| Hallowe'en Or Be Careful Whose Butt You Show Movies On
Once there was a tiny purple and white panda named Ping-Ping. He was only 2 1/2 inches tall but had an ego ten times his size, hence he always spoke his name with exclamation marks..."Ping-Ping!!" he would shout, "And don't you forget it!" he would add, importantly puffing out his little chest and strutting up and down in front of the other bears. Most of the other bears liked Ping-Ping, except for the polar bears. They didn't care for him because he showed movies on their backsides when they dozed off early every evening. One Hallowe'en they decided to get even. They planned and they schemed and they planned and they schemed...which wasted 5 minutes of a perfectly good morning they could have been eating snowfish and arctic berries, but polar bears are usually cold and when you're cold, you know, your thought processes are often slower. Anyway, the polars finally came up with a plan. "We'll scare him...reeeeeeal bad," Aurora Bearealis whispered to Lil Aurora, her cousin. "How will we do that?" Lil Aurora asked, not being a bear who spent much time being scary. It's hard to be scary when everything else in your world is bigger than you, including your cousin who has almost the same name. Lil Aurora munched on snowfish and listened to Aurora's plan. "We'll hide behind this sofa and when Ping-Ping wants to show a movie on my butt, he won't be able to find us. So he'll hunt, see? And he'll come into the living room where it'll be aaaaalllllll darrrrrrkkkkk and scary. And when he comes close to the sofa, BOOO! We'll jump out and scare him reeeeeeeal bad. Or grab his tail or something like that."
Munch munch, Lil Aurora went, and nodded. "Okay, but what if he doesn't come in here?"
Aurora scowled in her superior, older-bear-cousin way that annoyed the daylights out of Lil Aurora, mainly because she hadn't thought of that, but she didn't mention that to Lil Aurora. "He will," Aurora said firmly, "and that's that!" "Hmmf" huffed Lil Aurora, and unwrapped some honey cakes for dessert. She noted Aurora eyeing the honey cakes and promptly sat on them to hide them. "Mine," she said in a definite tone of voice, which Aurora paid attention to for once. "I'm sure *I* don't want your old honey cakes," claimed Aurora, lying. "Now let's get behind the sofa and wait for Ping-Ping to come by." The two polar bears crept behind the sofa in the dark, shadowy living room. Lil Aurora sneezed twice from dust bunnies under the couch. Aurora Bearealis stifled her smaller cousin's sneezes with a furry paw. "Ack choo, ack choo," came soft sneezings, then a few sniffles and finally Lil Aurora had her sneezles under control. "Shhhh," Aurora ordered, a bit tardily, "your explosions will give us away!" "I hab dudst id by dose," Lil Aura said, a bit nasally, but she stifled the urge to say more, for at that moment, they heard Ping-Ping announce that he was showing one of his favorite movies. "And now," came Ping-Ping's voice from the other room, "we're going to view one of my favorite films for Hallowe'en, 'Bearday the Thirteenth'...um...um....where is our 'screen'?" Nobody knew where the polar bears were. Ping-Ping cleared his throat and coughed importantly and clicked the lights on and off a few times as a sort of signal, but no polar bears were to be found. "I said," Ping-Ping shouted, "WHERE IS OUR SCREEN?" Silence. "Have you looked in the living room?" Chocolate Chip asked in his soft, sweet voice. "Yes, yes," CoCoBearie chimed in, "look in the living room." CoCo, of course, had seen furry white feet disappearing behind the couch a bit earlier, but other than this hint, he wasn't about to give away what promised to be Ping-Ping's comeuppance.
Ping-Ping grumbled, but crept into the dark, shadowy living room. "H-hello?" he said, annoyed that his voice cracked. "Aurora? Lil Aurora? Are you in here?" Silence, except for a whooshing noise. Ping-Ping jumped, "What's that!?!" he squeaked, then said it again, in a more bearly, fierce voice. "What's that? I'm fierce, you know." "OOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" came a hollow voice, quite scary. "Eeeps," Ping-Ping said, looking around with thumping heart. Being 2 1/2" tall wasn't so very large or important, he suddenly thought. "Er, I'm v-v-v-very f-f-f-fierce," he quavered. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!" answered the hollow voice. A shadow moved, looming large against the wall. It was really Aurora with a light behind her but it looked ten feet tall to the unnerved Ping-Ping. "EEEYOWWW!!!" he screamed, and turned to run, falling flat on his face when a furry paw shot from under the sofa and grabbed his ankle. "L-let go of me!!" he squealed, kicking his feet madly. "NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo!" said the hollow, awful, frightening, sepulcheral, echoing, very scary voice. "YES!" screeched Ping-Ping. "Not unless you make a promise," answered the awful, hollow etc and so forth voice. "W-what?" Ping-Ping wanted to know, thinking the thingamajig that had him by his ankle was about to eat him alive, even though a 2 1/2" tall bear is barely a mouthful for a huge monster-thing. "Promise!" demanded the echoing, awful, you-get-the-idea voice. "I promise!" Ping-Ping said, though he had his fingers crossed out of habit. "Uncross your fingers!" the voice commanded. "Urk, how did you...? Okay, they're uncrossed," Ping-Ping grumbled. "I PROMISE!" "You must never show movies on the polar bears' backsides again," the voice said. "Oh, okaaaaay," Ping-Ping agreed, albeit grudgingly. "And you must give them the respect they're due," said the voice. Behind the sofa, Aurora and Lil Aurora were trying not to laugh at the fear and consternation on Ping-Ping's face. "I promise," said Ping-Ping, looking glum. His ankle was suddenly freed and he shot to his feet, running for dear life back to the rumpus room where the other bears were all trying to look as though they hadn't been watching and listening and laughing. "I, er, couldn't find them," Ping-Ping fibbed, brushing dust off his purple and white coat. "Let's go bob for honey cakes instead," he said with a bravado he didn't really feel. As the bears all trooped off to bob for honey cakes, Ping-Ping didn't look back. If he had, he would have seen the two polar bears rolling about on the floor, having a good laugh at his expense. Ping-Ping learned a good lesson that Hallowe'en. However, being Ping-Ping, he probably forgot it by Thanksgiving.
(c) 2006 Marti Koeppe |
