The Spice of Life

Thea and I awakened to the sounds of hammering and sawing, shouts, laughter, and giggles, and the general bustle of Teds out in the backyard preparing for their annual Variety Show and Fun Raiser. Looking out the bedroom window facing the back, we witnessed the spectacle of scores of Teds scurrying back-and-forth, hither and yon, erecting the stage and getting ready for the arrival of the hundreds of Teds expected for this afternoon's event. Directing it all were Benjamin, Brighton, Mack, Letta, Shoshonna, Birnie, and Biwi, each getting in the others’ way more often than not, although still managing to make slow but steady progress.

As we prepared breakfast, the youngest Teds – Itsy, Lily-pop, Sparkie, and Waldo – tagged along behind us, chattering away excitedly about the day's coming events. This would be Lily-pop's second Variety Show and Waldo's first. Itsy was particularly fired up and could hardly contain herself because this was the first Show she was to take part in.

“You're coming to the Show, right?” Itsy inquired earnestly, looking up at her Mommola and me.

“Of course we are, sweetheart,” Thea assured her.

“Good,” Itsy replied, “‘cause I'm gonna be a star in it.”

“I can hardly wait,” I deadpanned.

“Me, too,” she said, then wandered off to get her cannon.

The Teds began showing up a little after noon. They started off in dribs and drabs in groups of two to five each, which slowly grew into a steady stream of tittering, chattering, giggling, squealing, wriggling, squirming hordes of Teddy Bears. Overall, they remained remarkably well-behaved, setting out little picnic blankets to sit on in front of the stage, walking about hugging each other in greetings, and having a grand ol' time together.

Benjamin had set up a concession off to one side, festively decorated with red crepe draped around the top and with balloons floating from all four corners. There he sold slices of watermelon for a penny and, for those Teds with a note from their Mom or Dad that they were allowed to drink it, miniature foaming mugs of Mason's root beer for a nickel. He also reluctantly dispensed, at Thea's insistence, free bags of popcorn and mugs of lemonade or fruit juice. Business seemed to be brisk as a mob of Teds crowded around the stand calling out their requests. Faith, Sweetie, and Chuffy were helping to serve the many customers.

As the time for the start of the Show drew near, Thea and I moved our chairs out toward the rear of the gathered throng, and Teds began making their way back to settle onto their blankets and await the opening of the curtains. Sherman, wearing his red-C-on-blue Cubs cap as always, had climbed out on a low-lying branch that hung just over the front of the stage. He had a flashlight with him. He was going to be using it as a spotlight during the show.

Mack stood to one side of the stage, studying his stopwatch, one paw raised above his head. At exactly the second the Show was scheduled to begin, he looked up at the stage and slashed his paw down. From behind the stage we heard the “Ka-WHOOMPF” of Itsy's cannon, and the curtains began to rise to the laughing, clapping, and cheering of everyone in attendance.

As the curtains rose, we could see and hear a chorus line composed of Letta, Shonnona, Sassafras, and Bunkie dancing arm-in-arm, kicking up their heels in unison and singing Biwi's famous morning rising song, “Wake up and live! Ta da da da duh! Wake up and live! Ta da da da duh! Wake up and live! Wake up and live! Wake up and LIIIIVVVEEE!” The yard went wild as everyone cheered and clapped and laughed. The Show had begun.

The ladies bowed and skipped off stage as Brighton walked on, her bright white fur all fluffed and combed, and her white lace ribbon tied in a neat bow. This was the first year that she rather than Benjamin was to be the MC for the Variety Show. Smiling broadly, she waited patiently for the cheers and clapping to quiet down. Once the yard was quiet enough for her to be heard, she told them, “We're very glad to see such a good turnout for this year's Variety Show and Fun Raiser. Whatever we make today on the concessions will go straight to Teddy Bear College. So thank you for your support. We’ve got a great show for you this afternoon, and I don't want to keep you from it a minute longer. So, here, for your listening pleasure, are Biwi and Birnie playing another of their piano compositions for eight paws, titled ‘To the End of the Rainbow.’”

With that introduction, Brighton turned and swept her arm to encompass the stage behind her, where Biwi and Birnie were entering from opposite sides of the stage, each pushing his own toy baby grand piano in front of him. They rolled their pianos to center stage, until their backs touched. Once their pianos were in place, Biwi and Birnie turned in unison to face the audience and take deep bows. Their ribbons were new and sparkled in the spotlight that Sherman shined down on them from above. The audience clapped enthusiastically, anticipating the coming performance, until the two of them, again in unison, turned back to face their respective keyboards. At that point silence fell upon the whole backyard. Birnie and Biwi stood stock still for a few hushed seconds, then they both suddenly leapt up onto their pianos and began scampering furiously up and down their keyboards, playing their new homage to Itsy, Lily-pop, Sparkie, and Waldo’s recent adventure, ‘To the End of the Rainbow.’

Biwi played the Itsy and Lily-pop parts, while Birnie played Sparkie and Waldo's parts. As the two of them played, we heard the whole adventure once again, from the very beginning of their intrepid search to their discovery of the berry bushes to the owl, the snake, and Sydney the crow and back to the bushes again. Then the tempo changed as Birnie, Biwi, Shoshonna, and Benjamin showed up. As Birnie played a growly part for Benjamin, the crowd laughed good-heartedly. At the conclusion of their performance, the twin pandas got a standing ovation from the audience, which became all that much louder as the four little explorers themselves came out onto the stage and took bows.

Mack, as stage manager, had a difficult time coaxing Itsy, waving and bowing furiously, back off the stage once she got on it. But eventually Brighton came out to introduce the next act: Benjamin and Mr. Fluffy, the Dueling Magicians.

Benjamin started it off by stepping over and pulling a nickel out from behind Mr. Fluffy's ear. Mr. Fluffy returned the favor by reaching over and pulling out one long scarf after another out from under Benjamin's neck ribbon. Benjamin responded by taking a top hat and pulling Itsy's cannon out of it. Everyone oooed and aaahed and applauded as Benjamin grinned and bowed low.  

Meanwhile Mr. Fluffy took the top hat from Benjamin, set it on the ground behind him, turned to face it with his back to the audience, bent over to reach into the now hidden hat, and seemed to pull something out and out and out from it. Then, standing back up straight, he turned to one side to reveal Itsy standing beside the hat. The audience went wild.

Itsy fired her cannon, “KaWHOOMPF!” At which point, Mr. Fluffy made her cannon disappear. As Itsy looked around in bewilderment, Benjamin made her disappear! The audience cheered and whistled and stamped their back paws with glee! Both Teddy magicians turned to face their audience in unison and took deep bows. After taking a second bow, they turned to face each other, drew out their magic wands and waved them at each other, at which point both of them disappeared. The house went wild!

It took Brighton a while to calm everyone down, but once they had finally settled back onto their blankets and become more or less quiet again, the Teddy John Philip Sousa Appreciation Band came on stage, to more enthusiastic applause. As the Band began their first piece, the ‘Mother Hubbard March,’ Shoshonna came on stage and began tap-dancing to the music. Her performance was electric, and the whole back yard watched in rapt attention.

After the first piece ended to thunderous applause, Brighton came out to announce a short intermission. The audience got up to stretch their legs and make more visits to the concession stand. During the intermission, the Band played several more pieces – ‘The Thunderer,’ ‘Universal Peace,’ and ‘Hail to the Spirit of Liberty,’ with Shoshonna tap-dancing to each. Meanwhile, Sherman climbed down from the tree and handed the flashlight/search light to Mickey, the little black bear with a cocoa brown snout. Mickey then climbed up onto the tree limb and began shining the search light on Shoshonna as she danced.

After the intermission finished with a rousing rendition of ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever,’ Brighton announced that Biwi would now show digital movies of Silly Human-Bean Moments, always a favorite among the Teds. As the stage lights went down and the movie began, it became clear that my silly moments were to be highlighted. There I was spilling glasses of soda or water or cups of tea one after another after another, with the actual spill captured in loving slow motion, each followed by extreme close-ups of my face as I reacted to my own idiocy. After what seemed an endless chain of me spilling things, there began another chain of my tripping over things: rugs, furniture, my own two feet. These were interwoven with me bumping into things, bashing my shin, whacking my head, scraping my arms. Many of these were treated to instant replay; sometimes they were played backwards, which somehow managed to emphasize the clumsiness of the moment. The Ted audience was delighted; they howled at my gaffs, roared at my goofy reactions, and generally rolled on the ground laughing at the hilarity of human nature.  

