There was a beautiful town far away. There were so many little houses that they had to stand very close together. One next to the other. Lots of people lived there, but most of all there were children. There were several in every family. Most of them knew each other. They visited each other, played together, went on trips together, went to school together. In this town, there was even a beautiful playground. The kids took very good care of it. Every night when they went home, they cleaned it up.
One morning, the kids came running to the playground and were amazed. Everywhere they looked there was rubbish, sand was scattered all over the place, the tree house was broken and the blankets in it were dirty. The children stood in front of the playground and shook their heads in disbelief. They didn’t understand what had happened here that night. But they had to find out. First they cleaned and repaired everything. Then they agreed to keep watch at night.
The first night, the two bravest boys in town were to be on guard. Mike and Rick. They were best friends and they were determined to guard and defend the playground. The boys were well equipped. They wore dark clothes, put headbands with flashlights on their heads and hid in the bush closest to the playground and waited. Soon it was very dark. But the boys were not afraid at all. They wanted to find out who was destroying their playground. Suddenly Rick heard footsteps. Both boys knew that someone was coming, but they didn’t know who. They switched on their flashlights and shone them on the unknown visitors. In the light, a bear family appeared in front of them. When they saw Mike and Rick with flashlights on their foreheads, they stood on their hind legs and began to growl loudly. The boys were surprised. They were expecting someone, but definitely not bears. But Mike remained calm. He approached them slowly, showing that he didn’t want to hurt them. “Are you the ones who threw the trash out of our bins? You’re hungry, aren’t you? Were you looking for food?” Mike asked cautiously. The bears became alert. They stopped grumbling and got on all fours. They looked around and found that they were really in no danger. They looked at the boys and nodded in agreement. They pointed to the nearby forest. When Mike and Rick looked at it from a distance, they realized why the bears were coming to their town looking for food. The forest already looked ugly from a distance. There were broken branches, destroyed trees and bushes, and the stream from which they drank was covered with rocks. No wonder the bears couldn’t find anything to eat.
Mike came up with a suggestion: “There are a lot of children in this town. Tomorrow morning we’ll all go into the forest and clean and repair everything we can. I believe some of the adults will help us too. Then it’ll be a good place to live and you will no longer ruin our playground.” And as he said, so he did. The next day the whole town set about repairing the forest. The work went well. And when everything was finished, the bears brought them some raspberries as a thanks for helping them.. As a result, there was an unusual friendship between the people and the bears. To this day, children still follow the bears into the forest and play with their cubs.
