The adventure of a little bear…

before he became bearnacle bear, the seafaring bear

Today is the first day of the October Ultimate Blogging Challenge. This blogging challenge occurs quarterly. It is also the first day of Inktober. I have to admit that I have completed the Ultimate Blogging Challenge a few times, but I have never completed Inktober. So… it’s time to break the curse. This month, I am doing Inktober differently. Instead of an image per day that is complete in itself, I am going to write and illustrate a continuing story, “The adventures of a little bear… before he became bearnacle bear, the seafaring bear.” I hope that you enjoy! And now, the start of the tale… tail… do bears have tails? (Oh, they do. Little, short tails that hardly anyone can see…)

When Bearnacle was a little bear, he didn’t have his own name. He was called baby bear and, sometimes, just baby. It was at a time when humans and bears got along and understood each other’s languages. It was the time before Bearlandia was only for the bears and the land of the humans was closed up and the borders guarded and no one but humans or pets or zoo animals was permitted to set foot on the land of the humans.

Baby Bear was always very curious, and he wanted to see the world. One bright, shining morning, when hibernation season was months away, Baby Bear took a walk down the trail. He passed coneflowers, common milkweed, black-eyed susans, tickweed, Joe Pye weed, bee balm and so much more. The colors were very appealing to Baby Bear but, as soon as he reached out to pick a flower, a bee buzzed furiously and Baby Bear gave up on collecting a floral souvenir of his walk.

After walking for a while, Baby Bear began to feel thirsty and sleepy. He walked over to a small pond and tasted the water. It tasted fresh and it looked clear. And Baby Bear was happy. There were some human children playing in the distance, but Baby Bear didn’t notice them because he was so sleepy. He found an object that looked like a little tent. He crawled inside the tent and fell asleep.

Hours later, he woke up. He was in some sort of conveyance and it was moving in a very bumpy, clumpy way. Baby Bear, inside the tent, lurched as the conveyance lurched. He felt each lurch in the deepness of his stomach, and he wondered what was happened and where he was. All of a sudden, the tent’s zipper was opened, and Baby Bear saw the face of a very animated girl human staring at him.

“Oh! A bear! For me? A surprise in my backpack?” the girl asked.

The girl’s cousin, a boy, said, “I just wanted to show you the bear that I found. Thank you for letting me use your backpack today. Do you think I should give him a name?”

The boy put the bear in his backpack, and he gave his cousin a little mouse, which made her just as happy as the bear…

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(check out the next episode tomorrow… right here!)