22 The Car Thief

The Car Thief written by Pam Holden illustrated by Pauline Whimp

Following his strong sense of smell and the empty feeling in his belly, Bouncer Bear walked out of the wilderness, where he belonged, and into the town. A large black bear, Bouncer blended beautifully into the dark night. While the people of the town were safely asleep in their beds, Bouncer sniffed the midnight air and moved further toward the sweet smell of ripe fruit.

With his nose and his hunger leading him, he soon came across a little yellow car, parked at the top of a hill. As Bouncer circled closer and closer to the car, his strong sense of smell told him that he was in the right place for food.

While Bouncer looked in through the car window, he bumped into the door handle of the unlocked door, making the car door suddenly swing wide open. Quickly Bouncer squeezed his big body into the small car and started eating up all of the sweet fruit he'd been smelling. As he wriggled around inside the car, sniffing about for more sweet fruit to eat, he knocked the controls - BEEP! BEEP!

Music played loudly and the horn tooted. The door slammed shut with a big bang. Bouncer began to panic. The more that big Bouncer panicked and moved around inside the little car, the worse things got. Soon the little yellow car was all broken up inside. Then slowly, the little yellow car with the big black bear inside it, began to move. It began to drive down the hill, getting faster and faster as it went!

CRASH! People rushed outside to see what was going on. There, at the bottom of the hill was a little yellow car, smashed against a big strong tree! TOOT! TOOT! went the car. As the people stared in fright, they could see that the little car had something in it but nobody wanted to go any closer for a better look. Someone called the Police.