Teddy Bear Pink and Teddy Bear Blue lived on the top shelf in Bea’s bedroom.
Every morning she placed them, one on each side, looking at each other. But when she woke up in the morning, there they were, right in the middle of the shelf, sitting back to back.
What Bea did not know was that, although they had both been presents to her at the same Christmastime, Teddy Bear Pink and Teddy Bear Blue did not like each other. In fact, they could not stand the sight of each other, which is why they always moved during the night to sit so that they did not need to look at each other when morning came.
‘Move over there,’ growled Teddy Bear Pink out of the side of his mouth when Bea had gone downstairs to eat her breakfast.
‘Shan’t!’ replied Teddy Bear Blue gruffly.
‘I’ll push you off the shelf!’ threatened Teddy Bear Pink.
‘Huh! I’d like to see you try!’ snarled Teddy Bear Blue.
‘I wish you two would stop quarrelling all the time,’ said a baby doll. ‘Why can’t you be friends?’
‘Yes,’ agreed a toy train puffing past. ‘We have to listen to you two arguing all day long.’
‘Do try to get on together,’ said a large wooden truck which was parked near the bookshelf.
‘Well, he annoys me,’ sniffed Teddy Bear Blue, glaring at Teddy Bear Pink.
‘You get on my nerves!’ snorted Teddy Bear Pink.
‘You two should be friends,’ continued the baby doll. ‘You’re exactly the same.’
‘No we’re not!’ they both shouted together.
‘The only difference,’ puffed the train on the way back, ‘Is that one of you is coloured pink and one is blue.’
‘Pink is a much nicer colour than blue,’ said Teddy Bear Pink.
‘Huh! Blue is a far better colour than pink!’ retorted Teddy Bear Blue.
The jack-in-a-box suddenly jumped up and threw a small plastic brick at them.
‘Ouch!’ yelled Teddy Bear Blue.
‘You shouldn’t throw things!’ shouted Teddy Bear Pink.
‘I was trying to have a lie-in this morning,’ grumbled the jack-in-a-box, ‘But you two are making so much noise that I can’t sleep a wink!’
‘We should do something about those two,’ complained a toy soldier. ‘We soldiers need all the rest we can get because Bea makes us march all over the place...’
‘It’s all right for you,’ moaned the toy truck, ‘But Bea puts all you soldiers in me so I can take you for rides and I have to carry you about all over the place in my back while you’re fighting. It’s not easy I can tell you...’
‘We could send them to Coventry,’ suggested the toy train.
‘Well, I’m not taking them,’ said the truck.
Long Tall Sally the rag doll smiled and held up her long skinny hand. ‘They don’t really go to Coventry,’ she explained.
‘Pity,’ mumbled the jack-in-the-box.
‘What the train means,’ she continued, ‘Is that we should not talk to them.’
‘That won’t do any good at all,’ said the soldier. ‘They only seem to need each other.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked the truck.
‘Well,’ said the soldier. ‘They argue and bicker with each other all day long and totally ignore us.’
‘That’s true,’ said Long Tall Sally.
Teddy Bear Blue and Teddy Bear Pink looked down at the other toys from their perch on the shelf.
‘They all hate us,’ growled Teddy Bear Pink.
‘Can’t think why,’ said Teddy Bear Blue.
Just then Bea came back into her bedroom.
‘Hello, everybody!’ she said and picked up the toy soldier. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Time for parade.’
‘Oh no,’ muttered the toy soldier. ‘And I haven’t had a wink of sleep all night.’
The toy fort was kept on the shelf near Teddy Bear Pink and Teddy Bear Blue. Bea walked over to fetch it.
‘Oh no, not again,’ she said. ‘You two have moved,’ and she put Teddy bear Pink on one side and Teddy Bear Blue on the other, facing each other again.
‘That’s better,’ she said and took the fort off the shelf.
Teddy Bear Blue put out his tongue to Teddy Bear Pink who replied by making a horrible face at him.
Bea played for a while with the fort and the soldiers, unaware that Teddy Bear Pink and Teddy Bear Blue were having their own silent battle behind her. Gradually they made their way to the centre of the shelf again and sat back to back.
Bea looked up at them. ‘Who put them there?’ she asked herself and got up.
She picked up Teddy Bear Pink and said, ‘Would you like to sit in the window so that you can look out over the garden?’ Then she carried him over to the windowsill and sat him down again near the open window.
She went back and fetched Teddy Bear Blue and sat him down next to his deadly enemy, Teddy Bear Pink so that they could both look out of the window into the back garden.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘You two sit there and look at all the pretty flowers and smell the fresh air after the rain.’
Teddy Bear Blue and Teddy Bear Pink looked own into the garden.
‘It is nice,’ said Teddy Bear Blue.
‘I think it’s cold,’ said Teddy Bear Pink and shivered.
‘Huh! You would!’ grouched Teddy Bear Blue.
‘You wouldn’t notice the cold anyway!’ snapped teddy bear Pink nastily. ‘Your skin is too thick.... like you!’
‘You horrible pink thing!’ shouted Teddy Bear Blue.
‘Mouldy blue bear!’ yelled Teddy Bear Pink.
Then Teddy Bear Blue poked Teddy Bear Pink and Teddy Bear Pink pushed Teddy Bear Blue. The poke became a punch and the push became a shove. Suddenly the two bears were fighting and wrestling each other, rolling all over the window sill.
Long Tall Sally looked up. ‘Look out!’ she shouted but it was too late. Teddy Bear Blue and Teddy Bear Pink had fallen out of the window.
They landed in a heap in the rose bed in the garden below. This should have been all right except that the rain from the night before had turned the rose bed into a deep muddy puddle and Teddy Bear Blue and Teddy Bear Pink landed right in the middle of it with a big soggy splash.
‘Yuk!’ spluttered Teddy Bear Blue.
‘Yak!’ splattered Teddy Bear Pink.
Bea ran downstairs to rescue them. She picked them up very carefully by the ears because they were both very wet and extremely dirty.
Teddy Bear Pink looked at Teddy Bear Blue and started to laugh.
‘Ha! Ha!’ he giggled. ‘Look at you! So much for your blue colour! You’re all brown now.. a muddy colour!’
‘Huh! You can talk!’ shouted Teddy Bear Blue. ‘You’re just the same!’
Teddy Bear Pink and Teddy Bear Blue looked at each other and then down at themselves. They were indeed the same colour, a lovely muddy brown.
Bea fetched Mummy’s peg bag and pegged then both on the line to dry.
As they hung there dripping and blowing in the breeze, they saw all the other toys lined up in the bedroom window laughing and pointing at them.
‘Just look at that lot,’ said Teddy Bear Pink.
‘How dare they laugh at us,’ agreed Teddy Bear Blue.
‘Who do they think they are?’ said Teddy Bear Pink.
‘That toy truck is a real bighead,’ said Teddy Bear Blue waving his fist at him.
‘That jack-in-a-box is a real show off, too,’ said Teddy Bear Pink.
‘They know nothing!’ said Teddy Bear Blue.
‘You know,’ said Teddy Bear Pink.’ We bears are a lot cleverer than them.’
‘Yes we are, aren’t we?’ smiled Teddy Bear Blue.
‘I think we’d better stick together in the future,’ said Teddy Bear Pink.
‘Yes,’ grinned Teddy Bear Blue. ‘Especially,’ he added,’ Now that we’re both the same colour!’
And they both burst out laughing, friends at last.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 04.05.2010

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To my family - with love