I, meanwhile, did my best to maintain my dignity. Thea tried to help by placing her hand encouragingly on my forearm, but her frequent involuntary snickers did nothing to soothe my injured pride.

After an agonizing 30 minutes of guffaws at my expense, that part of the Show finally drew to a close. Kippy came out then and recited a couple of his shorter poems. One was a haiku:

Hazy skies, not one cloud.
Heaven's eye beams brightly down.
Winging flocks soar high.

Next, Faith, Sweetie, Chuffy, Sparkie, and Waldo, calling themselves The Bed Bears, came on stage and sang ‘Won't You Be My Teddy Bear?’

This was followed by Biwi doing imitations of famous Teds, along with a few infamous Human Beans.

For the final act of the evening, everyone who had been in the Show today, and everyone who had worked backstage, came out on stage for the final act. Brighton and Benjamin stepped forward, paw-in-paw, and Brighton asked everyone to join them in singing Benjamin's famous song dedicated to the Chicago Cubs. The whole audience stood, and with that they all began singing, “Go Cubs, go Cubs, go Cubs go! Go Cubs, go Cubs, go Cubs go! Go Cubs, go Cubs, go Cubs goooOOOOO! Go Cubs, go Cubs, go Cubs go!” On the final extended note, everyone on stage took a deep bow, Itsy fired her cannon – KaWHOOMF – and amid the cheers and whistles of the audience the curtain came down on this year's Variety Show and Fun Raiser.

Not long afterwards Itsy, Lily-pop, Sparkie, and Waldo came running up to Thea and me. “Did you see us in the Show?” Itsy wanted to know.

“We did indeed,” I assured them.

“You were wonderful,” Thea told them.

“Marvelous,” I agreed.

“I know,” said Itsy. “We’re stars.”

“We're stars,” announced Lily-pop in wonder.

“Yeah, we're stars,” said Waldo and Sparkie.

“You certainly are,” Thea said, reaching down and picking all of them up, and giving them a great big hug. “And you're my little angels, too.”

“Let's not go too far,” I cautioned.

Just then Benjamin and Brighton walked up, paw-in-paw. “So how did you like it?” Benjamin wanted to know.

“It was marvliss,” Itsy informed them as Thea straightened her bonnet.

“The best Show yet,” I quickly assured them.

“You both did outstanding jobs,” Thea said. “You were an excellent MC, Brighton. And you were a terrific magician, Benjamin.”

“Thank you!” said Brighton.

“Gee, thanks,” said Benjamin.

They both managed to look pleased and bashful at the same time.

“The whole production was done very professionally,” I told them. “It was also quite tasty,” I added.

“What do you mean, tasty?” Benjamin asked suspiciously.

“Well, variety is the spice of life, and spice makes things tasty,” I noted, innocently.

“Ooohhh!” everyone groaned.

“That was worse than usual,” Thea complained. To which I could only shrug and grin sheepishly.

“Oh, well,” she said. “At least that reminds me that it's dinner time. Time for the pizza!”

“Yay!” cheered all of the Teds within hearing. “Pizza!” To which announcement, the rest of the Teds in the yard responded with an equally enthusiastic cheer.

“Ahh,” I sighed as I observed Biwi and Birnie rolling out a can* of Mason’s root beer. “The way to a Ted's heart is truly through his or her stomach.”

“Don't be so cynical,” Thea admonished me as we went in to get the pizzas. “You know very well that they have much bigger hearts than stomachs.”

Lily-pop was reaching out to me, wanting me to hold her. As I took her and Itsy from Thea, I glanced at the soles of Lily-pop's back paws and saw the great big red hearts that were placed on each. “I know no such thing,” I answered, holding Itsy and Lily-pop up where I could snuggle and kiss and tickle them. “Although,” I allowed, as the two of them squirmed and giggled under my barrage of kisses, “I'm willing to concede the point on faith alone.”

“I'm hungry,” said Waldo.

“Me, too,” said Sparkie.

“Me, too,” said Lily-pop and Itsy in between their peals of laughter and squeals of joy.

“And I do mean on faith alone,” I said, getting the final word for once.

*Unfortunately, cans of Mason's are available only to Teddy Bears.  Birnie and Biwi have set up a secret cannery in the hills of east Kentucky.

Rainbow's End

What a day it was! A morning rain had provided Mack and Paddington with another opportunity to amble about together in the mist. Then the rising sun had brought forth a beautiful, bright and shiny rainbow, which arched up over the backyard and seemed to plant one end firmly down into the middle of the woods.

A riotously boisterous game of croquet ricocheted back-and-forth across the full expanse of the yard. The Teds had their own version of the game. Instead of playing in turns one after another, as many as possible whacked their wooden balls at each other’s balls and through the hoops all at the same time. Clambering clacks and whacks, shouts and laughter filled the air like sparkling pieces of sound confetti. Mack did his best to keep score while tabulating columns and columns of black marks for misbehavior, with a rare gold star awarded to a Ted who showed a modicum of civility.

Over at the edge of the woods, Itsy had gathered together her littlest brothers, Sparkie, and Waldo, and sister Lily-pop in order to train them to be “a army.” After a few minutes of marching them back-and-forth, she called a temporary halt to the training in order to gobble down root beer Popsicles that Letta and Shoshonna were handing out to everyone. As the two older Teds moved on, Letta turned around and asked, “Did you see our rainbow?”

Looking up at the shimmering, colorful arc for a few seconds, Itsy’s eyes followed the end of it as it lowered down into the middle of the woods. After gazing that way a moment, she suddenly let go of the string she used to lug her toy cannon around with her and turned to her army.

“Wanta go on a abenture?” she asked them.

“Sure!” said Lily-pop as she slurped contentedly at her Popsicle.

“Where to?” asked Sparkie.

“What’s a abenture?” queried Waldo.

“A abenture’s where you go somewhere new and find impordant stuff,” explained Itsy.

“Oh,” said Waldo, wide-eyed with wonder.

“But where should we go?” asked Sparkie again.

“To the end a that rainbow,” said Itsy, pointing up at the rainbow and then tracing its descent into the woods.

“What’s there?” Sparkie wanted to know.

“A great big pot a honey,” Itsy informed them. “That’s what’s at the end a rainbows. Biwi said.”

“Do we have to go into the woods to get it?” Waldo wanted to know. He didn’t look all that enthusiastic about the idea. “It’s dark in there.”

“Course we do!” Itsy asserted. “But don’t be scared. The woods isn’t that dark inside. It dus’ looks that way out here.”

“Really?” Waldo asked.

“Yetz,” Itsy assured him. “I been in there lots a times. ‘Sides, the rainbow will make it light when we follow it.”

Still, the three little ones continued to stare into the woods, mouths agape, eyes wide and uncertain.

“Come on,” Itsy encouraged them, “finish your Popsicles, so we can go get the pot a honey and be back for lunch.”

Despite her insistence, the three of them took much longer than Itsy did to finish their snacks. But the melting Popsicles would allow them to dawdle only so long. When each Popsicle had been properly devoured and each stick licked clean, Itsy lined the three of them up, took one last look at the rainbow, and headed them resolutely into the woods.

As they scrunched in under some low-lying ferns and through a couple of really big bushes, the whacking and clacking, shouting and laughing of the croquet game started to fade, becoming softer and softer until the only sounds left were those of the woods. The snap and crackle of their progress through the undergrowth was loudest to their ears. But the shushing sounds of squirrels bounding about nearby, the snicking of other squirrels scampering up and down tree trunks, the quieter clicking and whirring of bugs, the chirping of birds, and the occasional rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker high above them all combined to give the woods an eerie voice indeed.

The four little Teds clambered across the floor of the woods with nary a word for what seemed like a really long time. The eyes of the three younger ones opened wider and wider and flicked back and forth, up and down, and side-to-side as they tried to adjust to the shady light and see everything there was to see at the same time.

“Where’s the rainbow’s end?” asked Sparkie. “I can’t see it no more.”

“That’s okay,” Itsy assured him. “We’re marching right to it. Don’t worry.”

Just then a nearby bush rustled loudly, and everyone jumped as an owl rose up into the air. Flying up to a branch of a tree near them, it bent its head to one side and stared gravely at them as they passed.

“Hi, owl!” Itsy yelled in greeting.

“Who! Who!” it answered.

“You, silly owl,” returned Itsy. “You!”

It’s only response was to shake its wings, ruffle its feathers, and bend its head to the other side. Its big round eyes followed them as they slowly made their way deeper into the woods.

