries out his sorrow to them. Finally, after a very long time of dancing his anger, parts of him sore and swollen and bleeding, and he is able to say what he has never said before: “I forgive you.” His energy is spent and he collapses on the ground. From the trees a pair of large eyes is reflected in the glowing embers, patiently watching.

The next morning Cole attempts to carve something to represent his anger dance, but he has no idea how to demonstrate what he has learned and how he has changed. He knows anger is a choice, and he no longer chooses it; he leaves the totem uncarved. On Edwin’s next visit, Cole tells him he danced the dance of anger. He has learned to forgive, but until he finds a way to help Peter heal, he will not be able to carve his totem symbol. Edwin is pleased by what the boy tells him and admits that is why he and Garvey are helping Cole. They were each unable to help those they hurt, so they are helping him.

As winter approaches, Edwin’s visits become less frequent and his conversation more sparing. Cole is lonely now that the Spirit Bear, which he had spotted quite regularly before winter, has apparently hibernated for the season. He is cold and miserable, he can no longer carve in the cold, and eventually he even has to give up going for his morning cleansing ritual. His days are filled with chopping into firewood the abundant piles of wood he prepared, doing his schoolwork, and thinking. The thinking sometimes causes his anger to flare up again. Edwin told him Peter is growing more bitter and depressed, and Cole is still unsure how to help him. He wonders if he will still be able to sense the Spirit Bear when he returns to his life in Minneapolis.

Christmas is a lonely day for Cole, but Edwin tells him he has more than many and not to wallow in self-pity. Cole’s mother writes him every few days even though she knows her son cannot have the letters. Peter is now so depressed he rarely gets out of bed. Months pass, and still there is no carving at the bottom of the totem.

On his next visit with supplies, Edwin tells Cole that Garvey called to say Peter tried to commit suicide. Cole says he is sorry, but they both know that is not much help to Peter now. As the man is leaving, Cole screams out that he knows how to help Peter, but the skiff keeps moving. He hollers that Edwin is not listening.

That night Cole falls asleep thinking about Peter, and Peter is the first thing on the boy’s mind in the morning. It is still cold, but Cole feels the need to go back to his soak and rock ritual. As he is doing so, he hears a whirring and sees Edwin and the skiff approaching the island. Edwin tells him that Peter has attempted suicide again, and now he is listening to what Cole wanted to tell him. Cole’s idea is for Peter to come to the island and face his fears—including Cole. Peter must realize that Cole has changed and he can have something to look forward to in his life. Edwin points out all the reasons why this is not a feasible plan. Cole is in tears trying to make the man understand. Finally Edwin admits both he and Garvey know he has changed. Before leaving, Edwin asks Cole if he would be willing to stay longer on the island if it meant helping Peter. Cole tells him he would stay for a lifetime if that is what it takes.

Over the next two weeks, Cole struggles to think of what to carve and how to help Peter, but he thinks of nothing. One day he sees two boats approaching the island: Edwin’s skiff and a fishing trawler. He can hardly believe it, but Peter is sitting alone on the bow of the larger boat.

Cole recognizes Peter’s parents and sees Garvey on the boat as well. They all come ashore, Peter understandably reluctant to be anywhere near the boy who bashed his head into the cement. They sit around the campfire, and Edwin announces that after much serious discussion with the Justice Circle, Peter will be staying on the island along with Garvey, who has taken a leave of absence to make this happen. Peter’s parents will stay until they are sure their son is in no danger; they will sleep on the trawler until they leave.

Edwin asks Cole to tell everyone what has happened to him since his arrival on the island, and Cole starts with his first experience on the island and is unsparing in his storytelling. When the totem is mentioned, Edwin asks Cole to explain the significance of the final space. Cole knows he will not be able to carve anything until he finds a way to help Peter, but Peter explodes and says he does not want Cole’s help with anything. The next morning, Peter’s parents decide to leave. They understand Cole will not hurt their son and know Peter must face his fears if he is ever going to heal. Peter’s father takes Cole aside and tells him it is clear Cole has undergone some kind of change; however, if he does anything to hurt Peter, Cole will spend the rest of his life in prison.

That afternoon Peter will have nothing to do with Cole, and that night Cole sleeps in a tent away from his cabin. In the morning, Cole taps on the door and asks if they want to join him for his soaking ritual. The two join him in a few minutes; Garvey says they will watch. Peter seems disinterested in any of it, though Garvey and Cole explain everything to him. There is no change in Peter, and Cole is still sleeping in the cold, leaky tent.

