The Search for Shiny Things: Part 10

"Noooooo!" bawled the squirrel.

"I'm sorry," said the teddy with uttermost sincerity. "I will build it up again."

"Don't bother, I will never become a soldier." The squirrel kicked one rock and sat down on another.

The teddy felt terrible. With nothing better to do, it started gathering the pile of rocks into a more ordered pile. The teddy's journey was also at risk, since the path led past the river. If there was no bridge, then there would never be a tree or shiny decorations.

"Why do you want to be a soldier?" asked the teddy.

"I don't know," said the squirrel. "It just seemed like a fun thing to do. Why do you need a tree and shiny decorations?"

"So that my house will be nice," said the teddy, "and not just white and drab. So that my friends can come and visit and have fun. I only have one friend now, but there will be more, I'm sure. Do you want to be my friend?"

"Sure," said the squirrel, with as much melancholy severity as a squirrel born two days ago could possibly be expected to muster.

"Then I have two," said the teddy.

"But no tree." The squirrel barely kept from snickering at the pun. It was a terrible pun. The teddy picked up the stone the squirrel sat on, as revenge. The squirrel squeaked and suddenly started jumping and dancing.

"What now?"

"The instructions! It's the instructions for the bridge! I put them under the base of the bridge!"

"How... clever," said the teddy diplomatically. There was indeed a stack of papers with instructions for a bridge on. Together the teddy and the squirrel spread the instructions on the ground and began to piece together the bridge, and it seemed that with instruction, it was actually not very difficult at all to build one. Sooner than either could have imagined, it was done.

Relieved of guilty feelings, the teddy proudly looked at the finished bridge. "I helped!"