The Bear Who Told the Truth

Bruno the bear liked downhill best. Uphill was for trudging. Flat was for walking. But downhill — downhill was for roly-poly. “Tuck your nose, hug your knees, and roll!” Then the world went green, blue, green, blue, all the way down.

The best rolling hill in the whole wood was the green one behind Granny Badger’s garden. It was also the one hill Bruno was not allowed on. “Not my hill, Bruno dear,” Granny Badger always said in her slow, careful voice. “That’s where I keep my breakable things.”

But one afternoon, the grass looked so green and so slopey that Bruno’s paws began to itch. “Just one roll,” he whispered. “A small one.” He glanced at Granny Badger’s windows. Empty. He tucked in his nose, hugged his knees, and rolled — faster and faster and faster —

Crack. It was not a loud crack. It was a small, terrible one. Beside the garden gate, Granny Badger’s honey pot lay in three yellow pieces in the clover. The one with the painted bees. Her favorite.

Bruno looked left. He looked right. Nobody had seen. So he slid the pieces under a pile of leaves, patted the pile flat, and walked home very slowly, like a bear with nothing at all on his mind.

At supper, his tummy felt strange. Not hungry-strange. Buzzy-strange. As if a small family of bees had moved in, and not one of them could sit still. “More stew?” asked his mother. Bruno tried one bite. Perhaps stew would settle it. It did not. “No, thank you,” he said — which had never once happened before. Bzzz, went the bees.

At bedtime, Bruno counted sheep. One sheep. Two sheep. Three sheep wearing Granny Badger’s honey pot as a hat. He squeezed his pillow over his tummy. “Go to sleep,” he grumbled. Bzzz, went the bees.

At dawn, before the sun had finished stretching, the bees tried once more. Bzzz. Bruno sat up. His paws stopped squeezing the blanket. “All right,” he told them. “I know what to do.” And he walked straight down the lane to Granny Badger’s door. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“I rolled down your hill,” Bruno blurted, “and I broke your honey pot, and I hid it under the leaves, and I’m sorry.” His breath ran out. Granny Badger said nothing. Bruno’s ears sank lower and lower.

At last she spoke. “I loved that pot,” she said softly. Bruno pressed his paws together. “Can I mend it?” he asked. “And carry your breakable things somewhere safer?” Granny Badger nodded once. “Fetch the pieces, Bruno dear. And bring your steadiest paws.”

Bruno matched each crooked edge. Granny Badger warmed a spoonful of golden tree sap on her stove until it turned slow and shiny, and Bruno held the pieces still while she brushed the sap into every crack. Big bear paws, it turns out, are wonderful at holding still. Piece by piece, the pot became a pot again.

When it dried, thin golden lines ran through the yellow like little rivers of sunshine. Granny Badger turned it round in the light. “Well now,” she murmured. “It has never looked so fine.” And she set it in the middle of her shelf, right where visitors would see it first.

On the walk home, Bruno stopped and listened. Hush, went his tummy. There was room in it for breakfast again. And on the allowed hill, he tucked his nose and hugged his knees, and rolled down gently, gently, through the silver dew.

The End