Rooster and Bear

CHAPTER ONE

By Diane Dockum

Bear lay on the sofa leisurely munching a bag of chips. The ball game was on television. He was alone. A contented lull came over him. He yawned with his paw full of chips halfway to his mouth.

The door flew open with a bang. Rooster stomped up the stairs into the living room. His beak was already going.

“We goin’ fishin’ Bear?” When you gonna clean that wagon out? We can do it today! Hey! I gotta idea, we could get a movie or a pizza, we could get a movie AND a pizza, whattya say? Come on, let’s go!”

Bear froze. This bird is going to drive me crazy, he thought. Rooster’s bright yellow eyes and flapping feathers were the last thing Bear wanted at that moment.

“I don’t think I want to DO anything, Rooster. I just want to watch this game.”

“Oh, OK, I’ll watch it with you.” And he wriggled his tail feathers deep into the couch cushions at Bear’s feet, forcing him to scrunch his length up uncomfortably.

Soon, Rooster’s left foot started tapping on the floor. He shifted back and forth to get more comfortable. Then he started to preen his feathers.

“Can’t you sit still!” Bear shouted.

“Got any popcorn? I feel peckish.”

Bear let a long tired sigh escape from his throat. He climbed up out of the sofa cushions and went to his kitchen cupboard. He carefully measured his private stash of popcorn, the gourmet kind and very expensive, into his hot air corn popper and flipped the switch. The machine began to whir and vibrate loudly. The heat rose in rippling waves. Bear knew he had to find the big bowl soon or it would be too late, the corn would start shooting out of the nozzle all over the place. He searched through the tall shelves, and down low through the underneath cupboards, but no bowl. He even reached way in as far as he could.

The corn was beginning to puff up. Frantically, Bear began flinging dishes out of the cupboards. Rooster darted into the kitchen to see what the racket was. When his claws hit the linoleum he slid into the side of the china closet and all Bear’s china dishes crashed down onto him. Just then, the popcorn let loose firing kernels like a Gatling gun out onto the floor. *

(*Gatling gun here means the popcorn was coming so fast out of the popper that Bear wished he had seven or eight hands to catch it all.)

Bear grabbed a dishtowel and tried his best to stop the barrage. Rooster’s feet were sticking up through a pile of china chips and corn.

Bear was groaning and trying to catch the corn in his mouth and in his dishpans. He had gotten the best corn money could buy. It expanded to nearly three times the normal size! The kitchen was soon buried in white puffy corn.

Then the popper stopped. The corn was all finished. From under the great pile of corn and crockery, Rooster made a soft crowing sound.

“Sorry, Bear.”

-end-