Blue bear, blue bear


scene: inside toy box with blocks, a toy teaset, a button, and 
a dollhouse in the background.  A thimble and spoon are also present

characters:
blue bear, a blue teddy bear
Raggy, a blue rag doll made of denim
Floppy, a blue velveteen bunny

torch, a red dragon plushie
Tiggy, a yellow gold tiger
Slinky, a bright green snake 




Blue bear lived in his little girl's toybox along with Raggy and Floppy.
They were all the best of friends.

Blue Bear and his friends were very happy living there.  Whenever their
girl wasn't playing with them, they had the entire toybox to themselves.

They played lots of games like "Find the Button" among the blocks and 
the dollhouses.  They also had tea with the toy teaset.  It was lots of 
fun.  

When it was late, Blue Bear, Raggy, and Floppy would curl up together to 
sleep for the night, dreaming of the games they would play the next morning.

One day, their girl didn't take them out to play, but instead put a new
toy into their box.  Blue Bear and his friends didn't know what to make of 
their visitor.  He looked so... different.

He was a dragon, bright red with shiny wings and black velvet claws.  Blue 
bear and his friends were worried; after all, weren't all dragons dangerous
and mean?  And he wasn't blue either.

The dragon came over to them and introduced himself.  "Hi!  My name is Torch!
What's yours?" 

Blue bear put himself between the dragon and his friends. "Go away!" he told
the newcomer, shaking the spoon at him.  "You aren't blue, and we don't like
you!  You are scaring us!  Leave us alone!"  

Torch lowered his head and folded his bright wings, saddened at his reception.  
Blue bear and his friends watched warily as Torch went to the other side of the
toybox and quietly curled up around the thimble.

The next day, the little girl picked up Floppy and took him outside the box.  Blue
Bear and Raggy waited and waited for him to come back.  He never did.  But
instead, the little girl put in another new toy.

He was a tiger!  He was vibrant yellow and orange with stripes all along his
body.  He said Hi to Blue Bear and Raggy, but they were both too scared to do 
anything except hold onto each other.

So Tiggy went off to visit Torch instead.  They talked, and laughed and joked
for the entire day.  Blue Bear was alarmed.  Another dangerous beast had entered
his toybox.  

Together he and Raggy built a wall out of blocks to keep the monsters out
of their side of the toybox.

Then, the next morning, the little girl picked up Raggy and left a stuffed 
snake in her place.  Blue bear cowered in a corner as the green beast slithered
away from him through a crack in the wall to join Tiggy and Torch.

Blue bear was all alone, more alone than he'd ever been in his life.  He heard
the laughter from the other side of the wall, and missed all his friends.  He 
put his head on his knees and cried and cried.

Torch heard his sobs, and he craned his neck over the wall to see what was wrong.
"Are you sad?" he asked Blue Bear.  "Yes," Blue Bear said wiping his little black
nose.  "I'm all alone."

"Well, why don't you pull down the blocks and join us?" Torch invited.  Blue bear 
stared at the dragon.  "I can't do that," he replied.  "You are all so different
and dangerous."

"Of course we are different!" Torch laughed.  "What fun would it be if we all 
looked the same?  And we aren't any more dangerous than you are.  You are a bear,
aren't you?"  Blue bear thought about it for several minutes.  The dragon was right.

So blue bear pulled the blocks away and joined the dragon, tiger, and snake 
around the toy tea set.  Pretty soon Blue Bear felt right at home with his 
new friends.  He told them he felt bad for being so mean to them, and they
told him it was all in the past.

And that's the way it was for a long time.  Blue Bear and his new friends had great
fun.  He taught them how to play "find the button," and they invented new games
they could all play together as well.


Closing scene:  all plushies are asleep, with blue bear snoozing against
torch's side while torch uses his wing like a blanket to cover him.  Everyone
is curled up together.

Allen Kitchen allenk@blkbox.com  (shockwave)