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Tell me a story, or Go Away!
Bedtime stories I told my Daughter.
By
Elizabeth Massaro
The Three Bears in the Big City
As told to Emily, circa 2007
Once upon a time there were three bears who
lived on 31st and Sycamore in the big city. Papa Bear
worked for an accounting firm, he had a mean bear-hating boss named
Goldilocks. Mama Bear was an administrative assistant and Baby Bear
went to public school. They all lived in a small and noisy
apartment on the 3rd floor.
Every day Papa Bear would take the smelly
subway to a place called Manhattan where he worked in one of the
many tall buildings there. One day, when Papa Bear got to work, (he
was 15 minutes late because a train had stalled.) Goldilocks, who
enjoyed being mean, called him into her corner office and said,
“You’re fired!” Now Papa bear was upset and hurt, but he left the
office quietly and headed for the big park in the center of the big
city, which oddly enough, they called “Central Park.” He sat on one
of the benches and tried to think of what he would tell Mama Bear
when he got home.
At that very moment, all of the bears were
either at work, or at school or in the park, but none of them had
remembered to lock the front door of their apartment unit, before
they left that morning. It just so happened that, also at that very
moment, Goldilocks was on her way up town to a business lunch when
her limo ran out of gas in front of 31st and Sycamore,
right in front of the three bear’s apartment building! Goldilocks
and her driver went up to the building and rang the bell. No one
answered. Then she tried the door, and it was open.
“Maybe someone who lives in one of these
apartments has a cell phone I can use to call a tow truck. Of all
the days to forget my phone at the office,” she said.
She went up to all the doors on the first
floor and they were all locked. She knocked, and no one answered.
Then, she went to all the doors on the second floor and they were
all locked too. She knocked on all of those doors and no answered
any of those doors either.
“Where can all of these losers be?” She asked
her limo driver. “You go wait in the car, before somebody steals the
radio,” she said.
Then she went up to the third and last floor
and she knocked on all those doors too, but again no one answered
any of those doors either. She tried the first apartment door on
the third floor. It was locked. She tried the second apartment door
on the third floor. It was locked too.
Then she tried the third
apartment on the third floor, the three bear’s apartment, and low
and behold, it was unlocked so Goldilocks went inside.
When she got in, she found three stools in the
kitchen, pushed against the breakfast bar. She found three
half-eaten bowls of porridge there too.
“Oh how disgusting,” thought Goldilocks. “I
wonder if these pigs have a phone.”
Then she noticed a phone sitting on the
counter. It was a big phone, an older model Nextel.
“This phone is too big to
be a good cell phone,” said Goldilocks, but maybe it works. She
tried the phone, it was Papa Bear’s phone.
The operator came on and said, “I’m sorry,
you have used up your prepaid minutes on this phone. To purchase
more minutes. . . .” Goldilocks hung up.
She looked in the fridge and found three pots
of honey, and a lunch marked Baby Bear. She opened the lunch
and found a ham sandwich, which she ate.
“Stupid kid, must have forgotten his lunch.”
She said as she polished off the sandwich and drank the bottle of
juice that went with it.
Then she went into the bathroom and used it.
While she was in there, she noticed another phone on the vanity
above the tank. This phone was pink and white. It was Mama Bear’s
phone. She pushed the talk button, and listened for a dial tone.
She didn’t hear anything.
“No signal,” she thought. “Darn these bears!
Don’t they have a phone in this house that works?”
Then she went into one of the bedrooms. It
was a nice bedroom with a computer, and a T.V. and other boy
things. There next to the hamster’s cage she saw another cell
phone. This one was a video phone, with all kinds of associated
gadgets! She pushed the talk button and finally! Goldilocks made
call after call on Baby Bear’s phone.
Meanwhile, the three bears came home. They
all arrived at just about the same time, owing to the fact that Papa
Bear had lost his job, and was home early.
“What are you doing home so early?” Said Mama
Bear, already guessing the worst.
The three bears went upstairs to their
apartment and found their door ajar.
“Someone might be in the apartment, said Papa
Bear.” So they tip-toed into the living room, and then into the
kitchen. Papa bear found his phone on the counter. “Hey someone’s
been trying to use my phone,” he said. “ There’s mustard all over
it.”
“The refrigerator’s open too,” said Mama Bear.
“And what’s this paper bag doing on the floor.” She picked it up.
There was an empty juice box on the floor too. “Baby Bear, did you
forget your lunch again?” She said.
Then Mama Bear went into the bathroom. “Hey,”
she called quietly. “ Somebody’s been trying to use my phone too.
Look mustard,” she said pointing to her phone, which was on the
floor in the bathroom. Absolutely not where she had left it.
Then they carefully, and quietly went toward
the bedrooms. They could hear talking coming from Baby Bear’s
room.
“Hey mom,” he said.
“Somebody’s been talking on my cell phone, and she still is!” Yelled
Baby Bear as he charged into the room surprising Goldilocks, who was
still talking on the phone.
“Somebody call 9-1-1!”
Cried Mama Bear.
Goldilocks saw the bears coming towards her
and horrified , she jumped out the window onto the fire escape and
then she jumped to the street.
She hopped into her
waiting limousine that by then was filled with gas, thanks to the
cell phone calls she had made and said, “Go, go, go!” Her driver
sped off.
“Hey! Come back! Come
back!” Called Baby Bear in tears. “She still has my brand new cell
phone!”
The End
Moral of this story:
Lock your doors and don’t forget your lunch.
P. S. Several weeks
later, Papa Bear received the cell phone bill for the calls
Goldilocks had made while she was in the apartment. Baby Bear never
got another cell phone, but he did continue to forget his lunch.
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