STONEBEAR GARDEN

The Secret by Peter Ganley

One day Gerry was playing by the brook that trickled across the bottom of his garden, he was pretending to catch fish and had a bit of stick with a piece of string on the end. “I don’t think I am going to catch any fish” he said.

Standing by the brook in his yellow wellies, he dangled the string into the water, ”Come on fishy, where are you?”.

Gerry lived with his mum and dad in a little bungalow in a sleepy village in Hampshire.

“Gerry!, your lunch is nearly ready”, called his mum from the back door. “Come in and wash your hands”.

“Okay mum!”, he called back and put down his fishing rod and climbed to his feet. Running back up the garden across the grass and then as he went past the flower bed a little voice said, “Come out to play again after lunch Gerry”.

Gerry stopped and looked around, but there was nobody there, just one of his mums stone teddy bears sitting by the flower bed. Bending down he looked closely, no it was just a plain old stone teddy bear. Just as he was about to turn away and head back up the garden, the bear looked up at him and said,“Yes it’s me”, and winked at him.

Well!, he jumped ten feet in the air and flew back up the garden and into the house, “Mum!, mum! that stone bear just talked to me!”.

“Yes of course it did”, said his mum, who was pouring a drink of orange for Gerry and putting it on the table with his sandwich. “Come on now, wash your hands please”.

Gerry washed his hands and climbed up on to the kitchen chair, a big climb for his little four year old legs, “But it did mum”.

“Yes dear, now come on and eat up your lunch”.

That’s the trouble with grown ups, thought Gerry, they never believe you. He bit into his sandwich and turned to look out the kitchen window.
He could see the bear that had spoken to him and as he looked the bear winked. “Look mum! he’s winking at me!”, he shouted.

Gerry’s mum walked down the kitchen and looked through the window, “Well he’s not winking now”, she said.

After lunch Gerry asked if he could go back out into the garden to play, “Yes dear, I’ll be in the lounge doing some sewing if you need me”.

Gerry went out into the garden and peered around the corner at the bear, it was a yellowish colour and had on a white tee shirt with a blue collar. He went around the corner a little closer, not that he was afraid, four year olds are very brave .

The bear stayed perfectly still and didn’t move or speak as he slowly walked up to it.

“I know you spoke to me before”, he walked all around it. “Are you a magic bear?”.

The bear swivelled it’s head to look at him and said, “Yes I am”.

Gerry jumped backwards.

“Please don’t be afraid I won’t hurt you”.

Gerry froze on the spot! His legs wanted to run but he also wanted to stay.

“Where is your mum?”, the bear said.

“She is in the front room sewing”, Gerry answered.

“Well come and sit down here besides me and I’ll tell you a secret”, said the bear.

Gerry walked slowly forward and sat besides the bear, “How can you talk?”, he asked.

“First of all, my name is Peter,” said the bear and he waived his arm around, “all the stone bears in this garden can talk and move”. He pointed at a little bear in a pink dress by the wall, “That’s Sally, come on over Sally! It’s okay!”.

Gerry watched in amazement as the little bear called Sally stood up and stretched, then waddled over and sat down besides Peter.

“Hello Gerry”, she said.

Gerry didn’t know what to do, bears can’t talk he knew that much, but these two could.

Peter said, “Listen Gerry, this is our secret, we will not speak or move if anyone else is about, but we trust you and want you to be our friend”.

“Oh yes we do!”, added Sally, jumping up and clapping her hands.

“So can you keep our secret Gerry?”, asked Peter.

Gerry thought it over, it would be a hard secret to keep, but he would have a garden full of magic bears! How fantastic!, he held up his right hand, like they did on the telly, “I promise to keep it a secret, honest!”.

“Okay, good boy, now lets go and meet the rest of the bears!”, said Peter.

“Yes, come on Gerry!”, said Sally , skipping off down the garden.

“There are four more of our friends for you to meet, Timmy, Tom, Gramps
and Rusty, come on!”.

The End

Copyright Peter Ganley.

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