The Big Bear Nightmare

by Paul Cooper

  Following the bee’s wobbly path, Pete cleared the trees and stopped. In front of him, there were hundreds and hundreds of wooden beehives, all packed together and lined up in rows. Millions of bees were buzzing around, going into or out of their hives. Behind them there was a huge factory of some kind.

  ‘That doesn’t look much like the picture on the billboard,’ said Pete.

  ‘It must be the honey production plant Sweetie Foods built,’ said Brian. He started towards the big ugly building. ‘Come on. The bees won’t sting us if we don’t go near the hives.’

  As they made their way towards the big factory, Brian continued, ‘As I was saying, honey is quite interesting, actually …’ (Pete sighed.) ‘Bees can tell the rest of their hive where the nectar is by doing a dance. Would you like me to show you?’

  ‘No!’ cried Pete.

  ‘Oh, OK … Anyway, the bees collect nectar from flowers and bring it back to the hive.’

  Pete paused. ‘Hold on, Bri – how exactly do they bring the nectar back? I don’t exactly see any of them holding little buckets …’

  ‘They carry it in their stomachs, of course,’ said Brian.

  Pete was starting to get a weird feeling about this. ‘And then what?’

  ‘They regurgitate it back in the hive, of course, before thickening it up in honeycombs.’

  ‘They SICK it back up?’ Pete could hardly believe this. ‘So when we eat honey on our toast, we’re actually eating extra-thick bee sick? Why don’t they ever put that on the label?’

  ‘Um, well …’ Before he could give a more detailed answer, Brian realized some of the bees were following them. As they passed each wooden hive, more bees joined the little cloud of buzzing insects tracking them.

  The buzzing was getting louder and the cloud of bees were coming closer and closer. Every so often one or two braver bees broke away from the main group and shot past the two pigs. It seemed to be only a matter of time before they started stinging.

  ‘Look!’ cried Pete. They had come to a pick-up truck. ‘There are a couple of beekeeper’s outfits here!’

  The two pigs quickly pulled on the baggy protective suits and then clamped the broad hats with netting on their heads. They were just in time – not because of the bees, but because, a moment later, a door in one of the factory’s outbuildings opened and two bears ambled out, one of them pushing a small handcart. They wore beekeeper’s suits, too, but with their heads uncovered.

  They shambled up to the nearest row of hives and began to lift the lids. The PiPs watched as one bear pulled out rectangular wooden frames filled with honey, and loaded them on to the second bear’s cart.

  ‘That’s how they collect the honey,’ whispered Brian.

  As the bears neared the two PiPs, they nodded hello.

  ‘All right?’ said one bear gruffly.

  Pete nodded back. These bears must think that he and Brian were just fellow workers. He was about to throw the dark netting back and ask where all the other bears on the island were, when one of the bears said to his mate, ‘Be careful with that honey. Don’t want to disappear like all them others on the island.’

  The other bear grunted. ‘That’s not how it works, mate.’

  As soon as he heard these words, Pete dropped his trotters from the netting covering his face. Something strange was going on here, but his gut instinct told him that these two workers wouldn’t have any answers for them; he and Brian needed to get inside for a proper look round.

  He became aware that the two bears were staring. ‘Are you two new here or sumfink?’ said one.

  Pete made his voice go as deep and bearlike as it could. ‘Yeah, we’re working …’ He pointed to a distant row of hives. ‘… over there. Right, Bri?’

  ‘YEEEEE!’ wailed Brian in a high voice.

  It sounded like the cry of a Kung Poo master in combat, but the real reason for Brian’s squeal was that one of the bees had made its way into his beekeeper suit before he’d zipped it up. Now it was buzzing around angrily as it tried to escape from this strange, dark prison.

  Brian began to hop and jump around, shooting his arms and legs out in weird jerky motions as he attempted not to get stung.

  The two bears just watched. ‘Is your mate OK?’ one asked.

  ‘Yeah, he’s … doing a new dance,’ said Pete. ‘It was all the rage in Ursalona … you know, before everyone disappeared. Everyone wanted to “do the Brian”!’

  The bears didn’t seem convinced, so Pete began to copy the medic’s odd jerky motions himself.

