The Search for Shiny Things: Part 5

The road went bending round a hill, so much that the teddy figured it would go faster to cut through a little forest. Halfway through however there was a little pond in the middle of it. As the teddy waddled safely out of reach of the water - teddies weren't particularly fond of getting wet because they soaked up the water and got so heavy they couldn't move - someone ahead was splashing and yelling. The teddy jogged, as much as teddy bears now could jog, and found a creature trying to get back to shore. It was bundled into a bright, knitted ball with only its head and legs sticking out. The teddy grabbed the bundle and pulled. As they tumbled out of the water, something sharp came through the knitting and penetrated the teddy's leg and tore some stuffing out.

"Oh my, I am so very sorry," said the creature.

"No need to worry," said the teddy bear, "lucky thing I am a teddy, and not a real bear!"

"Come with me and we shall get it fixed," the creature said.

As they waddled side by side to a rock formation, that looked a little like a giraffe without a head, they had to help each other. The teddy bear's leg was not quite as much of a hindrance as the creature's knitted bundle; the short legs barely reached out, and now that the knitting was wet, it sagged and dragged and kept tripping it.

"Would it not be better to take it off?" the teddy bear asked.

"Can't you tell," said the creature indignantly. "That I am a hermit crab and this is my house on my back." The hermit crab wriggled its back to show the knitted bundle. "Hermit crabs cannot live without a house. It so happens that I am very good at knitting, so I do not need to find a shell to use as home, this is good enough."

The teddy was unsure of what a hermit crab was, and so could not debate it, but there was something familiar about the hermit crab's face that was not really crab-like, and it was fairly sure that crabs did better in water than this creature had. "I am in search," it started, but then they entered a little hovel under the headless giraffe, and the teddy lost his words. The hovel was full of colorful knittings, covering the walls and ceiling. "I am in search of a tree and many shiny decorations," the teddy remembered. These weren't shiny, but they were definitely decorations.

"There are trees outside," said the hermit crab. "You are welcome to them, if you can take them."

"They are the wrong trees," the teddy bear said. The teddy had not quite considered how to take a tree or bring it back, once it was found, but that would be a later question. "What about these decorations, could I have some?"

"These are not decorations," said the hermit crab. "I am trying to make a larger house, but it is very difficult. The knitting keeps collapsing." The hermit crab with great difficulty waddled up to a bunch of yarn and pulled two spikes out from under its knitted shell.

"You are not a hermit crab, you are a hedgehog!" the teddy exclaimed, recognizing the spikes at least.

"Hush," said the hedgehog. "Nonsense. My parents always told me I should care for my home well like a hermit crab, so that is what I am. Come here and I will sew your leg together."

The teddy sat where the hermit crab directed.

"I can't find the right color for your yarn," said the hermit crab.

"It is fine with any color," said the teddy, for while not quite color blind, colors were not teddies' strong suit.

“No, no, it must be right." The hermit crab started waddling around looking at one pile and then the other. "Everything must be done right."

The teddy dutifully looked around. Just over the teddy's head hung some yarn, that it thought seemed somewhat in the neighborhood of what might be considered brown. "Let me help," the teddy said, and grabbed the yarn and pulled.

With a rather anticlimactic flop and drop, the entire knitted construction was pulled apart and fell to the hovel floor. The hermit crab, the teddy bear, and everything else inside disappeared under it.

The Search for Shiny Things: Part 4

"These are delicious," the teddy said, and before the panda bear's despairing eyes gnawed the head off of a deliciously brown monkey. "Raspberry and marzipan and chocolate."

"Those are candle ingredients!" protested the panda bear.

The teddy considered that while chewing down the exquisitely textured caramel body of the chocolate monkey. "That doesn't sound like the kind of candles I've ever heard about."

"It's what the wizard said that taught me candle-making," said the panda bear.

"Most wizards are crazy," said the teddy confidently. "I am training to become a wizard, so I know."

The panda bear watched the teddy eat his way through a row of purple bats, and finish with a fantastic banana gold ingot, and over time, a new shine came into little eyes. "You like my candles, I mean, my candy," said the panda bear. "And you're not becoming sick."