One morning Peter unexpectedly kicks the anger rock down the hill, and Cole tells him it was a nice kick. Over the next few days, Peter gets minimally aggressive with Cole. Cole understands that none of them would even be here if it were not for his anger and careless actions. Soon, though, Peter is back to being morose and sullen.

One night is particularly cold and damp, and Cole is miserable. After Garvey brings him some food, Cole hears the cabin door open and Peter tells him it is warmer in the cabin. The cold, wet boy accepts the offer with alacrity. He makes hot chocolate for himself and Peter and thanks Peter for allowing him into the cabin.

Peter warns him this does not mean they are friends. Garvey sleeps between the two boys. In the days after this partial truce, Peter takes advantage of every opportunity when Garvey is not around to torment Cole. Among other things, he tromps on Cole’s sleeping bag with muddy shoes. The worst attack is when Peter takes an ax to the carving of the bear on Cole’s totem. When Cole asks Peter why he did it, Peter taunts him and says Cole never really saw a Spirit Bear, and the bear that attacked him was probably ugly.

Cole has an idea, and he asks Peter if he would like to carve his own totem. Peter says nothing, but he accompanies Garvey and Cole as they maneuver another log to the campsite. Peter is not at all certain about the idea, but Cole reassures him all he has to do is carve the animals he sees and asks about the last animal Peter saw. Peter says it was a mouse, and Cole announces they will do a mouse dance tonight. Peter storms into the cabin and Cole and Garvey prepare for their evening.

After dinner, Cole starts the dancing and Garvey follows with his rendition of a mouse; each of them shares what they learned from the animal. Peter finally makes some awkward moves around the fire, then announces what he learned from the mouse dance is that he looks like “a stupid dork!” and storms back into the cabin. Cole is convinced Peter will never forgive him. Garvey reminds Cole that his physical wounds are still healing, and emotional wounds go far deeper and take longer to heal.

Cole is reluctant to carve another bear in his totem because the last one took him more than a week. Instead, he and Peter each carve a mouse into their totems. Cole is amazed at how realistic Peter’s carving is. Peter asks Cole seriously if he really saw a Spirit Bear. Cole tells him about the hair he had to prove his story but that he has no need to prove anything anymore because he is no longer a liar. Peter says he wants to be alone, so the other two leave him for several hours. When they return, Cole is outraged when he sees Peter hovering over his totem. Instead, he sees a magnificent, lifelike bear carving. He is stunned at the sight and asks Peter if he will teach him to carve like that.

Summer has arrived, and the soaking ritual is a regular routine for all three of them—until one morning when Peter tells Garvey he thinks he and Cole should go alone. Garvey is hesitant, but Peter seems sure and Cole agrees despite being a little scared. They walk in silence, though Peter’s fists are clenched and he is clearly battling his anger.

When Cole offers his hand in friendship, Peter goes on the attack. He hits and kicks Cole until he is bruised and bleeding, but Cole does not fight back. Peter screams at Cole to fight with him, but Cole has mastered his anger and refuses. Suddenly the kicking stops and Peter is on his knees sobbing that he is afraid of how out of control his life feels. Cole reassures Peter that he does not ever need to be afraid of him again, that they are both part of a big circle and when one of them is hurt they are both hurt.

Peter continues sobbing and Cole eventually just wraps the boy in a hug and holds him. Suddenly Cole tells Peter to look up because the Spirit Bear has come to visit them. There is a moment of pure silence, and the white bear slowly turns and walks away from the boys. Peter wonders if others will believe them when they tell about seeing the bear. Cole tells him the only thing that matters is that they believe. They continue their soaking ritual and find another ancestor rock so they can both roll their anger down the hill. Cole is swollen and sore, but he is content with this morning’s progress on Peter’s healing. He solemnly gives the at.óow to Peter.

Back at camp, Peter offers to help Cole carve the final spot in his totem. When they call Garvey to see their afternoon’s work, he is stunned at the sight of a nearly perfect circle. When Garvey asks why a circle, the boys hesitate to answer. Garvey suggests it might be because a circle is the symbolic representation of no beginning and no end and everything being one. Peter shrugs and grins and says it was the only thing he could teach Cole to carve. Cole smiles and adds that he is a slow learner—but he is working to improve.