  ‘Shouldn’t you both be working, not dancing?’ grunted one of the bears. ‘Mr Sweetie doesn’t like bears slacking off during work hours.’

  ‘That reminds me!’ cried Pete, still doing ‘the Brian’. ‘There’s something we have to tell Mr Sweetie! Come on, Bri – this way!’

  The two bears just watched silently as this strange little pair in full beekeeper outfits did their dance all the way to the outbuilding door.

  CHAPTER 4:

  Hairy Bikers

  In the giant cave under the city, the sleeping bear continued to hug Curly to its massive chest.

  ‘Do you … know any … lullabies?’ Curly gasped to Tammy, thinking that the bear might relax its grip a little if it heard something nice and restful.

  Tammy just shook her head, so Curly did his best to sing, even though he was now a dark shade of purple:

  ‘Rock-a-bye piggy … there in your sty.’

  This didn’t have much of a soothing effect. The bear growled louder and squeezed Curly even tighter. The young pig looked as if his head might go POP! soon.

  Curly tried again: ‘Good night, little piggy … asleep in the mud!’

  This seemed to anger the sleeping bear even more. It was showing its teeth now and shifting restlessly. Curly looked as if he could hardly breathe now; there was no chance he could attempt another lullaby, and Tammy didn’t seem to know any at all.

  Suddenly the mechanic flashed a smile. She started singing something much peppier:

  ‘You put your right arm in, your right arm out, your right arm in and you shake it all about!’

  The sleeping bear lifted its free arm and shook the lethal-looking claws on the end in time to the song. Several of the other bears within earshot did the same.

  Tammy continued singing:

  ‘You put your left arm in, your left arm …’

  As soon as the bear raised the arm holding Curly and shook it all about, the pig wriggled out and leapt to his trotters. He was free! As they made their way to the exit, Tammy continued to sing the chorus of the song quietly:

  ‘You do the hokey-cokey and you turn around.’

  Curly knew this song well because his nan had always sung it to him.

  ‘That’s what it’s all about,’ sang the mechanic gently.

  ‘OY!’ shouted Curly, as he had always done at this bit of the song.

  At this sudden noise, the snores of the sleeping bears around them turned to angry restless snarls, but by now the pigs had reached the metal staircase and were racing back up towards street level.

  They emerged in a different part of the city. This street had buildings on one side and the beginning of thick woods on the other. Once again there was no sign of the bear cub.

  Curly stood in the empty road. ‘Why are there woods right here in the city?’

  ‘Bears love the woods,’ explained Tammy. ‘They like to be near them even in the city. They enjoy roaming and eating berries. Most bears even prefer to go to the loo in the woods rather than indoors.’ She reached for her radio. ‘We’d better call Pete.’

  But Curly cocked his head. ‘Wait, Tammy! What’s that noise?’

  Tammy could hear it, too – Ursalona was silent no more. The silence was broken by the far-off roar of engines. Well, at least it started out as a far-off roar, but it quickly grew louder and louder.

  ‘What IS it?’ asked Curly.

  Tammy knew. ‘Motorbikes,’ she said. ‘Lots of them
.’ She grabbed Curly by the wrist. ‘I don’t think we should be standing in the middle of the road – or even by the side of the road, come to think of it.’

  She ran behind the nearest trees, pulling Curly with her. Moments later the front-runner of the big bikes roared round the corner. It was a huge black machine with chopper handlebars and flames spray-painted on the petrol tank.

  ‘Nice wheels,’ murmured Tammy.

  The enormous grizzly bear riding this motorbike wore a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off to show his gigantic hairy arms. On his feet were the biggest motorbike boots Curly had ever seen, and on his huge shaggy head he sported an immense Viking helmet.

  All in all, he looked like one tough, mean biker bear, and the other biker bears that appeared round the corner looked every bit as tough – if not tougher.

  ‘Why are they awake?’ Curly asked. ‘Shall we flag them down and see if they know what’s going on?’

  ‘No!’ Tammy’s trotter fell on the young pig’s shoulder. ‘Did you see the name on the back of their jackets?’

  Curly nodded. ‘The Gruesome Grizzlies.’