"I like them very much, they are most excellent," said the teddy. He would have eaten the entire room, but he was raised to have manners after all.

"Perhaps I should become a candy maker, instead of a candle maker," said the panda bear. "You have opened my panda eyes, teddy bear. A whole new better life for me."

The teddy was taken aback with such grand claims.

"Here," said the panda bear, and handed the teddy four candy canes. "These are my finest candles, I mean candies, I want you to have them. You can hang them in the tree, if you ever find one."

"You should come visit us and see the tree," said the teddy bear.

The panda bear assured the teddy that it would indeed come and see the tree, although the panda bear did not think the teddy would ever find a tree, because panda bears, while friendly, unlike other bears were not necessarily averse to polite lies. And then the teddy took its leave, thanking the host for the lunch. Outside, the teddy looked at the house, that was probably more yellow than brown, or possibly more brown than yellow.

"I helped," the teddy established to itself, and continued down the road.

The Search for Shiny Things: Part 3

The fields left behind, the teddy was growing very hungry. It had been so excited about the journey that it had forgotten breakfast. So when the road reached a little cottage with smoke coming out the chimney, the teddy decided that chimney smoke was pretty much a subtle invitation to lunch, and went inside.

The cottage, that may have been brown or may have been yellow, the teddy was no longer sure now that it was was inside, was full of boiling cauldrons and strange instruments and with numbers and letters scrawled on the walls. A tad peculiar, but still, the smell was amazing, so the teddy was in good spirits.

"Could it be that someone lives here?" called the teddy.

From another room came one big paw and then another, and with it a living breathing panda bear, and while the teddy bear was also a bear, he was much more conveniently sized, so the teddy was no longer sure that this was the right cottage for teddies to be in, even in greater number, and especially not in one.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my cottage?" asked the panda bear.

"I am the teddy bear," said the teddy, trying to sound courageous. Should worst come to worst and the panda bear tried to eat it, which the teddy thought that non-teddies might, it had little confidence in running away, so putting on a brave face was the best defense. "I am looking for things and stuff and such, mainly a tree and many shiny decorations."

"There are no trees and no decorations," said the panda bear.

The teddy looked around. No, indeed. "I have walked far, so perhaps you who have so much food," it gestured to the cauldrons, "could spare some for me?"

The panda bear glanced over, the big black circles around its eyes getting even bigger, at once insulted and amused. "There is no food here," it said. "I am a candle maker. These are candle cauldrons."

The teddy looked into a cauldron. The contents looked nothing like any candles it had seen, but it was in no way a candle expert. "This does not look like candles." It smelled like food, and the teddy's stomach stuffing ached.

The panda bear picked out some figures from a cupboard and set them on a table in front of the teddy. "That is candle wax. These are candles. Perhaps you'd like to buy some? I hear some people put candles as decoration in trees, after all. Let me show you." It lit the candles, that were shaped like stars and moons, and they immediately collapsed, turned into splatters on the table, and the panda poured some water on them to stop the table from catching fire.

"That may not be how candles are supposed to work," said the teddy carefully.

The panda bear sighed. "I have tried everything," it said. "I have half a degree in science, and I know numbers," it waved at the walls full of scribbles. "But no matter what I do, my candles don't turn out right. And nobody wants to buy them." It opened the cupboard, which turned out to be a whole room full of candle creations in all shapes and colors. "I don't know where to put all this. I just want to get rid of it."

The teddy's mouth watered. "I will help!" it said.

Before the panda bear could protest, the teddy had shoved a red diamond candle down its teddy throat, which was none because its head was directly set on its shoulders. And the panda had only started protesting when the second one went down, a green elephant.

"Those are candles, not food!" the panda warned. "They will make you sick!"

The Search for Shiny Things: Part 2

A little sorry for the crashing, but also quite proud of breaking the pole with only one kick, the teddy walked over to see how the scarecrow was faring, now that it was free.

"Are you quite okay?" it asked, looking down at the scarecrow.

"Oh woe!" the scarecrow exclaimed. "Now I will be stuck here, on my back forever! I shall only see the birds when they fly right above me, and I will get wet and cold and rot away!"

"I think you can stand up," said the teddy, eying the sticks the scarecrow had for legs. There was of course the possibility that it could not, but the teddy preferred to think positive.