“He’s a boy owl, Lily-pop,” Itsy informed her little sister. “That’s why he’s so stupit.”

“Stupit boy owl,” Lily-pop agreed.

“Come on,” Itsy encouraged her army. “Ev’rybody hold paws and keep walking. I’ll hold Lily-pop’s. Lily-pop, you hold Waldo’s. And, Waldo, you hold Sparkie’s.”

“Okay,” they all agreed, grabbing each other’s paws. Then they turned and trekked on together farther into the heart of the woods.

Scattered rays of sunlight filtered through the tops of the trees above them as they trudged along, slipping on old leaves, tripping over twigs, hopping over fallen branches, and bending under and around big bushes.

Eventually, Waldo broke the silence, asking plaintively, “Are we there yet?”

“Almos’,” Itsy assured him. “We’ll get to the end a the rainbow any minute now.”

A great big butterfly floated by them, flitting from one shaft of sunlight to another, then disappeared off into the far reaches of the woods.

“I’m hungry,” Waldo complained.

“Me, too,” squeaked Sparkie.

“Me, too,” piped up Lily-pop.

“We can eat some a the honey at the end a the rainbow when we get there,” Itsy reassured them.

“But we’re hungry now,” Sparkie wailed.

Just then they stepped between two huge ferns and came upon a stand of bushes filled to overflowing with bunches of black berries and red berries. Two little sparrows and a wren were hopping from bush to bush, pecking at the berries and devouring them greedily.

“Okay,” Itsy said, walking over to the nearest bush and reaching up to pluck a big, juicy black berry, “we can eat somefing now, if you want.” Handing the berry to Lily-pop, she said, “Ev’rybody can take some of these berries and eat them.” Picking off another black one, she plopped it into her mouth. “Ummm, them’s good!”

“How do you know they aren’t poison?” asked Sparkie, eyeing the bushes suspiciously.

“‘Cause the birds are eatin’ them, and they don’t get sick,” explained Itsy, reaching up for red berry, which she handed to Lily-pop.

“Oh,” said Sparkie, sidling up to a bush and taking a berry for himself. Waldo joined him and began eating the berries, too.

While they were eating, they heard some rustling in the leaves nearby. All of them stopped in the middle of munching on berries and stood very still. Out from under the ferns and on across the floor of the woods slithered a long green snake. No one moved, but the snake paid them no heed, just slithered on along its way until it disappeared off into the underbrush. It took a few minutes before everyone started eating their berries again, eyeing the bushes and the earth around them very, very carefully all the while.

Once they had eaten their fill, Itsy made everyone wipe his or her paws on some leaves. Then they took each other’s paws and started off through the woods again.

After walking a bit more, Waldo suddenly put his paws to his neck and exclaimed, “Hey, I lost my ribbon!”

“Yeah, it’s gone,” Sparkie agreed after making a close inspection of Waldo’s neck. “Where did you lose it?”

“I don’t know,” Waldo replied, close to tears. After considering it for a while, he decided, “Back at the berry bushes, I think. I remember something pulled at it when we ducked under one of the bushes when we left.”

“Don’t worry, Waldo,” Itsy reassured him, bending down to look him in the eyes while rubbing his back sympathetically. “We’ll find it when we go back later.”

“Yeah, we’ll get it back,” said Lily-pop quietly, standing on the other side of him, rubbing his shoulder.

“Yeah, we’ll have to go back that way anyway,” agreed Sparkie, confidently.

“Okay,” said Waldo. Snuffling a little, he wiped his eyes on the back of his paws, then stood up straight and said, “I guess we better get going then. So we can come back pretty soon.”

“Yeah,” agreed Itsy, Lily-pop, and Sparkie. “Let’s get going, then,” said Itsy. “Ev’rybody hold paws! Now sing after me,” and off they marched again, singing resolutely and bravely, “If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise….”

A little while later, a crow perched on a branch overhead called after them as they walked along, and Itsy shouted, “Hi, black bird!” To which greeting the crow cocked its head first one way then the other, then flapped its shimmering, blue-black wings and flew off into the higher reaches of the trees.

Somewhere near them, a wood thrush’s sweet, clear voice began to pipe vespers. The light from above shone down softer than it had before.

“Is it getting to be night?” Sparkie asked.

“Not yet,” said Itsy. “We’ll get back before night, don’t worry.”

Just then, as they walked around a great big tree stump that swarmed with ants and other bugs, they came upon another stand of bushes filled to bursting with red berries and black berries.

Lily-pop looked up at her big sister, Itsy, and asked quietly, “Can we eat some more?”

“Sure,” said Itsy.

Suddenly Waldo pointed and cried out, “Look! There’s my ribbon!”

Sure enough, hanging from a lower branch of one of the bushes was Waldo’s bright pink ribbon. He and Sparkie rushed over to it and carefully pulled it down off the branch. Itsy came over and helped wrap it back around his neck, then tied it in a knot as best she could.

Once Waldo has his ribbon back safely on his neck, Sparkie asked, “How come we’re back at these bushes again? I thought we was only going to go by them on the way back!”

“Maybe we have to go by them again before we get to the end a the rainbow,” Itsy suggested.

“Caw! Caw!” came the cry of a crow as it flew in to settle down on the branch of a tree not far from them. Quickly grasping the branch with its claws, it bent its head down directly at the four of them, and called out, “Caw! Caw!” once again.

“Hi, black bird!” Itsy called back.

Suddenly there was a crunching and rustling of leaves and undergrowth behind them, and, with memories of the snake from earlier, everyone froze in place and scanned the bushes and ferns around them, wide-eyed and fearful. Then, out of the bushes emerged a big black-and-white head.

“Birnie!” shouted Itsy. “Hi! Did you come to see the end a the rainbow, too?”

“Hi, Birnie!” shouted Lily-pop and Waldo and Sparkie.

“We’re on a abenture!” Waldo explained, running excitedly over to his big brother as Birnie emerged more fully from the bushes. Right on his heels came Biwi, too, smirking and chuckling.

“I’d say we found the end of the rainbow,” said Biwi, picking Waldo up and twirling him around in the air, making him gasp and laugh at the same time.

“You did?” asked Sparkie. “Where is it?”

“Right here, little one,” Birnie said, picking his little brother up and giving him a hug.

“No it isn’t,” argued Itsy, paws on her waist. “This is dus’ some berry bushes.”

“Hi, Shoshonna!” squealed Lily-pop, as her great big sister stepped out of the bushes behind Birnie and Biwi and bent down to pick up the baby girl of the family.

“Hi, sweetie,” Shoshonna answered, kissing and hugging Lily-pop, making her giggle and squeak with laughter.

Biwi pulled Waldo in and hugged him up against his chest, then turned to Itsy and said, with a great big grin on his face, “Well, these may look like only berry bushes to you, but they look like the end of the rainbow to me.”

With a free paw, Shoshonna reached down and rearranged Itsy’s bonnet, which had fallen to one side of her head. Then the bushes rustled once more, and out of them stepped a bear with a scowl on his brown-and-yellow face.

“Hi, Benjamin!” Itsy greeted her older brother brightly. “What are you doing here? Did you come to find the end a the rainbow, too?”

“I guess you could say that, in a way,” Benjamin answered in his growly way, but somehow he didn’t sound as gruff as he usually did when speaking to Itsy. Itsy cocked her head like the crow and studied Benjamin closely, but for once she didn’t say anything.

“We started looking for you,” Benjamin informed her, “as soon as we found out you were lost.”

“We didn’t get lost,” Itsy insisted indignantly. “We knowed where we was all the time.”

“Yeah, well, we didn’t,” Benjamin frowned down at her. “Mommola got worried when she started making dinner and you weren’t there to help.”

“Oh, we better get back then,” said Itsy. “Mommola needs my help. We can find the pot a honey at the end a the rainbow another time.”

“No need to seek any further,” Birnie assured her with a smile. “You’ve found it,” he said, sweeping one paw out to indicate the berry bushes, while holding Sparkie tight in his other arm.

“Them’s just berry bushes,” Itsy objected, “not pots a honey.”

“Oh, but they will be,” Birnie said, “once we spritz them with Mommola’s honeybee attractor juice next spring. Our honeybees will swarm out here and slurp up all the nectar from the berry flowers, and by next summer we’ll have pots and pots of black-and-red berry honey. Ummm, umm. That’s one of the finest kinds of honey you can make.”

“It is?” asked Itsy eagerly.