  ‘The GGs are the meanest, toughest, most dangerous gang of grizzly bikers on Bear Island,’ said Tammy. ‘I’ve heard rumours they pull the heads off anyone who annoys them. You do NOT want to go asking them questions.’

  The last of the bikers was riding by now, and the roar of the engines was beginning to fade.

  ‘But what about that poor little cub?’ Curly asked, his eyes wide with alarm. ‘We can’t let him fall into the clutches of a nasty gang of grizzly bikers, can we?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Tammy. ‘Which means that right now we have to go into these woods.’

  ‘Why?’

  Tammy pointed to a spot a little way into the forest. There, on the ground, lay the little battered teddy bear that the cub had been carrying.

  CHAPTER 5:

  Going on a Bear Hunt

  Pete and Brian hurried through the metal doors into a large loading area. Several bears in overalls were stacking hundreds of the honeycomb-filled frames from the beehives on to a conveyor belt. The two pigs kept their beekeeper disguises on and nobody questioned them as they headed towards the factory floor.

  This place was alive with the rattle and hum of machinery. However, there did not seem to be any bears working here. It was all fully automated.

  Pete pulled the netting of his beekeeper’s helmet back. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now I won’t bump into things quite so much.’

  ‘Perhaps if you’d taken your sunglasses off?’ suggested Brian.

  ‘Right, good one!’ Pete smiled, not realizing that this hadn’t been a joke.

  Meanwhile, Brian was studying the machines around them.

  ‘Industrial honey production is quite interesting, actually,’ he began. He pointed to the conveyor belt carrying all the honey-filled frames from the loading bay. They were moving towards a machine with a razor-sharp chopping blade.

  ‘That slices the beeswax away so they can get at the honey inside,’ Brian explained.

  ‘Really?’ mumbled Pete. In truth, he was only half-listening. He was also gazing at his own reflection in one of the shiny metal machines and thinking that he was looking particularly fine today.

  Brian pointed at another machine, a large metal drum. ‘Then that machine spins the frames around really fast to get the honey out,’ he explained.

  ‘Really?’ Pete turned his head to see how his hair looked from a different angle. The word perfection popped into his head.

  ‘And then the honey drains off into that great big vat,’ Brian was saying. ‘But here’s what I don’t understand. The honey is usually bottled after that, but in this place it gets pumped through another machine into this second big vat. So my question is – what do they do to the honey between Vat 1 and Vat 2?’ Brian dipped his trotter into the second vat and tasted the honey. ‘Seems pretty normal,’ he said. ‘What do you think, Pete?’

  ‘I think it was a good idea upgrading to that new extra-hold hair gel,’ Pete answered. When he realized Brian was giving him an odd look, he pulled his eyes away from his reflection. ‘Er, sorry … what was the question, Bri?’

  In the stretch of inner-city woodland, Curly looked down at the old toy teddy bear in his trotter. It gazed back up at him with its single glass eye.

  ‘I had a teddy when I was little,’ Curly said. ‘His name was Mr Ploppy.’

  ‘Why did you call it “Mr Ploppy”?’

  Curly reddened. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ He quickly changed the subject. ‘Didn’t you use to have a teddy bear, Tammy?’

  ‘No,’ the mechanic said quickly. Her tone made it clear she didn’t want to discuss the matter further, either. She was examining the ground ahead. She pointed now at a faint line of little pawprints. ‘This way.’ The two pigs plunged into the woods.

  ‘Hey, you know what this reminds me of?’ asked Curly. ‘There was a song we used to sing at piglet camp, “Going on a Bear Hunt”. Do you know it?’

  Tammy just shook her head, and Curly wondered why she didn’t seem to know any of the things that had been big parts of his own childhood. ‘I’ll teach you!’ he cried. ‘I’ll sing one line and you just sing it back at me.’ Still running, he cleared his throat and began to sing:

  ‘We’re going on a bear hunt.’

  Tammy felt silly but, not wanting to dampen the young pig’s spirits, she sang the line back: ‘We’re going on a bear hunt.’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ sang Curly.

  ‘I’m not afraid.’

  Suddenly Curly noticed something clinging to his leg. ‘WAH!’ he screamed. ‘WAAH! A big fat BUG!’

