As children we all had that one toy, usually a teddy bear, that was more than just an inanimate plaything. It was a comfort, a constant companion that shared in all of our adventures and to whom we told our biggest secrets. It gladly soaked up our tears and protected us from monsters. It never fought with us, never got mad and never ever hurt us. It was a bestest friend. A protector. An “always there”.
But we all grow up, grow older and grow out of our bears. Eventually most of us, on a rainy, reminiscent afternoon will remember our bears or bunnies or best friend doggies, and realise that somewhere between imaginary swordfights with the pirates in the pool and falling in love for the first time, we have lost our very first friends. We may try to search in dusty boxes and moth eaten bags, but they are long gone, forever lost with our childhood flights of fancy. This is the story of a not-so-little-anymore girl and one such bear.
In the middle of one stormy night, midst the howling of the wind and after a particularly brilliant flash of lightning, a cupboard door slowly creaked open in little Ally’s room. Though “Little Ally” was a term no longer used in that house, for Ally regarded herself as too old for such endearments, and indeed she was. At almost thirteen years old, she thought her full name, “Alison”, was more appropriate, and the “little” that preceded her name in earlier years was no longer fitting, because well, she wasn’t all that little anymore. But one person still called her that. One person remembered and to him, she would always be “little Ally”.
That person, or rather bear, no- teddy bear, was Cubby Bear. Cubby, as he was first called by Ally, was no taller than the footlocker he was struggling to climb over as he made his soft and quiet way out of the cupboard. A cupboard he was confined to these last two years. He was not named Cubby because he was a baby bear, nor was that the reason for his lacking stature, in fact Cubby was about as big as a teddy bear can grow. Rather, his name derived from the words “Cuddly Bear” embroidered on his chest. Little Ally’s infant speech did not allow for the forming of difficult words and so they both decided his name should rather be Cubby-Bear, or Cubby for short. And “Cubby” it stayed until the very end.
Cubby removed his little teddy bear suitcase from the cupboard and quietly closed the door. Another flash of lightning forced illumination through the darkness of the room and for the first time in years made visible the soft curls of his dark brown fur. He used to love the light, especially from the warm sun that shone so brightly in the garden outside, even though that usually resulted in a dirty Cubby that had to pay a visit to the washing machine. But for the last couple of months he didn’t even get to see the light through the window. No light came in to the deep, dark corner of the cupboard where he was put, along with a pair of old shoes, a puzzle missing some pieces and partially completed colouring book. But that was the life of a teddy bear. That was how it always went. How it was supposed to go.
Cubby held on to the thought that this was the ordained path for most bears, lest they be given to the dog or left behind on vacation. He knew that all humans had to grow up and that the friendship of a teddy bear eventually becomes forgotten. He knew his duty to protect little Ally was now done, and that he, like her, had to move on. He had to remind himself of this, otherwise he would try to stay with her and then some other little child would go unprotected from the dragons in the tool shed and the nightmares and the ignorance of brash adults and their busy lives. But little Ally, as it were, was now old enough to protect herself.
Cubby remembered the night when he really had to protect Ally for the first time. It was the night the first bad dream came. That day he and Ally had an interesting encounter with some worms in the garden. The worms were trapped underground and were very dirty (according to Ally), and he and Ally worked very hard to rescue as many of them as possible and give them a nice warm bath. After Ally herself had a good bath and Cubby had been brushed off -for he had not been too dirty that day (so mommy said)- he and Ally got in bed, talked about the day’s adventures, planned tomorrow’s, as was the ritual, and drifted off to sleep. At least Ally did. For Cubby as a teddy bear on guard never slept. Rather he stayed awake every night and kept the bad dreams away. It was that night that the first one came.
