The animals in the Land of the Flowered Bed confront the mysterious box

Continued from Monday


"What do you think is in the box?" Pumble asked, peering over the edge of the bed.

The seals barked and clapped their flippers together.

"That's ridiculous," Cookies snorted. "A mother couldn't fit in a box. Mothers are much bigger than that."

"How do you know?" Pumble asked. "You don't have a mother!"

"Well, neither do you!" Cookies fired back. "Besides, the mothers on TV are tall and graceful and bake cookies..." He began to drool.

"Television isn't real!" Pumble snapped. "Besides, all the mothers on TV. Our mother wouldn't be human."

"Says the one with his own cooking show," Cookies mumbled. Pumble narrowed his eyes and sucked in his breath.

"There's only one way to settle this," Hairy interrupted, stepping between them before they could argue some more. "We'll have to go look at the box." The other animals looked at him as if he was crazy.

"Fine," Hairy sighed, walking to the edge of the bed. "I'll look in the box." The seals barked and hopped along behind him. "The seals and I will look in the box."

They climbed down from the bed and scuttled along the floor. Taking a deep breath, Hairy opened the box. The carrot was gone. A plate of cookies lay on the floor.

"Ooooh, cookies!" Pumble shouted, taking a running jump off the bed. Cookies cocked his head.

"This is very peculiar," he said. "Why would a mother just leave cookies? Why wouldn't she stay herself?"

"Maybe because she's shy," Hairy suggested.

"Maybe she's a weird bee-owl-seal-hedgehog alien with dripping fangs," Pumble suggested, sneaking a gleeful glance at Cookies. The seals shook, crumbs dribbling down their chins.

"Stop it," Hairy hissed. "You're scaring the seals." He sighed and took a bite of his cookie. "We'll wait another night and see what happens. Maybe she was carrying the cookies somewhere and managed to get out of the trap and had to leave the cookies behind."

After setting up the box, the animals placed a carrot with some lettuce underneath it and climbed back onto the bed. This time, they were determined to keep their eyes open for their mother.

"My toes are cold," Pumble whined.

"I'm hungry," Cookies grumbled. "Gimme some of your snacks."

"No," Pumble said, jerking his backpack away. "I need it for energy so I don't freeze to death."

"It's 74 degrees in here!" Cookies snapped.

"That's cold for a bee." Pumble shoved a granola bar in his mouth.

The seals whimpered. They had dropped their flashlights under the bed and were bored. Hairy sighed.

"I know," he sighed. "I'm bored too. I wish I had a good book. But we can do this. We've just got a few more hours."

The next morning, the animals woke up to find the box laying flat on the floor.

"Darn it!" Hairy cried. "We fell asleep again!" While Cookies and Pumble bickered, Hairy and the seals scuttled down to the floor. They ran to the box and gently cracked it open.

"Look!" Hairy cried. A pair of socks, two flashlights, a book of bedtime stories and a basket overflowing with snacks scattered the floor under the box.

"Wow!" Pumble cried. "Our mother must have been listening last night."

The seals barked and clapped their fins together, hopping up and down.

"The box is our mother?" Hairy repeated, scratching his head. "Is that possible?"

"Well, it did take care of us and brought us the things we needed," Pumble said, scuttling over to Cookie's snack basket.

"It did make us cookies," Cookies said, smacking Pumble away from his basket.

"And it's always there when we need it!" Hairy cried, clutching the box to his chest. "I have a mother now! We all do!"

"Mom!" All the animals cried, throwing their arms around the box. "We love you Mom!"

"Tell Mom we want a new pond," the first duck from the Spa cried, butting into the family's happy reunion.

"Tell her we want some gummi worms!" the second duck cried.

"Would she like to go to a movie?" the third duck asked.

"She can do all that later," Hairy beamed, draping his arm around the box. "Right now, we're going to spend the morning with Mom."