The Get Away

Before I tell the story of how Bea and the escaped puppies got away, I want to take this space to share the acknowledgement I am giving my constructive, supportive, caring friends on here. I am including this my soon-to-be published Bea 3.

                                      Acknowledgement

A writing friend and former classmate, Beck Fenton suggested I check out a writing 

website called FanStory. I have been a member of this group of excellent writers and

supportive reviewers since 2018. I have met some wonderfully helpful people in this group and have made real friends. Without, Beck, I would have never known of this opportunity

to improve every aspect of my writing. I have been inspired and kindly coached on the books I’ve written and published. I will be ever grateful to Beck and my 

new writing friends, too numerous to mention.   

For nearly 20 years, I taught Creative Writing in grades 6-8. I greatly envied the luxury of time my students had for writing. Many of them demonstrated exceptional skill in their compositions. An untold number have gone on to become writers; some already published playwrights or song composers with studio recordings. Others have successfully choreographed entertaining scenarios or delivered stirring sermons.

  I want to thank the hundreds of writing students for inspiring me with their magnificent works crossing my teacher’s desk over the years.

  Hopefully, the teacher has at least matched the student.

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Previously: Bea has taken on the responsibility to rescue one puppy with a plan to delay the dogcatcher, with Spidie weaving a web of deception.

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The messed-up dogcatcher worried about the level of embarrassment if anyone were watching. He couldn’t see if the man who hired him to capture the dog in the barn was staring out his window or not. With his clownish antics, was he just a pathetic amusement? 

Because she’d met Lady, Snakely held greater disgust for the situation than Bea and was committed to do something about it. For Lady’s sake, Snakely insisted upon releasing the crated captives in the van.  The hesitant mom to her new friends, consented.

Bea wished the fifty swarming bees making a loud buzzing fuss would go to sleep. She wondered what snoring bees would sound like, especially inside her tummy. 

How she wished she had her “be good to myself” treat. That would surely quiet the bees. She would be able to better do her “be calm” exercise.

This brought her thoughts to Timothy the Beaver who fashioned those honey pots. So as not to break any, she would use conscious caution, while lifting the clay jars up and down from the shelves as she did her stepstooling exercise. There would be no more if she dropped them all. 

 She promised herself she would take extra good care of the furniture he had carved for her, also. The list included her stepstool and her cupboard  lovingly holding her “be good to myself” treat. 

She was unnecessarily stirring the fifty bees, as she worried about something that might never happen. Her brain exercise would sometimes get scrambled like an egg dropped from the nest on the limb of a tree of her friend Dovely.

Her anxious thoughts went from, with no more clay pots to keep the golden honey in them, there would be no place to keep her “be good to myself” treat. With no “be good to myself” treat, she might forget how to be good to herself.

She would have to dig way back to when her mom said she was a good wee bear. Somewhere in the darkness of the forest below and of her thoughts, she remembered to do her talk to the maker about her fears.

She spotted just the right path for them to take off downward as soon as Snakely returned from her self-appointed assignment to create chaos.

It wasn’t long before the comedic scene played out.

Realizing his captive dogs were escaping, the van driver was unable to take any action without removing his glasses, leaving him at a greater disadvantage. 

His preoccupation with attempting to clear away all of Spidies’ excellent entanglements was enough distraction enabling them to escape into the woods. This was a great deception, with him presuming everyone would stick to the pavement.

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Bea led all her new charges down the trail deeper into the woods. The bright globe in the sky was concealed by trees, leaves and bows. Without the light of day, it became extremely, nearly impossible for the now mom of many, to find her way.  She needed to do her pretend exercise, lest anyone know how lost they might be. 

She hoped Snakely and Spidie didn’t sense any lack of sureness due to  her shaking. She did not want them hearing the rapid thrumming drum beat of her heart. Bea worried they might at least be able to hear the buzzing of confused bees in her tummy.  

Settled upon her ears and shoulder, they probably were far enough away from her tummy. Practicing her be calm exercise, she was consoled they could hear nothing. She masked her sense of insecurity.

With that helpful routine exercise, a glowing light shown within, giving her the solution. No longer entertaining her panicky thoughts, she realized there would be some containers of honey somewhere. They could easily be fetched in the dumpster area Doolie told her about. 

This was not the time to rehash a dilemma greater than any she’d faced since. Her thoughts were drawn back to when she, Sweet Puppy, and Scruffles had a horrible time finding the path to some targeted dumpsters.  Though ending up in a river, they were spared harm when they landed at Timothy’s Pond.

After they found a drier route, they experienced further frustration, finding which dumpster of three was the right one.  Eventually, there were several more containers filled with her “be good to myself” treat. 

With the 50 bees within her, settling down, our inventive bear wondered why she needed to have something to worry constantly.  Her rambling thoughts almost always carried her to the worst of times. 

After doing her talk with the maker of solutions, she reflected upon her past dilemmas and had to celebrate the fact she had coped, made it through those difficult times and had survived. 

Becoming more aware of things around her, she noticed the glowing light was still there!