Babooshka Bear

Babooshka Bear – Part 1

It was a snowy, winter morning when Babooshka bear got up and made hot, honey flavoured porridge for her three little bear cubs and sent them off to school before putting on her headscarf; her boots and her warm winter coat and setting off herself, through the cold winter snow, to Bully’s Honey factory where she worked.

Babooshka bear really liked her job at the honey factory, which involved pasting brightly coloured labels onto jars of honey as they glided past on a conveyor belt, because she was a bear and bears love honey, not to mention that her three little bear cubs also loved honey an awful lot.

But, as she was walking along Bearsberg street and passing by the big stone monument of a general sitting on his horse, she saw a man with a horse and cart and the man was shouting at his horse and hitting it with a whip.

“What an awful man”, thought Babooshka, “No horse should have to be hit like that”.

And then she looked at the horse and saw that it had an injured leg and that it looked awfully thin because the man who owned it hadn’t been feeding it enough.

“That’s not right”, thought Babooshka, “That horse needs a doctor to fix his injured leg and it needs to be properly fed”.

And so Babooshka bear shouted at the cruel man who was hitting the horse.

“Hey you! Stop beating that poor horse!”, she shouted, seizing his whip off of him, “Can’t you see that that horse is injured and, by the looks of it, half starved because you don’t feed it properly”.

“Mind your own business!”, said the Man, angrily, snatching back his whip, “This horse is just lazy. It needs to be hit or it won’t pull my cart and if it doesn’t pull my cart then I won’t make any money”.

Babooshka bear got very cross when she heard the man say this.

“What a selfish, heartless, bully you are!”, she said, “You don’t deserve to have such a lovely horse working for you”.

And saying this, Babooshka started to unchain the horse from the cart he was pulling.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing”, the man shouted at her, angrily, “Leave my horse alone”.

But Babooshka bear didn’t listen and continued undoing the straps that fastened the horse to the cart, then, once the horse was free, shouted, “Run away my friend. Anything must be better than being slave to such a cruel master”.

And the horse, seeing that it was now free, started to canter away across the cobblestoned street but, unfortunately for Babooshka, there was a policeman nearby and he saw the whole thing but the Policeman couldn’t understand that she was only trying to free the horse and, instead, saw her as a horse thief.

“Hey you!”, he shouted, running towards her, blowing his whistle and waving his truncheon.

“Oh no?!”, thought Babooshka, seeing the policeman, “If he arrests me, I shall go to jail and what will become of my three lovely bear cubs without me to look after them”.

And so, Babooshka ran away. She ran for streets and streets before, looking back, she saw that the policeman had given up chasing her.

Unfortunately, she was now a long way from the honey factory and it was already time for her to start work.

“What am I going to do?!”, she wondered, panicking, “If I’m late for work then I’ll surely lose my job”.

But, just then, from behind her, she heard the sound of horses hooves clip clopping against cobblestones and, turning round, saw the old cart horse that she had set free earlier.

“Thank you, friend, for setting me free”, said the horse.

“You can talk?”, asked Babooshka, startled, “I didn’t know”.

“Oh yes”, said the horse, nodding, “I could always talk but nobody ever listened to me or cared about me before so I stopped talking”.

But Babooshka bear didn’t have time to talk, even to a talking horse, because, looking at her pocket watch she saw that she was getting later and later for work with each passing second.

“Oh goodness”, she told the horse, “I’ll lose my job for sure if I don’t get to the honey factory quick”.

“Well, why don’t you ride on my back?”, said the horse, “I’ll take you there. It’s a lot faster than walking”.

And so, Babooshka bear climbed up onto the back of the horse and the horse galloped as fast as he could through the snowy streets of the city so that he got Babooshka bear to work just in time to start her shift.

Babooshka Bear – Part 2

All her friends and co-workers at the factory were very surprised to see Babooshka bear turn up to work on a horse and even more surprised when she thanked the horse and the horse said, “Don’t mention it. It was the least I could do after you set me free”.

But Babooshka only worried what might become of the horse, “It’s hard enough for a mother bear and her three cubs to survive in this city, never mind a runaway horse”, she said.

“Don’t worry about me”, replied the horse, “Perhaps, I’ll go back to the countryside where they treat horses better” and, as Babooshka waved goodbye to it with her paw, the horse trotted away.

It was not long, however, before Babooshka learned that she had even greater things to worry about.

“Did you hear?”, said Olga, Babooshka’s friend and fellow jar labler at the honey factory, “Mr Bully, the factory owner, is going to cut our wages in half and take away our Christmas holiday too”.

“Cut our wages! Take away our holiday!”, said Babooshka bear, outraged, “But that’s just not fair. I have three little bear cubs and struggle to feed them and clothe them as it is. How will we cope with less money? And, if he takes away our Christmas holiday, I won’t even be able to spend Christmas with my children, the way a mother should”.

Then, Babooshka remembered her horse friend and how he had been beaten and neglected by the man whose cart he pulled.

“We’re being mistreated just like that horse and it’s not right at all!”, she thought.

And so, standing on top of an upturned crate, Babooshka called out to her fellow workers in the factory.

“My friends”, she said, determinedly, “Mr Bully is being…well… a bully. He has to learn that he can’t abuse workers in this way and get away with it and so, I propose that we stop working until Mr Bully agrees not to cut our wages or take away our Christmas holiday”.

All the workers in the honey factory cheered when Babooshka said this, for all of them would have suffered terribly on lower wages and without their Christmas holiday and all agreed that it was a good idea to stop work until Mr Bully agreed to their demands but, not only did they agree with Babooshka, they also made her their representative so that she could present their demands to Mr Bully and tell him just how they all felt.