  Tammy was confused – what sort of songs had Curly learnt as a piglet? – but she did her best to copy the note of panic in the trainee’s voice:

  ‘WAH! WAAH! A big fat BUG!’ she chanted.

  ‘Get it off me! Get it off!’ wailed Curly, flapping his trotters about and running in circles.

  Tammy shrugged. He hadn’t said anything about dance moves, but if she was going to do this, she may as well do it properly. ‘Get it off me, get it off!’ she cried, flapping her own trotters wildly, just like Curly.

  ‘This isn’t part of the song!’ the young pig cried. The mystery bug on his leg decided to fly off and look for somewhere a bit quieter.

  ‘This isn’t part –’ Tammy paused. ‘Oh … I see.’

  The two pigs ran on, swishing their way through some long grass and then deeper into the woods. Curly continued to hum the same campfire song under his breath. Soon the path narrowed until they had to go single file.

  Suddenly, Curly stopped: there, in front of them, was a puddle of mud. Tammy eyed it over the trainee’s shoulder.

  ‘Better go round that,’ she commented.

  ‘No!’ cried Curly. ‘It’s just like in that Bear Hunt song I told you about!’ He began to sing again:

  ‘Came to some mud – sticky, icky mud! Can’t go ROUND it! … Can’t go UNDER it! … Got to go THROUGH it!’

  As he sang the final line, he marched forward into the squelchy mud. Then he stopped and looked down.

  ‘Erm, this mud is a bit stinky,’ he said.

  ‘That’s because it isn’t mud, Curly.’

  Curly wrinkled his snout. ‘What is it then?’

  The PiPs mechanic sighed. ‘Remember when I told you what bears do in the woods?’

  ‘That they like to roam and eat berries?’

  ‘No …’ said Tammy. ‘The other thing. What they do AFTER they’ve eaten the berries.’

  Understanding hit Curly.

  ‘Uh-oh.’

  CHAPTER 6:

  Hello, Sweetie

  On the other side of the factory floor, there was a corridor with several offices dotted along it. Pete peeked into each one. ‘This looks like the sort of place we’ll find some answers,’ he said.

  Brian followed the captain into a large meeting room. There was a long table in the
middle, with a little honey pot set in front of each leather chair. Each pot had a name label on it – Rupert, Winnie, and so on. One pot was much bigger than all the others – it bore the name MR SWEETIE.

  On the wall above the fireplace there was a portrait of a grumpy-looking bear in a pinstriped business suit.

  ‘That’s Mr Sweetie, the head of the company,’ said Brian.

  ‘He doesn’t look very cuddly,’ said Pete.

  ‘He isn’t.’ Brian pointed at the company motto under the portrait: SWEETIE BY NAME, NOT BY NATURE.

  The medic stifled a yawn with the back of his trotter.

  ‘This mission isn’t boring you, is it?’ asked Pete.

  ‘Sorry!’ said Brian, trying to shake off his sleepiness. ‘I’m just feeling suddenly very tired.’

  Pete frowned. Then he said, ‘Here’s something that will wake you up! I can hear footsteps in the corridor outside. Someone’s coming this way!’

  The two pigs looked around quickly for a place to hide. There was no furniture to crouch behind, so Pete got down on all fours and crawled under the table. Brian joined him.

  They held their breath and listened for the footsteps. Moments later, the door opened and several bears came in. Stuck underneath the table, Pete and Brian could see nothing but bear legs, all in smart business clothes.

  The bear at the head of the table tapped a furry foot impatiently. A gruff voice said, ‘Hurry up and sit down, you lot. Time is money, and I don’t like anybody wasting either.’

  Pete knew that this must be the voice of the boss, Mr Sweetie.

  ‘Right then,’ said Sweetie. ‘What’s happening with the business plan? Winnie – what’s the situation in the city?’

  Winnie replied, ‘Phase One was a complete success. The entire population is still asleep, Mr Sweetie, allowing Sweetie Foods workers to collect all of the island’s beehives and bring them to Bear Bottom Farm.’

  Underneath the table, Pete gave Brian a wide-eyed look. Brian gave him a sleepy-eyed look back.