Hello, everybody! I’m Benny the Bear, and I want to tell you about a super fun adventure I had with my friends.
One sunny afternoon, I woke up with a rumble in my tummy. “Oh, no!” I thought, “I must be hungry!” I danced around my cozy kitchen and decided, “I’ll bake cookies! Yummy, gooey, chocolate chip cookies!”
But oh dear! I hopped up to the kitchen counter, and guess what? I couldn’t see all the ingredients! I’m just a tiny bear, and I needed help. I took a deep bear breath and called my friends.
“Hey, Catty! Could you help me bake cookies, please?”
“Of course, Benny,” purred Catty, the best chef I know. She trotted over, tail wagging.
But when she saw the flour sack on the counter, her eyes got as big as saucers. “Oh dear!” she cried. “I can’t lift that heavy bag!”
Just then, Tony the crocodile and Felix the giraffe popped their heads through the window, listening to our chat. They swiftly climbed in and said, “Don’t worry, Benny! We’re here to help!”
First, Tony, who always wears a chef’s hat, measured out the flour and sugar. He said, “I’m careful when I pour because a pirate once said, ‘A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn no other way.’ And it won’t do to spill sugar or flour everywhere, will it?”
Catty laughed, “You’re so funny, Tony! Now, let me have a look in the cupboards.”
“Goodness gracious! Whatever will we do? No butter!” She twined her tail with worry.
Tony and Felix gasped. Even with their long necks, they couldn’t see if Benny had any butter left.
“Aha!” Felix exclaimed. “There’s butter near the flower pot near the cuckoo clock! I can reach!” And stretch and reach he did, soon leaving a dizzy cuckoo clock behind.
So now we had everything, and everyone. We sang Happy Birthday twice and three times and mixed and worked until we had a big bowl of cookie dough.
“We must bake them now!” I said impatiently.
“But Benny,” said Tony, “you can’t even see the oven!”
“That’s true. But I thought of something!” And I hopped up and turned on the oven.
When tinkle, tinkle, tinkle went the oven bell, Catty slipped the cookies inside one by one…
Now, dear friends, tell me, did you ever taste fresh cookies when they were just baked — crisp on the outside and nice and soft and creamy inside? Did you?
No.
Well, then I shall tell you you never tasted anything as good as those cookies.
At last, they were finished, and I said, “Oh, won’t all your friends think it funny? All these bears still here?” And I looked around.
But the kitchen was empty. “Where is everybody?” I called, and I hopped here and there, looking and listening.
Just then, I met Felix in the library. He said, “All the other children are playing Noughts and Crosses, and so, if you like, they will have graham crackers and milk. And please make sure the checkers aren’t missing.”
Goodness, gracious! Just bear think of all those things!
So I marched right downstairs to the meadow, and my, oh my, what seeing came!
Poor little Tina cried: “I double-crossed when you were noughting.”
Fancy! What have those noughts and crosses of seeing to do with bakery goods?
So all my friends came to the kitchen, and we carefully poured a pitcher of milk on a big cake plate piled high with cookies and took them to the meadow. “Oh, won’t they keep for tea?” said Kitten, and Tilly the hen nodded.
And so they think then why it is that baking cookies is more fun with friends, and why I, Benny the Bear, march always two by two, even when I don’t want to, and never miss seeing, but always know exactly where each one is.
Now you know, my friends ants, huh?
So goodbye!