Lending a fuzzy paw, the teddy helped the scarecrow to stand up. It was a little shaky, but could stand just fine, and after a little while dared take a few steps. Then it stopped and looked around, and again adopted a posture of dramatic despair.

"Oh woe!" it said.

"What now," said the teddy. It had never before known anyone that said "oh woe", and was therefore not prepared to hear it so many times.

"There are so many directions, I have never thought of this before! And any one of those directions could hold the best friend and conversation. However shall I decide on where to start. I can impossibly search every direction, even if I live forever, for you see a circle is infinity triangles."

The teddy wondered what the best conversation was, and if this was one. "I can be your friend," it said. "In fact, I am looking for a tree and many shiny decorations, to make my house pretty so that my friends can come visit."

The scarecrow eyed the teddy up and down. "You'll do," it said then, then leaned against the teddy's shoulder. "Actually, to be honest, I am glad to have a friend, any friend, but one should uphold a sense of standards."

The teddy nodded solemnly although it entirely disagreed, but it was hoping to avoid another "oh woe".

"Now that I have one friend, I suppose it's easier to choose a way to walk," said the scarecrow. "In fact, I will pick that one." It gestured wildly, and the teddy couldn't quite make out if he meant this way or that. "Great adventure awaits! Activites, speeches, possibly even songs!" On shaky legs the scarecrow began waddling away.

The teddy watched it go.

"And!" said the scarecrow, again turning around dramatically, "I suppose I should thank you. If you'd never come, I'd never gone on these adventures."

"You don't happen to have anything to eat?" the teddy asked.

"Scarecrows do not eat," said the scarecrow. "That is why we make great grain guards."

Such a sorry thing, thought the teddy. "Alright then."

Waving good bye, the teddy continued on its way. As it went, it hummed happily to itself, "I helped!"

The Search for Shiny Things: Part 1

The teddy made good progress all morning, but saw no one. Not a lot of anyone ever came to nowhere. Thus it wasn't until far beyond the corner of anywhere and elsewhere, a good way into the fields of somewhere, that the teddy saw another living thing. Coming down the road, the teddy saw a scarecrow standing in the fields, and two colorful birds hovering near it.

"Good morning," the teddy greeted the scarecrow.

"Morning," said the scarecrow, and there was something decidedly mopey about how it hung on its sticks.

"This is not a time to be sad, scarecrow," said the teddy bear. "It is a beautiful day."

"Perhaps," said the scarecrow.

"You do seem sad," said the teddy, a little disappointed that such a beautiful day had to be ruined by sadness.

"I feel trapped," said the scarecrow. "These are beautiful fields, and beautiful birds, and I am meant to sit here and scare the birds away, and so I am. But I feel trapped, stuck to the ground, and lonely I think, for even if I make excellent conversation with myself, sometimes one wishes for another voice, and the birds do not speak."

The teddy glanced over at the birds. They did not seem to be very frightened of the scarecrow, in fact they were lingering around mostly on purpose, taking a nip of the grains now and then and waving their beautiful feathers. He should help, thought the teddy. Because the teddy loved to help, and did it far too rarely, in fact if he could he would help all the time with everything, because everything was better with a bit of teddy help. So he let out a loud and happy sound; loud and happy came naturally to teddies, and waved his arms at the birds, who immediately lifted into the air and circled their heads.

"Oh woe! Why would you do that," complained the scarecrow.

"I was helping," said the teddy warily. There were those that did not want teddy help, he had forgotten.

"The birds were my only company, however poor." The scarecrow lifted its skinny branches dressed in rags to the sky and the circling birds. "Oh if only I could leave this field! I could go see where the birds go when they fly away. Or find other company, or work, or activity, or possibly a singing lesson."

The teddy hummed and looked at the scarecrow, or more specifically the pole that it was stuck on. It was driven deep in the ground, but looked old and dry and not terribly strong.

"I will help!" said the teddy enthusiastically, to declare intent so that the scarecrow would not be surprised like before, and with a hearty kick the teddy broke the pole right off.

With a shriek and waving its arms quite comically, the scarecrow fell crashing to the ground.