“It sure is,” said Biwi. “Simply delicious. A real treasure indeed.”

“Thanks to the four of you,” said Shoshonna. “You found all these berry bushes all on your own.”

“Yeah, we did,” said Itsy, suddenly very proud. “See, Lily-pop and Waldo and Sparkie, I tolded you we’d find the end a the rainbow.”

“Yeth,” said Lily-pop sleepily as she leaned up against Shoshonna chest. “We finded it.”

“Yeah, we had a abenture,” Sparkie told Birnie.

“I’m hungry,” Waldo informed them.

“Well, let’s get back then,” said Biwi. “Mommola’s holding dinner for us.”

Then Benjamin did something most unexpected. He stooped down, with his back to Itsy, then looked over his shoulder and said to her, “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

“I can walk,” insisted Itsy.

“Yeah, but we’ll get there faster if I give you a ride,” he said. “We don’t want to keep Mommola waiting do we?”

“No, I guess not,” she said reluctantly. Then she went over and climbed up on his back and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders as he reached back and gave her a seat on his paws and stood up, ready to go.

“Caw!” called out the crow. “Caw!”

Itsy looked up and waved to him. “Bye, black bird!” she called.

“That’s Sydney the crow,” Benjamin told her. “She showed us where you were.”

“She did?” asked Itsy, surprised. Then, as they started off through the bushes, she yelled up back at him, “Fank you, Sydney Crow! Fank you!”

“Caw!” came the response, and Sydney the crow flew up into the treetops.

Itsy turned her head back to Benjamin, thought a moment, then said loudly into his ears, “Fank you, too, Benjamin.”

“Well, you’re very welcome, little sister,” Benjamin responded.

“You’re being a good boy today!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” groused Benjamin. Then, under his breath, he murmured, “I should have known it couldn’t last.”

Suddenly Itsy took to hopping up and down on his back and started shouting, “Giddyup, horsie! Giddyup!”

“OoOh!” Benjamin exclaimed. Then, as Itsy continued to urge him on to a faster gait, he quieted some and mused philosophically, “Oh, well. You’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet, I guess.”

“Or, in this case,” observed Biwi, who was walking next to the two of them, with Waldo wrapped in his arms, “the Itsy with the honey.”

“Yetz!” agreed Itsy enthusiastically.

With that thought, they all picked up their pace, hurrying back to where Mommola and Dad and the rest of the Teds waited with a nice, warm dinner to welcome them home.

This one's for Uncle John and Aunt Karen, with love from Itsy.

How the Light Gets In

The Teddies were more subdued than usual, despite the bright, sunny day. They’d felt as though they’d lost one of their own ever since Teddy Kennedy passed away. That had been a few days ago, and their initial sadness had transformed over the days into a more contemplative mood, especially among the older Teds, regarding life and loss and the goodness of hugs and kisses.  

Even the younger ones, picking up on the more thoughtful demeanor of their elders, were more quiet than usual. Except for Itsy. Someone had made the mistake of telling her that some people commemorate a great person’s life by shooting guns off into the air. Itsy had decided to do some of her own commemorating by firing her toy cannon into the woods. “Ka-WHOOMPF! Ka-WHOOMPF!” Most of the other little ones, however, sat or lay on the picnic blanket, napping or listening to Shoshonna and Letta tell them fairy tales while they ate strawberry shortcake.  

Birnie and Biwi had flown off early in the morning, heading for the heart of Africa, where they were to drop Tweed off for his latest adventure among the pygmies. Then they were flying off on another secret bombing mission. As usual, however, they would be back by dinnertime. They never missed one of their Mommola’s dinners.

Mr. Fluffy, Kippy, and Sassafras sat at the table under the umbrella on the deck and discussed the week’s events. A dark brown bear of medium size who, unlike most of the other Teds, tends to prefer to walk on all fours, Sassafras is our Teddy psychologicalist and counselor. She had made the rounds among the Teds these past few days soothing troubled spirits and encouraging hope and joy in what tomorrow brings. Not until today did she find the time to sit and contemplate the implications of the passing of another great human bean named Teddy. Mr. Fluffy, with Kippy always at his side, had assisted Sassafras in comforting the rest of the Teds over the past few days. Now the three of them sat and talked quietly among themselves, trying to find meaning in all that had occurred this sad but memorable week.

“Well, that was exhausting,” Kippy remarked. “I don’t know how you two do it, tending to the needs of so many distraught Teds.”

“Oh, it wasn’t all that bad,” Sassafras assured him. “Not that it wasn’t tiring,” she said, managing a thin smile. “But at least Teds generally don’t have the kinds of severe emotional problems that human beans do.”

“Thank heaven,” said Mr. Fluffy fervently, sipping from his tea cup.

“Yes, I’ve noticed how much more even-tempered Teddies tend to act than do human beans,” Kippy observed. “They don’t seem to get depressed as much for one thing.”

“Teds don’t usually get depressed,” Sassafras informed him quietly. “They get compressed sometimes but rarely depressed.”  

“And then it just takes a little petting and patting to get them back into shape once again,” Mr. Fluffy added.

“I wonder why there is such a difference between Teddies and human beans in that regard,” Kippy wondered aloud.

“Well,” said Sassafras, “we Transfurians would say it’s because the basic needs of Teddies are more likely to be met than are those of human beans.”

“Transfurians? What’s that?” asked Kippy, the linguist, always eager to learn a new word.

“That’s the kind of Teddy psychologicalist I am,” Sassafras told him. “Transfurians believe there is more to a Ted’s emotional well-being than just the state of his or her fur and stuffing. Thus, trans, meaning beyond, fur. Transfurians. Beyond the fur.”

“Ah,” said Kippy, appreciatively.  

“Teddy Bears are usually provided with all of the food, shelter, hugs, and kisses that they need, thanks to their human beans,” Sassafras explained further.

“So they’re free to explore the higher realms of love and spirit?” asked Mr. Fluffy.

“Yes, exactly,” Sassafras confirmed. “Human beans, on the other hand, often have a more difficult time of it.”

“Some spend all their life just trying to secure food and shelter for themselves and their loved ones,” Mr. Fluffy observed.  

“Leaving them little time to consider higher things,” Sassafras concluded.

“This sounds a lot like that theory of a hierarchy of needs that the human psychologist Abraham Maslow got from his Teddy Bear Zippy,” Kippy said.

“Exactly,” Sassafras agreed. “Zippy knew what she was talking about. At least, that’s what we Transfurians believe.”

“Refresh me a little on what this hierarchy of needs is all about,” requested Kippy.

“It’s usually illustrated by a pyramid of five levels,” Sassafras explained, “with the highest level representing a person’s highest aspirations, while the lowest represents the most basic needs. The lowest levels of needs must be met before a person can move on to trying to satisfy the higher levels of needs.”

She took a bite of strawberry shortcake, followed by a sip of tea, then continued, “The lowest level represents needs of the body, like eating, breathing, sleeping, and shelter. Only once those needs are met can a person go on to try to meet the needs of the next level, which all relate to the need for safety, security, and good health.

“Once those needs are met, a person can strive to meet the needs of the third level, which have to do with friendship and love. After meeting those, the need for self-esteem, which is the fourth level, becomes important.

“Only after all of the needs of the first four levels are met can a person seek what he or she needs most, which is to become what he or she was born to be, to attain their full potential. Zippy and Maslow called that the need for self-actualization. I think of it as the need to be who you are and to become who you are meant to be,” Sassafras concluded.

“Be true to your Self,” Mr. Fluffy observed. “It’s a kind of yoga or spiritual practice. Taoist’s call it practicing Sincerity.”

“Yes,” Sassafras agreed. “Transfurians call it living with authenticity.”

“Fascinating,” said Kippy.  

“Indeed. As it happens, this all fits very nicely with the reading I got today when I consulted The Teddy Bear I Ching,” Mr. Fluffy told the other two. 

“What was your question?” Kippy asked, curling his paws around his cup of strawberry honey tea.

“I asked what makes a person great,” Mr. Fluffy said. “The reading I got was quite intriguing and to the point.”

“As usual,” Sassafras noted, smiling quietly at Mr. Fluffy and Kippy. Even though Benjamin was given credit as author of The Teddy Bear I Ching, Kippy had done most of the original translation work, and Mr. Fluffy had provided invaluable consultation every step of the way.

From the edge of the woods, Itsy’s cannon sounded, “Ka-WHOOMPF!”

Everyone at the table smiled at that.

“So how did it answer your question?” Kippy asked Mr. Fluffy.

