Quite the Hibernators

Quite the Hibernators 

(Inspired after reading Little Bear, by Else Holmelund Minarik)

It was cold in the little house. Lucy Bear was sitting on a stool by the fire. Next to her was Sally Bear, who was the oldest. Sally was knitting a scarf. In the rocking chair, Mother Bear was sitting with Alex Bear on her lap. She was reading them all a bedtime story. 

Mother Bear closed the book and said, “It’s time to hibernate, cubs!” She dressed each of them in jammies, gave them each a little stuffed animal, and sent them to bed for the winter. Mother Bear yawned and fell asleep in the rocking chair, holding the book on her lap. 

Sally got right into bed, but Lucy would not stay put! Lucy wiggled in her bed, kicking her big sister in her sleep and finally got out of bed.

Meanwhile, Alex couldn’t go to sleep either!  Sally got out of bed and saw them both awake on the floor. She said, “Must be a twin thing!” and went back to sleep. 

Alex and Lucy just stared and both said, “Big sisters...” They decided they wanted something to do, but they didn’t know what to do! They couldn’t read a book, like mother could. They couldn’t play with Sally’s toys. What else was there to do? 

Alex and Lucy devised a plan! “Let’s play a game called ‘Wake up Sally!’”, said Alex. They crept up onto the bed. They could hear her snoring underneath the covers. Alex crawled over to the nightstand and grabbed the alarm clock. He reset the time for one minute. Then the twins crept away quickly and hid behind the nightstand and waited. 

After one minute had past, the alarm clock rang! It rang like a fire engine was coming! It shook the desk. It shook the covers. Until finally, Lucy woke up and started screaming! She got out of bed, dressed in some colorful clothes and said, “Well, that was quick!” Mother was still asleep in the rocker. She didn’t hear birds chirping... she looked out the window and saw snow! It wasn’t spring, it was still winter!

“Alex! Lucy!” Sally said loudly. They came out together, standing in front of her. “You two go back to bed right now!” She put them back into bed and went to sleep. 

Of course, the two little bears would not go to sleep. Shortly, they got out of bed trying to think of something else to do. They crept out into the family room and noticed a candle lit! Papa Bear was home from work – he had been out late! They quickly got back into their beds before he saw them awake. 

He came out of the shadows and into their bedroom. Papa Bear saw them all sound asleep, and yawned himself. “Time for hibernation!” He sat down in the chair in the bedroom and fell sound asleep. 

Alex had an idea. He grabbed his trumpet from music class and blew as hard as he could. Then he jumped back into bed. 

Papa Bear, Mother Bear and Sally woke up! Sally Bear said, “It’s probably just the twins again! They always do this when it comes to hibernation! Let’s just go back to sleep!” 

Sally went back to sleep, but Mother and Papa walked into the twins room and told them, “If you don’t get to sleep soon, you will get a big punishment!” Then the parents left and went to their bedroom to hibernate. 

But the little bears would not stop. Lucy suggested, “Let’s go outside and play in the snow!” They went outside and rolled around in the snow. Soon, they drifted off to a nap in the snow. A day had past. Night came and they started to feel cold snow all around them. They woke up in a hole inside the snow. There was snow above them, and below them. Snow on the right and on the left. The twins were buried in snow! 

The Little Cubs were small and couldn’t dig well. They were stuck. They did what they could – Alex worked on digging out the roof and Lucy worked on the right side. They knew their warm and cozy house was to their right and they might find the door if they kept digging. 

Alex finally got the snow off the roof. The little cubs crawled out of the hole. They saw what had caused them to be buried. It had been a snow storm! Ice was everywhere. Snow covered the ground. The twins crawled home to the little house and went inside.  

They crawled into their bed and fell fast asleep. 

When they woke up, the birds were tweeting, the grass was green, flowers were bloomed and there was no snow outside! The rest of their family was at the table. “You slept all spring!” said Mother Bear. “You are really quite the hibernators!” 

The END