1 The Flower I’m Ken. I am a bear but, I used to not be. One thing to know about bears is that they do what is in their dream. We call it “Sleep Doing”. This is why we board up our cave in September. But, it was May. I had a dream where I was giving a flower to my crush, Emma. It turns out I actually grabbed a flower! Now, this would not be a problem except, there was an eight year old girl collecting firewood. She saw me! I was still dreaming so, I gave her the flower! I woke up that morning with Oliver looking over me. “You did something sweet to a human!” he said, his teeth gritting. He kicked me out of our cave. He literally kicked me! I fell near a log cabin. I was unconscious. 2 The Teddy Bear I woke up feeling fluffier than usual. I was also in a bed. “Where am I?” I said weakly. I did not know where I was. I saw some stuffed animals around me. “He is awake,” a stuffed dinosaur said. I looked at my hands. They were not claws. I realized, I was a teddy bear. I needed to figure out a way to get out of there. That's when I heard it. “Time for bed!” a little girl said. It was the girl I gave the flower to! While I was unconscious the girl found me and brought me with her! Now I was on this bed. The night went by way too slow. I only got two hours of sleep. Bears usually get ten. I watched her go out the door to school. I decided to try to make new friends. But, then I fell asleep. I slept for the next eight hours. The girl was back when I woke up. She picked me up so I could“eat”. She was giving me “Spacetti” for “Dimmer”. Living in a house is weird. When bedtime came, I was so tired I was asleep before the girl came. In the morning, I found out her name was Marie. Marie had to go to school in the morning. I saw a sign. It was on a chalkboard. 3 The Sign That sign said one word “If”. I was confused. Everyday the chalkboard said a new word. The second day was “You”. Once all the words came together it said “If you go while she is at school you can get home without anyone knowing you were gone,”. The next day I looked at it and it read “Watch out though, when Marie gets home you teleport back here,”. The next day when Marie went to school I started going back home. The walk took about six hours in teddy steps. I was going extra slow the first day. I got teleported home very quick. Soon after, I realized that she had a half day. This would be a problem. She has two half days a week. One on “Fridey” and another on “Wensday”. So, I had “Moondays,”, “Toosdays,”, and “Tuhrsdays,” to get home. I decided to wait until the next week to try to get home. I wanted to find out who was making these signs.
4 The Bunny I stayed up late to see who was writing these notes. The first three of seven days I fell asleep. The fourth day I saw someone in a black hoodie writing on the board. It read “Make sure to get home before they move in November because Marie might give you away,”. At first I did not know why I would want to stay with her. But, if I stay with her or I get donated, I would’ve been farther from my cave! I needed to get home quickly. One day, Marie did not want to eat with me. She ate with the dinosaur. I saw the rabbit plush sneaking away towards the chalkboard. The rabbit was writing the signs! 5 The Half Days Once I found out it was the bunny I asked him why he wrote the notes. He said that he was once a regular bunny. He wanted to escape back home and thought I could help. He tried escaping before but after a year he gave up. Everytime a new stuffed animal came he asked them but most of them said “no,”. I decided to help him. We came up with a plan. He told me where his house was and I told him where mine was. We were neighbors! He lived in the holes next to my cave! I was so happy because when we got back home we could be best friends. I still wondered how he knew about no one knowing I was gone. The next day, we challenged ourselves. We tried to get home on a half day. I was about to reach the woods when “Oh nooo!” I screamed as I was being teleported back to the cabin. We made it to the woods the next day. We were three miles away. I knew because me and my bear friends made signs for every mile towards the cave. We got teleported back. The next half day we made it four miles from the cave. We were so close. The next day we jogged. We made it one mile from the cave! If we ran we could make it! 6 The Run We still had about a month so we waited a week so our legs wouldn’t be sore. We were talking about what we would do when we got home while waiting for the time to pass. I was back! “Your banished again!” Oliver screamed at me. I did not understand. The bunny said that no one would remember I was gone! I woke up in a cold sweat. It was just a nightmare. It was the day before the run. I decided to train myself. I told the bunny my plan. “By the way,” I said, “I don’t know your name yet” “I am Carrots,” Carrots said. “I am Ted,” I said. We executed our plan the next day. We ran as fast as we could. We saw signs go by. “20 miles away” “19 miles away” All the way to “0.5 miles away”. We still had about thirty minutes left. We had 10 seconds we were at the perimeter. I threw Carrots to his home as I was being teleported back. Now I was on my own.
