· K e n n r i c ·
A bedtime story....
Three bears, Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and their daughter
Baby Bear lived in a house in the woods.
It was a stone house, solid and well built. Papa Bear
was proud of it, he had worked hard, hauled every
stone from the human stone quarry miles away through
the woods. He had fitted the stones with love and care,
one at a time over the course of two summers, always
traveling to the quarry in the dark of night to avoid
the human workers. It was a good house, with a solid
oak door.
Other bears had things to say about Papa Bear's house,
the young bears who slept under trees in the woods and
ate berries and fish, they were venomous - Papa Bear,
they said, had become too good for them, too good to
sleep on the ground, too vain to live like a bear. Papa
Bear, they said, was far too conceited in his big
stone house, lording it over everyone. Papa Bear paid
no attention to these.
The established bear families, they were less venomous
but just as dissaproving. They felt Papa Bear and his
family were going human. Living in a human house,
cooking food like humans, sleeping in human beds,
probably wanting to be humans themselves. Papa Bear,
the traitor to Bear Kind, thinking he can be human by
builing a stone house and a fire. Papa Bear did not
listen to these.
The old bears, cynical and experienced, who lived in
caves and were feared by the young male bears, despite
their waning strength, these bears merely shook their
head when they spoke of Papa Bear and his big stone
house. The humans would find him, they said, a stone
house was no way to hide. Humans would shoot a bear
just for being a bear, and they would notice, sooner
or later, a bear who built a house. Hunters would spot
it, the men from the quarry would see the well worn
tracks between the trees. Someone would find an
unusual bear and his family, and shoot them for being
both bears and unusual. These Papa Bear heard, and in
his heart, was disturbed.
Still, Papa Bear had a fine home and he was not about
to give up his ways.
One fine day, Mama Bear was cooking. Bears are not
good with fire, but Papa Bear had built a stone
fireplace as an experiment, and the family found they
quite liked porridge. Mama Bear, still not used to the
power of fire, made a good porridge, but it was too
hot by far for any of them to eat. She ladeled it out
in bowls, one each for her and Papa and Baby.
Then, as it was too hot, and bears in any case are not
used to heated foods and require them to cool quite a
bit anyway, they decided to take a walk by the stream to
perhaps catch a fish and gather some berries.
Baby Bear played along the shore while Mama Bear
fished.
Mama Bear waded into the stream and stopped still as
a stone, waiting for a fish to come by, which she
would scoop out with her claws. Papa Bear watched, and
wndered if there might be a more efficient way.
Perhaps a stick, which could be held over the water
from the dry shore, and on the end of the stick, a
length of string. On the end of the string, why not
hook on which you could put something that a fish
would want to eat? Surely fish ate something, as did
everything in the forest. The fish would bite the food,
and get caught on the hook.
Mama Bear caught a fish, and Baby Bear gathered
berries, and then Papa bear took a branch with many
small branches on it and experimented with putting it
in the stream, perhaps fish would get caught in it as
they swam by? It did not quite work, so Papa Bear
began to think along new lines. If he were to weave
fine strings into a net, the fish might not see the strings, they
would be more apt to get caught. In fact, he
might catch more fish than the family needed, then
perhaps her could trade the extra fish for some honey
with some of the bears deeper in the forest.
When Mama Bear had two fish, and Baby Bear had a large
double handfull of berries, they started along the
path back to the house, Papa Bear thinking of this new
idea of trade and Mama Bear wondering how a fish would
taste if you put it on a fire for a while. Baby Bear
snuck a few berries when she thought her parents weren'
t looking.
When they got back to the house, Papa was first to
notice that the door was ajar. This surprised him, as
he usually closed the heavy oaken plank when he left.
Cautious, he quietly opened the door ahead of Mama and
Baby, and stepped in. Nothing looked amiss, and Papa
let the others in. Surely Baby had left the door open
when they left, it was nothing to worry about.
Mama Bear put the fish away and the family sat down to
eat their porridge. This time, Papa Bear's hackles
raised and he went silent and still. Mama froze
instinctively herself, then looked to her husband to
see what the problem was. Papa gestured to his bowl of
porridge. It had cooled enough to be thick, and very
clearly, a spoonfull had been scooped from the center.
Just a spoonfull, ntohing more.
Mama Bear looked to her bowl, and saw that a single
spoonfull was missing from hers as well. They both
looked to Baby Bear, who didn't know what was going on,
but was still and quiet because her Mama and Papa
were. Her bowl, the smaller and faster to cool of the
three, was completely empty.
Papa decided immediately that until he knew what was
going on, his family was safer with him. He motioned
Mama to his side, and baby shadowed her haunches. She
would be fierce in her child's defense, leaving Papa
to fight unencumbered if that became necessary.
With his family close behind, he stepped into their
small living room. At first all seemed well, but then
he caught a gentle scent. Human. He hadn't noticed it
before, his nose full of fish and then porridge. There
was a human in the house, though not in the living
room - but it had been there. He walked into the room
and found the scent on his chair. And on Mama's chair,
and when he came to Baby's chair, he saw it broken,
and an involuntary growl escaped him. This human was a
vandal as well as a thief.
Next he led the way toward his and Mama's bedroom.
Bears do not sleep in a bed together, as they are
large and don't fit on the same bed, and as well they
make love standing in the forest, and would have been
startled to find what humans used beds for. Papa's bed
was ruffled. Mama made the beds crisply and neatly
every morning, but his had definitely been lain in. So
had Mama's. The human had not even bothered to
straighten the sheets after.
The tension grew as the one room left in the house was
Baby's, and if the human was still in the house, that
is where it would be. He opened the door silently.
Baby bear saw it first, and but they were all startled
at once - a human child, with golden hair in
braids either side of its face, was snuggled into Baby'
s bed, asleep.
Mama Bear was visibly shaken - se had been prepared to
fight to the death to protect her baby, but here was
an infant just as vulnerable, if not more for its
light frame and lack of claws. She was struck with the
maternal urge to look after it. Baby Bear saw a peer,
a young friend, and before Mama could stop her, she
had stepped into the room and leaned over the bed.
Papa saw the danger more clearly than either and made
a quick move to grab his daughter, but the human child
woke just then and let out a piercing scream.
Papa Bear knew as soon as he saw her that this was the
greatest danger his family had yet faced. The cynical
words of the old greying bears rang in his ears. This
human had found his house. If they killed and ate the
child, its parents would come searching the forest for
her. If they let her go, she would go back and tell
the other humans about the house. The only hope would have been if
she never knew that there were bears here at all, and
assumed when she woke that it was a house of humans
she had wandered into.
When the child screamed, there was a moment of perfect
stillness. Papa bear knew he had lost, he hung in mid
stride, halfway to the bed. Mama Bear gasped, suddenly,
as it occurred to her what Papa was thinking, and
where the true danger lay. As if this sound had
released her from the bonds of fear, the human child
lept from the bed while the bears stood still, she was
out the window and running into the woods before any
of them moved.
Mama made a move to give chase, but Papa stopped her
with a gentle paw on her shoulder. It was too late,
even if they could catch and kill the human. They both
knew what it meant. Baby Bear did not understand, but
she felt the decision being made, and began to cry,
softly.
Papa Bear left the door wide open. Mama and Baby
walked ahead, into the woods, and he trailed slowly
and painfully behind. The old bears were right. And
more than that, humans would find a net in the stream,
one of them would spot a fishing stick. Sooner or
later, the humans would notice anything that marked a
bear out as unusual. His head hung low, he and his
family gave the old stone house one final look, and
walked away into the forest.