We know that Rangi can at least mutter because Digger Gibson says he used to talk to the bear. In his group home for orphaned Moa boys, Rangi had a pet cinnamon bear. I saw her once. She was just a wet-nosed cub, a cuff of pure white around her neck. Rangi found her on the banks of the Waitiki River and walked her around on a leash. He filed her claws and fed her tiny, smelly fishes. They shot her the day his new father, Digger, came to pick him up. "Burying that bear," I overheard Digger tell Mr. Oamaru once. "The first thing we ever did together as father and son." Rangi's given us this global silent treatment ever since, a silence he extends to people, animals, ice.

— Karen Russell

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