Hunting Bears

Do you remember the series of books by Goscinny & Sempe, of "Nicholas" and his gang of boys? Well, E was so inspired by these stories that he wrote one himself, based on the same style and genre. I was SO impressed when I read his piece of writing. It could almost have been written about Nicholas....

HUNTING BEARS

I have always wanted a tent, but my dad says they’re far too expensive and I wouldn’t use it more than once and it’s a big waste of money, and wait until I’m older and then I’ll realise just how much it isn’t worth it. And I say I will use it more than once and it isn’t a waste of money and I have a lot of money, which I do, $7.00 from last Christmas and a $5 note from my birthday, which adds up to a lot of money, I think, but my dad just laughs. I can’t think why. Adults are funny things.

But today is special, because I got nearly all my math questions right for the whole week! So my dad said that we would got out and buy a tent. It was a really good one, a red two-man tent, and I fell in love with it at first sight. Dad looked a bit doubtful when he saw the price tag, but I reminded him how pleased my teacher had been and how I had worked ever so hard, so he said, ‘Okay, but you’re going to have to be very careful with it,’ and we went and bought it from the nice lady at the counter.

~*~
When we got home, I asked Dad if I could invite a few of my good friends over to play. He looked a bit surprised and had this funny look on his face, but when I reminded him how pleased my teacher had been and how I had worked ever so hard, so he said okay with a little sigh.
By the time Jimmy and Timmy and Bob and Pedro got to our house, Dad had gone inside after he had set up the tent and I couldn’t see his nose anymore because he was hiding behind last week’s newspaper. Then all of us squeezed into the tent for a meeting. Jimmy and Timmy wanted to go exploring, Bob wanted to roast marshmallows over a fire and me and Pedro wanted to go bear hunting because there’s lots of fabulous trees and bushes in our backyard and I think there’s a bear in there because it’s got a beehive and bears like honey. In the end me and Pedro won because Pedro learnt how to do karate in Spain and he said he would punch us and then we would have bruises all over, and since none of us wanted any bruises we agreed to go bear hunting. Bob was still sulking because he liked marshmallows, but he cheered up when I gave him my cheese sandwich, because he likes cheese too. When we got to the bushes, we all stopped. Even I had to admit it looked a little bit scary. Bob stopped eating and said, ‘Are you sure that we don’t want to roast marshmallows?’ and Pedro said, ‘Why, are you scared?’ and Bob said, ‘No, I’m not scared of anything’ and Pedro said ‘Yeah right’ under his breath, but since he didn’t pound Bob we went into the bushes.

~*~

I was leading everybody to the beehive because I figured that the bear must live near it, when suddenly Timmy jumped out of the bushes that we were walking through and started roaring. We found out later on that he had run ahead, but since we didn’t know that, we were quite surprised. Bob dropped my sandwich and Jimmy started crying and Pedro and me started thumping Timmy because we thought he was the bear, and Bob started fighting Jimmy and Jimmy got so angry that he started fighting Bob back, and Timmy was shouting, ‘STOP!’ and we were having a great time!

~*~

Eventually we stopped shouting and crying and fighting and Timmy pointed out that the bear would have heard us by now, so we decided to head out of the bushes because the bear would probably escape that way. We tiptoed carefully through the bushes but then Pedro, who was leading because he was the biggest and bravest, put up a hand and whispered, ‘Stop’. We all crowded around Pedro and we saw our first glimpse of the brown bear’s behind. It was my first time seeing a bear and it actually looked rather like a human! We had already decided that Pedro would deal the final blow because he learned about karate when he was in Spain. So he sized it up, and gave it the biggest kick ever!! There was a scream and Dad, who had finished reading last week’s newspaper and had started trimming the hedge, turned around.

‘Oops’, I said. I think Dad was angry because his face was this funny shade of red. It was quite disappointing, really, because I didn’t get any pudding that night and WE STILL HAVEN’T FOUND THAT BEAR!