“It sounded a lot like everything we’ve been discussing, actually. In regards to what makes a person great, I threw hexagram 14 changing to hexagram 9, that is, ‘Treasure’ changing to ‘Details, Details.’” Opening up a copy of The Teddy Bear I Ching, Mr. Fluffy read, “The Main Point for ‘Treasure’ is ‘A clear mind, strength of purpose, and a sweet heart: these are priceless treasures.’”

“Well, that certainly answers your question loud and clear,” Sassafras commented.

“Yes, and then some,” Kippy agreed. “What’s the Main Point for ‘Details, Details’?”

Leafing back through the book, Mr. Fluffy stopped when he found his place and read, “‘Each step counts. There are no shortcuts. Take a deep breath and count to 10. Remember to look both ways before crossing the street.’”

“Now, that’s interesting,” Sassafras said, gazing into her tea cup thoughtfully.

“Why’s that?” asked Kippy.

“Well, I think we can agree that the Main Point for the first hexagram, ‘Treasure,’ clearly describes characteristics you would expect of a great person.”

“Sure,” Kippy and Mr. Fluffy agreed in unison, then looked over at each other and smiled at the coincidence.

“But the Main Point for ‘Details, Details’ suggests there’s more to it than just having a clear mind, strength of purpose, and a sweet heart,” she continued. “You also need to pay attention to details and follow through on each necessary step in what you do without taking any shortcuts. Now that takes patience and an appreciation not only of the large view but of the small as well.”

“Taken together I think the Main Points of the two hexagrams might relate to the necessity of making practical use of one’s highest ideals,” Mr. Fluffy suggested. “That’s not always the easiest thing to do.”

“What were the readings for the changing lines?” Kippy asked Mr. Fluffy.

“Let’s see,” Mr. Fluffy said, leafing through the book again. “They were 9 in the fourth and 6 in the fifth. The fourth line of ‘Treasure’ reads, ‘Time to be a little more discriminating. Consider your position. No need to get lost in the crowd. But don’t be a showoff, either.’ And the fifth line reads, ‘Give, but don’t get taken.’”

“Hmmm, those are in general agreement with what we’ve been saying, I think,” Kippy observed. The other two nodded their heads in agreement. “So how do the lines read in ‘Details, Details’?”

Turning back to that hexagram, Mr. Fluffy said, “The fifth line says, ‘Small truths become big truths, and small lies become big lies. Only the truth gains confidence and removes all obstacles to success.’”

“That sounds like another way of describing living with authenticity,” said Sassafras.

“And Sincerity,” said Mr. Fluffy.

“And the fifth line of ‘Details, Details’?” prompted Kippy.

“‘Loyal and true – that’s what a best friend means to you,’” read Mr. Fluffy.

The three of them were silent for a few moments as they considered the implications of Mr. Fluffy’s reading from the The Teddy Bear I Ching, especially in the light of the week’s events. A cloud covered the sun for a moment. A hawk flew by overhead, crying urgently into the late afternoon sky. “Ka-WHOOMPF!” went Itsy’s cannon.

Finally breaking the silence, Mr. Fluffy asked quietly, “We’ve been talking about Teddy Kennedy, haven’t we?”

“Pretty much, I guess,” said Kippy. “He was certainly a great man. Although, he did have his flaws.”

“What human bean doesn’t?” asked Sassafras. “That’s what it means to be human, I sometimes think.”

“I don’t think their flaws necessarily diminish their accomplishments,” offered Mr. Fluffy. “Often, their accomplishments seem all the greater because of their flaws.”

Silence enveloped the table once again. Until Sassafras ventured a quote from Leonard Cohen’s song, “Anthem.” “‘There’s a crack, a crack in everything….’”

“‘That’s how the light gets in,’” Kippy finished the quote.

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Fluffy, “that’s how the light gets in.”

“Ka-WHOOMPF!” sounded Itsy’s cannon, as the rays of the sun burst forth once again and the hawk wheeled round overhead, crying and crying into the blazing light.

Such is the Way

After Tweed, Birnie, Biwi, Mack, and Paddington brought the honeybees to their brand new beehive, Tweed sprayed them with a sugar-water solution. Once the bees were bloated on the sugar water and feeling very happy and sleepy, the Teds gathered around a cozy, little campfire, where the older Teds taught the youngsters how to roast miniature marshmallows. 

When everyone was munching contentedly on a roasted marshmallow, the older Teds started telling ghost stories. Tweed started off with a scary tale of the ghosts of horned toads that haunted the Amazon. “They are toads who just keep on croaking even after they’ve croaked,” he said at the end of his story. All of the older Teds groaned at that one, as the younger ones stole glances over their shoulders while scrunching a little closer to each other every time a cricket sounded.

Letta told a story of two star-crossed lovers who only found true happiness after they turned into ghosts. “Aaahhh,” the younger Teds sighed at the end of her story, and they all smiled a little more freely as they slowly turned more marshmallows over the fire.

Then Birnie asked, in a low, conspiratorial voice, “How many of you know that we have our own ghost right here in our own back yard?”

“We do?” asked Itsy, hopping up and looking excitedly all around.

“Watch it, Itsy!” Benjamin shouted, ducking away from the flaming marshmallow Itsy was brandishing erratically as she hopefully searched the woods for the ghost.

“Sit down and eat your marshmallow, Itsy, sweetie,” Shoshonna urged her. “If you don’t, it could fall off into the dirt.”

“Or burn a hole in somebody’s fur,” Benjamin interjected.

“Benjamin!” Letta admonished him. “Leave her be, please.”

“Well! She’s a danger to others,” Benjamin insisted.

“His ghost isn’t out there just yet, Itsy,” Birnie informed her. “He doesn’t usually come out until much later. So you might as well sit down, eat your marshmallow, and listen to the story of how he got to be a ghost.”

“Oh,” said Itsy, disappointedly. “Okay.” She sat back down and poked her already blackened marshmallow back into the flames. Turning to Lily-pop who was sitting next to her, she said, “Be careful with your mashmellow, Lily-pop. You might poke somebody with it, and smear it all over them. Then you couldn’t eat it anymore.”

“Oh,” said Lily-pop quietly, turning the marshmallow at the end of her stick very carefully. “Okay.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin muttered before turning back to Brighton who was feeding him melted pieces of marshmallow from her stick.

“His name was Billingham,” Birnie told them, resuming his story. “He was a squirrel. He lived right up there,” everyone looked over to the woods where he was pointing, “in a hole at the top of that big, triple oak growing on the edge of our woods.” Their heads bent back, back, back as they tried to see up to the top of the big old tree.

“Billingham was a deep sleeper, kind of like Bentley, except he woke up more often, especially in the summer. He didn’t like waking up all that much, though. He much preferred to sleep, especially in winter when squirrels hibernate just like bears do. He loved to sleep the winter away.

“He slept a lot in summer, too. So much that he buried fewer acorns for himself in preparation for the winter months than other squirrels did. During winter, the only time he woke up was when he got hungry, and even then he had to be really starving to rouse himself. He had such a hard time getting up in the winter that even when he did he never really woke all the way up. Most of the time he barely even got to half awake.

“So it was that when he woke up in the deep of winter the night of the big ice storm that he wasn’t quite all there, so to speak. Crawling out of the hole from his nice comfy nest, he couldn’t really tell if he was awake or dreaming. It didn’t help any that once he poked his nose out into the bone-chilling night the whole world seemed to have changed. Everything around him looked like it was covered with a thick coat of glass that sparkled in the moonlight. Only it wasn’t glass; it was ice. But Billingham didn’t know that, and being more asleep than awake, he never really figured it out.

“The weird glass-coated world stopped Billingham in his tracks, but just for a second. He quickly put it out of his mind because his only reason for being half-awake in the first place was to dig up some food and get back to sleep as soon as possible. The longer he stood stock still in his doorway, the colder he was getting and the more sleep he was missing.

“So, whipping his bushy tail once in irritation and dismissal of any and all of the weirdness in the world around him, Billingham jumped out onto the branch right outside his doorway, intending to scoot down the trunk of the tree and scamper around to several of his secret hiding places to gather up enough acorns to tide him over for another couple of weeks of sleep. Unfortunately, the minute his paws hit the ice-covered branch, he slipped and fell. Fortunately, he was able to grab a tight hold around the branch with all four paws. Unfortunately, although holding on tightly to the branch, he ended up twirling around and around and around.

