Girls Rule!

Everyone was outside in the back yard once again. A noisy game of softball occupied most of the older teds. Waldo served as bat bear. Gracie hovered overhead, acting as umpire. Not that many of the teds could hear her calls. Then, again, not many of them were paying much attention to her calls anyway. In fact, some of them did not seem quite as steady on their paws as they might have been, possibly because someone had opened up a canner of Mason’s root beer, and the teddy elixir was flowing rather freely out on the field.  

Shoshonna and the littlest ones were playing a game of London Bridge, while Bentley slept quietly on one edge of the picnic blanket, tucked neatly into his blanky. The temperature was only in the mid-80s, and Bentley rarely emerged from hibernation before the temperature reached 90.

Birnie was tuning his bright red Bearcat Biplane in preparation for his next bombing raid. Biwi was sitting quietly up in his tree house, panning his camera here and there over all of the activity going on.  

Itsy and Lily-pop sat next to Bentley on the picnic blanket. Itsy had long ago taken Bentley under her wing, even though he is at least ten times her size. “Oh, she’s just greedy,” grumbles Benjamin. “She likes to lay claim to anything she can get her paws on. It’s not like Bentley can speak up for himself or argue back. After all, he’s pretty much comatose most of the time.”

“Bentley needs me,” Itsy asserts each time Benjamin raises that complaint. “I’m his nurtzs.”

“’Nurse’ my arse,” Benjamin growls.

“Oh, Benjamin, let her be,” Letta or Shoshonna or someone else will say then. “She’s just having fun. Besides, Bentley loves the attention, when he’s awake.”

Right now Brighton was helping Benjamin work on the speech he plans to give for the upcoming Teddy Bear College Fun Raiser. Benjamin, as Chairbear of TBC, hosts the event.

“Okay, for now skip ahead to the part where you say why the Fun Raiser is so important, dear,” Brighton encourages him.

Meanwhile, Itsy had decided to play teacher with Lily-pop, another of her favorite games. “Remember, Lily-pop,” she said, “always say please. When you tell somebody please, they have to do what you say. It’s a rule!”

“Yeth, I know,” replied Lily-pop in her high, piping voice. “You teached me that already. Teach me something new! Please!”

“Hrrumph!” snorted Benjamin. But then he straightened up, looked out at his imaginary audience, and began, “Okay, I say welcome and all that. Then: Having a Fun Raiser is so vital because even though teddy bears are made for playing and snuggling and having fun, they also need to learn stuff, too.”

Ignoring Benjamin completely, Itsy continued with her lessons. “Now I will teach you to count from 1 to 10,” she told Lily-pop, who, as usual, listened with rapt attention to her older sister, whom she adores. “Okay, now, repeat after me: one.”

“One,” repeated Lily-pop.

Benjamin struggled to ignore Itsy and continue with his speech. “It’s important that teddy bears learn stuff because if they don’t, they can’t always tell what’s true and what isn’t.”

“Good,” Itsy encouraged, Lily-pop. “Next comes two.”

“Twooo,” said Lily-pop very carefully.

“Because,” continued Benjamin with a mighty effort, doing his utmost to ignore Itsy and Lily-pop, “if you don’t learn stuff, people can tell you anything, and you’ll believe them, even if it isn’t true!”

“Very good,” Itsy told Lily-pop. “Now, say ten!” she instructed, holding both front paws high up in the air.

“Ten!” repeated Lily-pop, clapping her paws together.

“If you don’t know any better,” gritting his teeth, Benjamin forced himself to continue, “people can tell you the biggest lies, and you’ll never know any better!”  

“There, now,” Itsy encouraged Lily-pop, “say them all together: one, two, ten!”

“One, two, ten!” Lily-pop repeated sprightly.

“See,” Itsy told her, “that was easy, wasn’t it? Now you can count from one to ten!”

“Yeth, that was easy!” squeaked Lily-pop, hopping up and down with glee.

Biwi had to put his camera down on the floor of the tree house because he was laughing so much.

Benjamin could stand it no longer. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he proclaimed, indignantly. “That’s not how you count from 1 to 10!”

 “Don’t listen to him, Lily-pop,” Itsy told her younger sister, who was sitting looking confused. “He’s jus’ a boy, and boys don’t know nuffing.”

Biwi nearly fell out of his tree house, he was rolling around up in the branches and laughing so hard.

“What do you mean I don’t know noth…, I mean, anything?!” Benjamin protested. “I’m a Ph.B., and I’m Chairbear of Teddy Bear College, for heaven’s sake. You can’t even count from 1 to 10!”

“There, there, my sweet,” Brighton said, trying to smooth Benjamin’s ruffled fur. “She’s just a child, a little innocent. Give her time to grow and learn.”

Benjamin calmed down some under his dear-heart’s caresses, but still he grumbled, “She’ll never learn anything. She never does.”

“I don’t need too,” Itsy protested. “I’m a girl. I know everyfing.”

“OoOh!” Benjamin huffed.

“Jus’ don’t listen to him, Lily-pop,” Itsy said, turning her attention back to her little sister. “He’s a boy. Boys don’t know nuffing. They’re filfy, nasty creetures, and you can’t trust ‘em to do nuffing right!”

“Oh, they’re not all that bad,” Letta murmured, smirking slightly. “Though I do agree they require a lot of handling. You have to keep an eye on them at all times, or they’re certain to screw something up.”

Just then Biwi was laughing so hysterically that he burped and farted at the same time, which only made him laugh all the harder. Birnie looked up from his plane and started laughing too.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Biwi!” Benjamin said disgustedly, but that only made Biwi and Birnie laugh all the louder, at which point Letta joined in the general merriment as well. Then Shoshonna started laughing, which made the little ones giggle and hoot. Even Gracie joined in with her tinkling laughter. Pretty soon everyone in the back yard, other than Benjamin, was laughing and hooting, even though most of them didn’t know what they were laughing at. The Mason’s was flowing more freely than ever.

Meanwhile, Itsy, who didn’t know why everyone was laughing so much, took the opportunity to get in one more lesson. “Jus’ remember, Lily-pop, girls rule! And boys drool!”

At that Biwi did fall out of his tree house, right on top of Bentley. Neither was hurt, of course. Bentley didn’t miss a snore, and Biwi kept right on rolling on the ground, laughing his head off. 

“Humph! I don’t know what’s so funny,” Benjamin groused before turning back to practice his Fun Raising speech. Brighton tried very hard not to let her smile show. Lily-pop was asleep by now, leaning up against Bentley’s nice soft belly, all tuckered out from her lessons. Itsy’s voice could barely be heard as it rose up out of the depths of the woods, “Skirl! Com’ere, skirl!” The whole back yard was an explosion of laughter by now. The very air itself seemed to sparkle and shine.