The Bears in the Forest - Part 4 - The New Neighbours

It was 10 o’clock (as it always is in the forest) and Daddy Bear was drinking his usual glass of Schloss Bearenheimer. Well, to tell the truth, it was his fourth glass. Daddy Bear had resorted to the bottle a bit more often than usual recently.

Things hadn’t been going well. Mummy Bear had left home after not forgiving him for the prison episode with S Bear and M Bear, and men in white coats and a yellow van had come to take Auntie Julia away “for a little holiday” 6 months ago.

Daddy reflected on the events of the last few months since most of his favourite girls had gone. Things had been pretty quiet for a while; even those naughty monkeys had stopped trying to peer over the fence into the garden because there had been nothing really to look at, and even the red curtains at the windows had been taken down.

Then, about 3 months ago, things had gone bear-shaped; the plot of land next door to Daddy Bear’s comfortable little house had been bought by some new incomers called Beaver and, as beavers do, they had built a new house. It was a big place and they had even installed a car wash with sponges and soap for all the neighbours to use. Daddy thought this was a terrible idea and would bring the neighbourhood into disrepute, but he hadn’t paid it much attention until he found out that the Beaver family were nudists.

In a way he wasn’t too worried; S Bear had been away for several months – he wasn’t quite sure where, nor whether she would even come back at all – and M Bear had been quiet because she hadn’t been very well. One hot summer’s day, Daddy had been sitting reading his copy of the Financial Times which was, depressingly, predicting a Bear market in the near future, when he heard sounds of squealing from next door. He rushed out of the house, guessing that it was those pesky Beaver children running around in the car wash. Well, it was a hot day. Then he noticed a whole line of monkeys sitting in front of the car wash, with others standing behind trying to get a look inside, and what they were doing with their hands looked a bit suspicious.

So Daddy Bear went across and was horrified to see A Beaver, C Beaver and L Beaver all cavorting around completely naked, showing off their beaver bits to the crowd of monkeys. This is bad enough, thought Daddy Bear as he reached for his phone to call the police, but then – horror of horrors – he couldn’t believe his eyes: there was nice, quiet M Bear - the one who had been not very well - there she was, also naked and – to judge by the movements they were making with their hands - causing the assembled monkeys quite a bit of excitement. Daddy Bear wished he hadn’t called the police now, but it was too late. Two bearly policemen got out of the police van; “Not you again”, they said.

Daddy Bear withdrew his complaint against the Beavers of course. M Bear was able to go and join the Beaver children in the water every day. He wasn’t happy about it: she was still his daughter, but she was over 18 and what could he do?

So he did what any other father would do – turned to drink, and now, after his reminiscences, he was on his fifth glass - again……and Mummy Bear had said she would never come home now, not after this.

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