“The thick coating of ice on the branches sent Billingham corkscrewing down until he slid up against a clump of smaller branches, which brought him to an abrupt halt. That was the only thing that kept him from sliding right off the end. Unfortunately, the shaking Billigham had just given the branch, plus his added weight on the ice-covered tip proved to be just too much. With a sharp crack, that end of the branch snapped off and fell down through the air. Billingham fell right along with it. He fell really fast, and he fell a really looonnnggg way down. Until – bam! – he hit the ground, hard. So hard it knocked the wind out of him.”

“Oh, poor skirl,” Itsy said, absently munching on her third-degree burnt marshmallow. 

“Poor skirl,” repeated Lily-pop, who was daintily picking pieces off of her marshmallow and putting them in her mouth.

“Yes, poor Billingham,” agreed Birnie, continuing his story.

“When he came to a long while later, he couldn’t remember at first exactly where he was or what had happened to him. But, he still felt hungry, very, very hungry. At least he found himself on the ground. Granted, it was cold, ice-covered ground. But he was on the ground. So he scampered off as best he could on the ice in the direction he thought the nearest hiding place was for one of his acorns.

“Slipping and sliding, it took forever for him to make any headway, but he finally made it to his secret hiding place. After taking a second to catch his breath, he then bent over and made ready to scratch his way down to his hidden acorn. Imagine his surprise when his paw went right straight through the ice and the dirt – without making a dent in either one! He was shocked! Plus, he was starving. He took another swipe at digging down to the delicious acorn he knew was waiting for him, with the same unbelievable result – his paw went straight through the ice and into the earth without making any hole at all!”

All of the younger Teds said, “Oooooo!” all at the same time and leaned in closer to the fire. All eyes were on Birnie.

“Nobody knows how long it took Billingham to wake up to the fact that he was a ghost. It was quite a shock once he finally realized it, of course. Especially since being a ghost didn’t keep him from still being very, very hungry. But as a ghost he couldn’t find anything he could eat. Even when he found an acorn lying on the ground, he couldn’t eat it because ghosts can’t eat anything, you know.”

Again all the younger Teds said, “Oooo!” – but this time they said it with more sympathy than fear. Teds know the meaning of hunger, or, rather, the intense pleasure of eating. So their sympathy for Billingham’s unrequited hunger was palpable.

“Well, at least he could sleep. Each day at the break of dawn he floats back up to his nest way high up in that old, oak tree and sleeps and sleeps the day away. But, every night, he wakes up feeling famished and floats back down to the ground to search for something, anything, to satisfy his ravenous hunger.”

“Ooooh!” everyone said, and they all turned in unison to search the shadows of the woods, to see if Billingham the squirrel’s ghost was roaming in the shadows in there looking for something to eat.

“So you want to be careful if you go out in the woods at night,” Birnie finished up. “You never know if you’ll run into Billingham’s ghost or not. But if you do, don’t mention anything about acorns. He doesn’t take kindly to that kind of thing.”

Suddenly, a rustling of leaves was heard from the woods, and someone yelled out, “Wait! What’s that?” It sounded like Biwi’s voice to me.

With that yell, all the younger Teds yelped out a mass, “Yaaahhhhh!” and suddenly there was a stampede from the campfire, up over the deck, in through the doorway – where they would have put a hole in the screen door if I hadn’t held it open for them – and on into the house, where Thea and I were getting ready for bed.

With dozens of little, whimpering Teds hugging our ankles and legs, Thea, doing her best not to smile too much, looked down and said, “We thought you were camping out tonight!”

Several of them moaned, “Nooo!!!” Itsy, dancing from one paw to another while simultaneously holding onto Lily-pop’s paw and waving her stick with its bits of burnt marshmallow at the end of it in her other paw, explained, all in a rush, “Bildinghan the ghostes skirl is out there! He slides on the trees in the sky and on the ground in the woods looking for somefing to eat, but he can’t eat it ‘cause he’s a ghostes! Birnie said!”

The sounds of the older Teds laughing and talking drifted in from the campfire, along with the unmistakable sound of a canner of Mason’s root beer being popped open.  

“Okay,” I said to the little ones still clutching Thea and me as tightly as they could, “who’s got wet feet?” Wet feet are the inevitable outcome of Teddy fright. When they get scared, their poor little kidneys just let loose, leading to wet feet.

Paws shot up all around. “Well, then,” said Thea, gently, reaching for the paper towels, “let’s get everybody all cleaned up and nice and fresh, shall we?”

“And once that’s done,” I told them, “we can all settle down for a story about Pooh.”

“Yaayyy!” everyone cheered. Then, as Thea and I washed and wiped their paws, they started requesting their favorite stories.

“Tell us the one about Tigger climbing the tree!”

“No, the one about Eeyore’s birfday!” requested Itsy.

“The one where Pooh finds the North Pole!”

In the end, we all climbed into bed, and I read all of their requests until everyone but Itsy fell asleep. Itsy rarely sleeps. Outside the older Teds were still telling stories and chuckling amongst themselves, though they kept their voices lower now.

I thought for a moment about the ghost of poor Billingham the squirrel searching fruitlessly in the woods for some acorns to eat. Then the bright, clarion laughter of Biwi, our very own resident Body Softa, rang out clearly in the night, and, looking over at Thea asleep on her pillow, I smiled to myself. Mr. Fluffy saying, as he often did, “Such is the way it is,” sounded softly in my head. Such, indeed, is the way.

Home Is Where the Honey Is

After the overnight rain, Mack and Paddington had strolled out in the early morning mist together, one of their favorite activities. Mid-morning sun shone forth brightly now, and Mack was up back on the deck working on his merits and demerits book. It is his considered opinion that everyone needs to be kept in line and that his method of apportioning stars and black marks provides the most effective means of accomplishing this. A huge honey bear, towering over the other Teds, Mack is a Virgo and thus a natural critic.

Paddington decided to join most of the rest of the Teds who are helping their “Mommola,” my beloved Thea, and me as we plant more flowers in our garden. Birnie and Biwi had just flown Tweed, our adventurer honey bear, back home from his latest explorations of the Amazon. Lately he’s been spending most of his time exploring the ins and outs of that fascinating river as it winds its way through the dark heart of South America. He brought back over a dozen varieties of bananas that he’d picked up in Ecuador. There were enough for everyone, but they were a particular treat for Bunkie, who has a special love for bananas. Bunkie is a little brown bear who claims she is the world’s only brown Panda bear. The Pandas all back her up in this claim, so who are we to argue?

Thea has organized today’s flower planting party partly in response to Tweed’s latest ecological campaign. Beekeepers and Teddies all over the country have noticed over the past few years that honeybees are disappearing at an alarming rate. Nobody knows what is happening to them. There don’t seem to be any dead bodies lying around or anything. They just up and disappear, leaving only their larvae and maybe the Queen behind. Unfortunately, the Queen can’t survive without the food the worker bees bring her. Needless to say, this has Teddy bears greatly worried. How could they survive without their honey? After all, home is where the honey is. Tweed, a world-renowned ecologist, is particularly concerned. “It isn’t just the honey supply that is affected,” he informed us. “A good deal of the world’s fruits and vegetables depend upon bees to pollinate them, too, you know.”

“Tweed has suggested several ways for us to encourage honeybees to stay around and help us feed all of the plants,” Kippy told Thea and me, while planting another Buttercup.

“For one thing, we shouldn’t have just one or two kinds of flowers,” Brighton added. “Bees like lots of different flowers. So it’s best if we plant at least 10 different kinds.”

“An’ don’t use pes’asides,” Itsy chimed in, as she dug energetically in the soil at Thea’s knees. Whatever her Mommola does she has to do, too. In spades.

“Pesticides,” Benjamin just had to correct her. “Pesticides.”

“Yetz, that, too,” Itsy agreed, throwing soil every which way with her little shovel.

“OoOh!” Benjamin huffed. But, with a great show of effort, he turned back to planting a Sunflower with his Brighton.  

Just then a lone honeybee came buzzing into the yard. He zipped over to where Gracie hovered over the flowers, stopping right in front of her snout to look her in the eyes. Gracie looked right back at him, smiling beatifically, until, apparently satisfied, he flew out into the yard and began visiting our many yellow dandelions and purple clovers. Benjamin looked back over his shoulder at me, and with a goofy grin on his face, informed me snidely, “Tweed also said we shouldn’t weed so much. Bees like weeds like dandelions and clover a lot, too!”

“Ahh, good to know,” I replied.

“Don’t get any ideas, dear,” Thea warned me.