Mr Bully, however, was not a caring or understanding sort of person; infact, he was a greedy and selfish, fat ogre who, when Babooshka bear told him of their grievances, just bellowed, “I’ll fire the whole lot of you. I don’t need you troublemakers. I’ll bring in strike breakers; weasels to do the work who’ll do it happily. If you don’t want to work for the wages I pay you, then see how much you like being unemployed!”.

Babooshka bear was very unhappy when she heard Mr Bully, for she’d hoped that there might be some goodness in him but, even so, she was not downhearted and she told her fellow workers that they too should not give up hope or go back to work.

“We should not go back to work until Mr Bully has agreed to our very reasonable demands but nor should we let Weasel workers take our jobs”, she told them, “We will form a picket line in front of the honey factory and, when he sends the weasels to replace us, we will not let them in!”.

And so, Babooshka and her fellow workers, got busy, not packaging honey, but building a wall in front of the factory entrance made of crates of honey and, in front of the wall, they all stood in a line, holding hands to stop Mr Bully’s Strike breaking weasels from entering.

And when, an hour later, a van load of weasels turned up at the entrance to the factory, though they tried everything they could to weasel their way through the picket line, including trying to sneak in through a window at the back of the factory, Babooshka and her fellow factory workers would not let them in and they were forced to turn around and leave.

But then Babooshka looked at her watch and saw that it was about the time when her children would be coming home from school, “Oh, I can’t afford to leave the picket line but who will take care of my bear cubs”, she thought.
And a lot of the other workers in the factory had children and families too that they needed to get home to.

But then, as Babooshka was rubbing her head with her paw, trying to think of a solution, she felt a little tap upon her shoulder and, turning round, saw a little bee with a crown on its head. It was the
Queen bee whose workers made all the honey in their hives.

“Perhaps we Bee’s could help”, she said, “Providing that you and your worker friends agree to represent our needs as well”.

“Oh yes”, agreed Babooshka, nodding, “Certainly. Bears and bees standing shoulder to…umm…wing in solidarity”.

And so, on Babooshka’s instructions, the bees, in a big buzzing swarm, flew out of the honey factory
and went round the city to all the homes of all the workers, spreading the message to all their families that the bears at Bully’s honey factory had gone on strike and for them all to come to the factory and also that there would be honey sandwiches for all the bear cubs.

But, looking down at all the workers smiling and laughing and eating honey sandwiches from his office window, Mr Bully was just angry and he wasn’t ready to give in to their demands, not without a fight.

“How dare they. It’s my factory; not there’s. I’ll have the whole lot of them arrested and thrown in jail for this”, he said, picking up his phone and calling the police.

Fortunately for Babooshka, a bee happened to be buzzing about in a corner of Mr Bullys office and, overhearing Mr Bully, he flew down to tell Babooshka.

“What are we going to do now?”, asked the other strikers frightened that they would all be arrested and put in jail, “How will our children cope if we are in jail?”.

Babooshka remembered how she had run away from the policeman before but she couldn’t run away this time and so she asked the bear cubs, “Children? If we continue with the strike then I and your parents might be arrested and go to jail but if we don’t continue with it we will all lose our jobs and, worst of all, we will have surrendered our rights to be treated fairly and the bully, Mr Bully will have won. What do you think we should do?”.

But then, from outside the factory, Babooshka could hear the wailing of police sirens as a police van pulled up inside the factory grounds and out came lots of uniformed men with truncheons and barking dogs ready to arrest the strikers and Babooshka looked at her own three little bear cubs with a tear in her eye, worrying what would become of them if she were arrested.

What do you think? Dear reader. Do you think that Babooshka and the other bears at the factory should just give up? Remember that they were only striking for fair pay and a Christmas holiday so that they could spend time with their children. If anyone deserves to go to jail, it’s the wicked Mr Bully.

Maybe if you protest and shout out what you feel; the police might hear you and they may not arrest Babooshka. Try shouting it out. Shout out, “Don’t arrest Babooshka! Arrest Mr Bully!” and see what happens.

Babooshka hugged all of her bear cubs tightly, closing her eyes and hoping and praying for a miracle to happen but then, to her amazement, instead of being arrested she heard the angry voice of Mr Bully protesting, “I’ll have your jobs for this! How dare you! Don’t you know who I am?”

And, opening her eyes and, blinking once or twice just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, she saw Mr Bully being led away by the police in handcuffs and bundled into the back of the police van, “We serve the people”, replied the police sergeant closing the door at the back of the van, “Not just the rich, powerful fat cats like you but everyone and the people have made their voices loud and clear.
You’ve been treating your workers in the most awful way and so it’s you, you Bully, who has to go to jail”.

And, as the police van drove away, they all saw Mr Bully, his face beetroot red, shouting angrily at them as he waved his fist through the back window.

“I’ll get you for this!”, he yelled, “Don’t think I won’t”.

But then, Babooshka’s friend Olga asked, in a worried voice, “If Mr Bully’s in jail then whose going to run the factory?”.

“Why don’t we all run the factory”, suggested Babooshka, “We can all have a share in it and run it fairly, not the way Mr Bully did”.

And so, all the workers agreed that they would all share the responsibility of running the factory, have a vote in how it was run and share in its profits and Babooshka even gave a job to her friend the cart horse, delivering free honey to all the children in the city whose parents were too poor to buy it, and from that time onwards, all the workers and their children lived very happily ever after.