Lizzie muttered to herself, while she was slaping the trees with the plastic pipe she found. The birds seemed glad and sang happily. The snow from yesterday, still hung on the brunches.
She put her foot under a root and fell with her face in the snow. She cursed the weather, Robin and school with some coloured words.
Suddenly, she heard a twig break and looked up quickly. At first, everything was a blur, but after a few moments, something appeared. It was big and brown and came towards her. She realized that it was a bear and almost fainted of fear. She remembered that someone once told her, that if you ever meet a bear, just lie down and pretend youŽre dead.
She laid her head down quickly and felt the cold snow melting beneath her cheek.
“Oh, this is so boring!”, someone suddenly said.
Lizzie reacted too much and lifted her head and listened. Too late she remembered the bear and turned her head towards it, nut it wasn’t there. Now she got really frightened.
Then she heard that dark voice again:
“You don’t have to be afraid. I ain’t gonna eat cha”, it said with Texas-dialect.
She couldn’t hold her words back.
“What? Who’s that talking?!”
“It’s me! Who else could it be?”
Lizzie turned on the ground and saw the bear yawning. She looked with her eyes wide open at the sharp and many teeth.
“What cha staring at?” the bear asked.
“OH, MY GOD! A TALKING BEAR!”
Lizze got to her feet and was about to run away, when she heard someone laughing. She realized that it was the bear and started to wonder if she had lost her mind totally.
“Ey, don’t tell me you never seen a talking bear before! Why wouldn’t bears talk?”
The bear laughed again and fell to the ground, twitching of laughter.
Lizzie started crying. She felt vulnerable and hated everyone, even the bear.
The bear heard the girl and calmed down.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to hurt cha.”
“But you did!”
“There, there. It’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be okay.”
“No, it won’t! Oh God, I’m talking to a bear! How normal is that?”
“I’m getting pretty tired of you talking like that. But you know… If you want, you can come back ta my place. We can have a cup of tea, if you want.”
The girl sighed and got to her feet again.
“Fine, what can get wierder than a talking bear?”
The bear gave her an annoyed look.
She followed the great animal through the woods and it felt like an eternity before they got there. At first, she didn’t see anything, but when they walked closer, he saw something looking like a small cabin with walls and a roof made of twigs and brunches.
“Can you make tea in there?”, Lizzie asked.
“No, I just said that so youŽd come with me.”
“But why am I here, then?”
“I saw you when you walked into the woods with tears in your eyes and I rememdered someone who took care of me once. I decided that I should talk to you.”
“That doesn’t sound like a reason good enough to talk to… a human.”
She heard that her words didn’t sound as good as she hoped theyŽd sound.
“Well, now that youŽre here, you can stay for a little while. It’s so lonely and we can talk, or just sit and… not talk.”
“No, I should really go back.”
“Do you know the way?” the bear asked, while cleaning its teeth.
Lizzie didn’t know the way. She started crying again.
The bear put his paw on her back and comforted her with some consoling words.
She hugged him, without thinking.
“Tell me what’s buging you”, the bear said.
And she did. She told him about how Robin had let her down for the thousand time. She told him about the biology teacher, Ms Ward, who had told her that she had the same IQ as a toad.
After a while she wiped her tears and thanked the bear.
“Same time, same place, next week?” Lizzie asked.
The bear nodded and disappeared into the woods.
{k}Finally, a real friend{/k}, thought Lizzie and walked back to the school.