“Wouldn’t think of it, sweetheart,” I assured her. “Although, we do want to do our bit to encourage the return of the honeybees.”

“Let’s just see how well we can manage without the weeds, shall we?” she suggested.

“Itsy!” Benjamin squeaked in irritation. “Stop throwing your dirt into our hole!”

“Sorry, Benjamin and Brighton!” Itsy apologized and redirected her dirt throwing elsewhere.

“Okay, we’re done for today, anyway,” Thea announced, standing up and brushing the dirt off of the knees of her jeans. “We’ve planted all of our flowers. Tomorrow we’ll plant some zucchinis and pumpkins. Now, I’ll just go get my honeybee attractor spray,” she said spritely, walking off to the deck to get her spray bottle.

Meanwhile, the Teds were gathering around Tweed, Birnie, and Biwi, waiting eagerly to get outfitted with their very own beekeeping hood, complete with netting to be pulled down over their faces.

I began to ask what they were preparing for now, when Itsy ran over to her Mommola and, jumping excitedly up and down, exclaimed, “We’re goin’ on a hexpaditchun!”

“You are?” Thea asked, smiling down at her little “bestest” pal. “What kind of expedition?”

“A hexpaditchun to find some bees and bring ‘em back for a new beehive for us!” Itsy explained. “Tweed said,” she added for emphasis.

“That sounds dangerous,” Thea said, furrowing her eyebrows slightly and looking over at Tweed.

“Not really,” Tweed assured her. “We’re just going to place a trap with some Queen scent in it to lure in a swarm. Then we’ll all come back here and set up our new hive while we wait for them to arrive. Birnie, Biwi, and I will go back later with Mack and Paddington and bring the swarm back to its new hive. All of this,” he motioned to the Teds busily settling their beekeeping hoods on their heads, “is just a fun bit of dress-up for everybody, to get them into the spirit of the thing.”

After making sure everyone was suited up properly and each one had a canteen of cold, honeyed water and a banana, the full embrace of Teds trooped off into the woods, singing raucously and raggedly, “If you go out in the woods tonight you’re sure of a big surprise….”

Back at the garden, Thea started spraying her homemade honeybee lure on the flowers and other plants. “I made this myself from a recipe Tweed gave me,” she told me. “You just fill a mason jar with half a quart of warm water, add 1/8 a teaspoon of lecithin, 7 drops of lemon grass oil, 7 drops of spearmint, and two cups of sugar. Spray it on your plants and watch the honeybees come!”

By the time the Teds came trudging back later in the afternoon, noisy and excited, clamoring for cold, iced strawberry tea with honey, the honeybees were already beginning to swarm around the flowers in the garden. Not a few of them were busily flying from dandelion to clover before moving on to the lavender bushes and cletheras. Two buzzed inquisitively over Bentley as he snoozed the day away, lying in the middle of the yard wrapped in his blanky.

Itsy ran up to Thea and exclaimed, “Tweed showed us how to trap honeybees, so we could bring them to a new home! Tweed’s a good boy!”

“Yes, he is,” Thea agreed, smiling down at Itsy, who was hopping up and down, her beekeeper’s hood flopping around on her little head, with her own bonnet all twisted up underneath it. “All of our boys are good boys,” she added.

“Well,…,” Itsy hesitated at that generalization, “sometimes. I guess. Maybe.” Then, by way of changing the subject, she asked, “Did Bentley waked up while we were gone?”

“Not that I noticed,” said Thea, looking over at said Ted, snoring away contentedly in the fading afternoon sun.

Itsy ran over to his snoozing body, stopping at his head, where she stretched up on tiptoe, the better to get her snout closer to one of his ears, and shouted as loud as she could, “You ‘wake, Bentley!?!”

With her shout, all of the bees in the yard flew back away from where she stood next to Bentley, like waves in a pond after a huge stone has been thrown into its middle, leaving a rather large circle clear of bees around the two of them.

“Itsy!” admonished Thea. 

“What?” asked Itsy, looking back at her Mommola.

“Please don’t yell in Bentley’s ear, sweetheart. You’ll wake him,” Thea explained.

“It’s okay, Mommola,” Itsy assured her, turning away from the big guy. “Bentley’s asleep.”

“Here’s hoping we don’t get hit with an earthquake any time soon,” observed Benjamin sardonically. “The earth could open up and swallow him, and Bentley would just keep on sleeping.”

“Please don’t pick on Bentley, Benjamin,” Thea told him gently. “He’s not bothering anyone, and he has a right to hibernate if he wants to.”

“I was just saying,” muttered Benjamin.

“Don’t be a silly bear, Benjamin,” Itsy scolded him. “Only girls can dus’ say, not boys.”

“OoOh!” he responded testily, as Brighton pulled him closer, cuddled him, and soothed his troubled soul. Yes, Teddies have souls, and, yes, they can be troubled. Just ask Mr. Fluffy and Kippy sometime.

“Be nice to each other, the two of you,” I told them.

“You didn’t say please, Dad,” Itsy corrected me.

“Just do it,” I ordered, lowering my voice and intentionally omitting the please.

“Okay!” Itsy responded chipperly.  

“Yes, Dad,” Benjamin mumbled, reluctantly.

Meanwhile, the honeybees had slowly regrouped and returned to their smelling of the flowers. An intrepid few even had the temerity to fly over and investigate the source of the former explosive sound. As they buzzed around her, Itsy giggled and laughed. “When honeybees talk, it tickles!” she exclaimed, falling backward onto the ground.

Meanwhile, Tweed was supervising the bigger Teds as they assembled the new hive, the bees buzzed, Itsy giggled and rolled around, and Mack busily apportioned stars and black marks aplenty in his book. Thea smiled on all she surveyed, and all was right with the world once more.

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.

For Heaven's Sake

Most of the teds were having a Teddy Bear Picnic outside on a blanket on the grass at the edge of the woods behind the house. Shoshonna, the big, soft, coffee brown, disco-dancing bear was showing the little ones, Faith, Sweetie, Chuffy, Lily-pop, Waldo, and Sparky, how to hold their little teddy tea cups so that their tea with wildflower honey wouldn’t spill. Benjamin and Brighton were off under a tree, rubbing snouts and canoodling.  

Itsy had spied a squirrel and was busily chasing after it into the woods, shouting, “Skirl! Com’ere! Com’ere, skirl!”

“Don’t go very far into the woods, Itsy!” Shoshonna shouted after her.

“Sure!” Itsy’s reply echoed from somewhere deep within the woods.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” muttered Benjamin before resuming his canoodling with Brighton.

I was sitting in my lounge chair on the deck, listening to the Chicago Cubs’ game on the radio. It was early innings yet. Biwi was there, too, sitting cross-legged on one of the railings, training his digital video camera on me, hoping for another of my apparently hilarious silly-human-bean moments. Birnie was seated atop another railing, plotting out his next anti-terrorist attack. He won’t say where it is to take place. Letta was curled up under her own little umbrella painting her claws a brilliant honey-bee yellow.

Mr. Fluffy, polar bear, teddy theologian, and Unibearian minister was seated at a table with his honey bear partner and best buddy, Kippy, a quiet, serious, teddy linguist. They were drinking tea and honey and munching honey cakes, while discussing their plans for recording the oral traditions of teddy spiritual beliefs in Teddish, the traditional teddy language.

Above us all flew the lovely Gracie, her silk gown flowing in the air as she flapped her gossamer wings and hummed to herself. Gracie rarely says much, but she does hum a lot, and quite beautifully, too. She has the voice of an angel, and the disposition, too.

From what I could gather from Kippy and Mr. Fluffy’s conversation, teddy spiritual teachings go rather further back in time than I had imagined, back into antiquity, apparently. I was curious about that, so I asked them, “What are the earliest known teddy spiritual teachings?”

“Oh, that would be the sutras of the first Body Softa,” Mr. Fluffy noted reverently.

“Do you mean the Buddhist sutras?” I asked. “I thought the Buddha wrote those.”

“Actually, he simply transcribed his teddy bear’s teaching,” Kippy tartly informed me.

“Let me guess: his teddy bear’s name was Body Softa.”

“Yes,” Mr. Fluffy affirmed. “He was the first Body Softa.”

“There have been many incarnations of the Body Softa since that time, of course,” Kippy noted. “In fact, Biwi is rumored to be one of the most recent incarnations.”

“Biwi is a Body Softa?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Fluffy, smiling up at Biwi.

Biwi just snickered, while zooming his camera in for a close-up on my face.

