The Nightmare by Spaulding T. Bear

Nightmares are strange things. Most the time, when you tell someone about it, it sounds so funny; you're not sure why it scared you. Of course, as a teddy bear linked to Mommy's mind, it's often hard to tell who had the nightmare. Both of us know it's scary, until we talk it over. Two nights ago, our nightmare was so bad; neither of us thinks it is funny.

Mommy and Daddy were walking home with me in my special traveling bag. It was beary late and they were tired and lost. Now, everybody knows that Daddies don't like to stop for directions, so Daddy kept walking past a diner, and Mommy stopped in to ask the cashier how to get home. My traveling bag was heavy, because there was a laptop in it with me, so she set it down against her leg, as she often does. All of a sudden, she forgot where we lived, and I couldn't tell her, because stuffed animals can't be heard talking in public. Daddy came in to get her, so she went to pick up my bag. It was gone!

Sheer terror! Our biggest fear is being bearnapped and I was bearnapped!

Daddy and Mommy ran out into the parking lot, and saw this 12-year-old kid trying to look innocent. Do you know the look? The "who me?" look that gives it away immediately? Yeah! That look!

He started to run away, but Mommy caught him by the collar. His buddies were a few feet behind him and looked like deer caught in the headlights. The boy gave Mommy attitude because she insisted on getting her teddy bear and laptop back. He had one of his friends bring a bag out behind one of the parked cars. (That's why this dream was so scary. In most dreams, the scenery and people switch around, but this made sense from beginning to end.)

When his friend handed him the bag, he pulled out a different teddy bear and laptop, and thrust it at Mommy. (Scary thing – the bear looked just like my good friend Marlowe! I'm glad this was a dream, or he would have been bearnapped, too!)

"That's not my teddy bear or my laptop!" she yelled.

He said that he had already gotten rid of hers, so he was giving her those instead.

"I need my bear! I want my laptop!" she yelled.

(Hurray, Mommy, but you should have experienced the thoughts she was having. Something about "how can I live without Spaulding?" And, "what do I do if I can't type on his blog anymore?" Seriously? You'd think scarier thoughts would be flooding her mind besides this blog, wouldn't you? I'm bearnapped, never to return! How could either of us live after that? How did this blog get into her dream….errr, my dream? Okay. Maybe some of the dream didn't make sense.)

One of the boy's friends gave her my traveling bag with me safely in it – and the laptop was there, too. (Kinda weird, since we haven't used a laptop since I was young.)

She grabbed my bag and let the boy go. He ran away across the parking lot with his friends, and then threw a rotten apple, hitting Mommy in the side of the head.

Mommy and Daddy were so tired that they planned to let him go, until he did that. Daddy was so tired, he still wanted to let those kids get away, but Mommy was beary angry. She went back into the diner and reported the crime to a woman police officer. (The woman was actress Shohreh Aghdashloo.) The policewoman was upset that Mommy was reporting a solved crime, and Daddy was upset, because he was tired.

Mommy decided she had enough of this nightmare, so woke up. We grabbed each other and cried.

We've had other nightmares before, but Mommy has never cried over one. We’ve been afraid to go to sleep ever since. I may never go out on another adventure in our traveling bag again. Some nightmares stick with you for a long time.