Ping-Ping, being a resourceful mini-panda, found a closet door slightly ajar one evening when most everyone else was in bed. Shoving with all his might, he managed to push it open far enough for a small bear to waddle in for a looksee.

"It's dark!" he exclaimed. Behind him, as usual, was his sidekick Pan-Pan, the even smaller panda, and behind Pan-pan was Chocolate Chip, the good little dotted bear.

"We shouldn't be here," Chip said in a cautionary tone. He looked around him, eyes wide, in case their Lady should find them peeking where they shouldn't peek. "Let's go eat honey cakes," he tried.

Ping-Ping and Pan-Pan ignored him.

Sighing and muttering softly to himself, Chip followed the two more intrepid bears inside the door of what appeared to be a huge, dark closet.

There came the sound of scuffling, a grunt, a thump, another grunt, and then a soft "whooshing" sound. "I've got it!" Ping-Ping said loudly, and with a "chink" a light came on, almost blinding Chip and Pan-Pan.

"Yikes!" Pan-Pan squeaked, jumping back and treading on Chip's feet. Blinking in the light, the two less-brave bears looked up to see Ping-Ping swinging from a long string that lead to a light bulb. "Oh," Pan-Pan said, "You've found the light thing!"

Ping-Ping looked down, swinging back and forth on the end of the string. "Yes," he agreed, "now if I can just - ugh! - swing it - ooof - a little bit--uhff---farther..." And FLIP! He swung far enough to land on a high shelf, sending a waterfall of soft, furry things cascading down, almost burying the unfortunate bears on the floor. "Yahoo!" he exulted, and grabbed onto the first thing he found.

Pan-Pan and Chip, covered to their chins in furry things, looked up worriedly. "We're going to be smothered!" Chip said, panicking. When nothing else slid down on them, however, he took the time to examine the tickly things almost covering him up and discovered..."Hey! This stuff is fur...in fact, it's...it's....almost like, well, ME!"

"It is," agreed Pan-Pan, fingering a large folded piece of cream velvet with brown dots. "This stuff here is awfully familiar, too."

Chip looked at the dotted velvet. Then he looked at the green mohair and the purple wool plush and the cream alpaca. "This is ALL awfully familiar," he said, worry sounding in his voice.

Ping-Ping leaned over the high shelf and looked down at his two cohorts. "Whatcha two doin' down there? Come up here, it's really cool!"

"No way," the two fur-bound bears said in unison. "There is something strange going on here," Pan-Pan added.

"Oh, you two worry too much," Ping-Ping scoffed, straightening his gold neck ruffle, "This is just - er - big stacks of - um...I dunno." Despite his bravado, he wasn't at all sure WHAT the big stacks were. In fact, the one he was sitting on looked an awful lot like..."Uncle Ching?" he whispered in a questioning voice. Then, "naaaah, couldn't be..." But what else could these folded furry things be but pre-bears ?

"I'm coming down," he announced, suddenly finding he definitely needed to be elsewhere. He leaped for the lightpull, then rappelled down the closet shelves in long swoops. "Look out below!" he warned just as he plunked down right on Chip's head.

"OW!" they both exclaimed together. Then all 3 bears climbed out of the scattered pile of furry things and ran higgledy-piggledy for their den under the sofa.

"I'm not going back in that place," Pan-Pan announced.

"Neither am I," Chip said in his sweet voice. "I saw FAMILY in there...only they were all flat!"

Ping-Ping, who wasn't at all sure that that hadn't been his Uncle Ching folded up flat on the top shelf, looked brave and scornful, not wanting to show fear to his friends. "We'll wait and see. Maybe we'll go back again sometime in the daylight when it's not so scary."

"Nuh-uh," said Pan-Pan. "I vote we let our Lady keep charge of that place. I've seen her in there all the time putting things on the shelves."

At his words, the three mini-bears exchanged wide-eyed looks, not daring to voice the thought that occurred to all of them at once. Finally Ping-Ping gulped and said in a brash voice that was slightly quavery despite his good intentions. "She wouldn't have our family's pelts in there, I bet those are just FAKE pelts."

"That's it," Chip said, deciding to believe that. "They're just pieces of fabric, not really flat bears at all."