“Another famous tradition began with the Tao de Ching,” Mr. Fluffy continued.

“I thought Lao Tzu wrote that,” I said. “Oh, wait. Don’t tell me. He just wrote down what his teddy dictated, right?”

“Yes, of course,” said Kippy. “That was Fuzzy Tzu, the esteemed teddy Taoist.”

Just then Itsy raced out of the woods. “The skirl ranned away!” she pouted.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin just couldn’t contain himself.

Itsy cast a puzzled look at Benjamin a moment, then ran up to the deck and asked, “What’s a heaven?”

“Oh, my, little one,” Mr. Fluffy murmured, “that is a big question.” Gracie flew over and hovered a little ways above Itsy’s head, intrigued by the turn of conversation.

“Okay,” Itsy allowed indifferently. “So what is it?”

“I suppose you could call it a positive state of mind,” ventured Kippy.

 “Yeah, but where is it?” Itsy wanted to know, scratching behind her left ear and looking more puzzled than ever. “How do you get there?”

A brief silence enveloped everyone on the deck at this question. Into which, without raising his snout from his plans, Birnie interjected, “Take step by careful step.”

To which Biwi, chuckling, added, “Laugh a lot.”

“Follow your heart,” offered Letta before blowing on her newly-painted claws.

“That can’t be right,” Itsy objected.

“Why not?” asked Kippy.

“’Cause your heart don’t go nowhere. It’s right here all the time, right where you are!” Itsy replied, placing a paw over her heart.

“From the mouths of babes,” whispered Kippy.

“Indeed,” said Mr. Fluffy, reaching across the table to tenderly pat the paw of his beloved Kippy.

Indeed.

Cheers erupted from the radio. Bases loaded and nobody out. Gracie lowered her wand and sprayed Itsy with a shower of glittering fairy dust.

Itsy sneezed, “A-choo!” Then she caught sight of a squirrel’s tail in the woods. “Skirl!” she yelled excitedly, running off to give chase. “Com-ere, skirl! Com’ere!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin roused himself to half-heartedly complain. Then he snuggled back up with Brighton and settled down with everyone else for the rest of a quiet, sleepy afternoon.

Hold the Fort

I walked into the bedroom today to find Itsy on the bed laboriously pulling a pillow over to join two others already lined up at right angles.

“Uh, uh,” she huffed and she puffed, trying to line the pillow up at a right angle to one of the other two pillows.

Her sweet little Polar bear sister, Lily-pop, second youngest of the teds, and her little brother, Waldo, a honey bear and youngest of them all, were seated calmly in the middle of the three pillows.

“So, what are you doing now, Scamp?” I asked Itsy.

“I’m Itsy, not Scamp,” she protested, looking up at me in exasperation, her bonnet askew as ever.

“Okay, Itsy dear, so what are you about?” I inquired again.

“I’m about to make a fort,” she informed me, turning to retrieve a fourth pillow for her fort. That’s when I noticed her new toy cannon situated on top of the middle pillow already in place.

“What do you need a fort for?” I asked. I couldn’t help it; I was curious.

“To keep the mons’ers out,” she patiently explained, starting to tug the fourth pillow over to her fort.

“What monsters?”

“The ones that will bite you if you don’t look out.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about any monsters if I were you. We don’t have any around here,” I reassured her.

“Uh, huh!” she insisted, pushing the fourth pillow into position. “Benjamin said.”

“I did not!” Benjamin suddenly piped up, quite indignantly.

“Did, too!” Itsy avowed.

“Did not!”

“All right, you two, enough already. What did you think Benjamin said, Itsy?”

“He said look out, or the mons’er called Realty will get you,” she explained, jumping down from her fourth pillow into the middle of her fort. “It’s okay, Lily-pop and Waldo, Itsy will perteck you!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I said no such thing,” Benjamin protested. “I don’t even believe in Realty.”

“You don’t believe in reality?” I asked. “Why not?”

“’Cause people who b’lieve in Realty don’t b’lieve in us,” he pouted. “I think they’re scared of teddy bears.”

“Oh, come on, Benjamin,” I objected, “just what exactly is there about teddy bears to be afraid of?”

“Nothing! But they don’t know that!” Benjamin opined, much affronted. “Just because we’re pretend is what scares ‘em, I think.”

“I don’t see why pretend need scare people who believe in reality,” I said. “After all, reality and pretend pretty much complement each other for those of us with imagination.”

“Yeah, well, all I know is you can’t turn your back on Realty, or it’ll bite you!”

“See!” shouted Itsy, who was now jumping excitedly up and down on the bed in the middle of her pillow fort. “See, I tol’ you!” she exclaimed gleefully, hopping up onto the pillow where her toy cannon was sitting. “The Realty mons’er’ll bite you if you don’t look out!”

“KWOOMPf!” went her cannon.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin said with exaggerated exasperation, rolling his eyes and looking askance at his younger sister.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about reality, if I were you,” I assured the two of them, along with all of the other teds who had been listening attentively to our conversation. “Reality won’t be rearing its ugly head in this house any time soon.”

“Okay, good,” said Itsy, who had now moved on to jumping excitedly from pillow to pillow of her fort, exclaiming, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin grumped once more as I hastily exited the room.

Who is Michael Jackson?

The teds were playing today, wreaking havoc as usual, when little Itsy the Panda – aka “Itsy the Terror” – looked up from the toy cannon she got for her birthday last week and asked, “Who is Michael Jackson?”

Her older brother Benjamin, being the sententious little brown and yellow know-it-all that he is, immediately corrected her. “Was,” he said.

“Huh?” said Itsy in return, her bonnet slipping down over her eyes, as it usually does.

“Was,” Benjamin repeated, obviously reveling in his sense of superiority. “You mean, ‘Who was Michael Jackson.’ He’s dead now.”

“Oh,” said Itsy. “Yeah. Well, who was he, then?”

“Why do you want to know?” asked Letta, the sleek, low purr of her voice matching her sleek honey-colored fur and enduring beauty.

“’Cause he’s always on the television,” Itsy replied. “Dad and Mommola always complain no serious news gets on because everybody’s always talking about Michael Jackson instead.” As if to emphasize this, she then shot off her cannon, “Ka-WHOOMPF!”

“Damn, did you have to shoot that off right next to my ear?” Benjamin complained, rubbing his ears in dismay, as his beautiful, shiny-white girlfriend, Brighton, kissed and soothed him.

“Sorry,” Itsy blithely replied, while setting about to reload. “But why does everybody always talk about him all the time on television?”

“I guess because he was a celebrity,” said Letta, as she licked the fur of her left wrist, giving it a super shine, in preparation for a hot date tonight. Besides, she likes to keep herself well groomed.

“So?” said Itsy, as she lugged another huge shell over to her cannon. “What’s a celeberty?”

“Somebody who gets a lot of attention for doing incredibly stupid things,” Benjamin declaimed, with his usual lugubrious sense of edgy authority.

“Actually,” observed Biwi, the younger (by 8 seconds) of the twin Pandas, Biwi and Birni, “he was a great singer, songwriter, and dancer before he began doing things some people considered incredibly stupid.”  

The twins are accorded much respect among the other teds. Biwi is the comedian and documentarian of the duo. Birni is the munitions and anti-terrorist expert. Their combined talents give them an almost unlimited potential for wreaking havoc, which is why they are accorded such great respect by the other teds. So when one of them speaks, the others tend to listen, except perhaps for Benjamin.

 “Well, he hasn’t done any singing or dancing in a really long time,” Benjamin pointed out.

“So why does everybody always talk about him on the television, then?” Itsy asked, after plopping the next shell into her cannon.

“Because he’s dead,” said Benjamin.  

“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Letta, checking her lashes in her paw mirror.

“People can say whatever they want now,” Benjamin pointed out, “and he can’t talk back.”

“Oh,” said Itsy, a puzzled expression peeking out from under her bonnet.

“Besides,” added Benjamin, who was on a roll now, “the television people are probably mad because now he’s dead they won’t be able to make any more money off him when he does stupid things.”

“But the record companies and his family are really going to rake it in now that he’s gone to join Elvis,” Biwi noted ruefully.

“Oh,” said Itsy, still puzzled but obviously growing tired of the subject.

At this point Birni decided to have what turned out to be the last word, “It’s a bit like kicking a dead horse.”

“Oh,” said Itsy again. “Ka-WHOOMPF!” went her cannon.

“Itsy!” yelled Benjamin.

“What?” asked Itsy, as she headed for another shell.