The Battle of the Bear

by Heather Arnold
(Connecticut)

I remember sitting on the bottom bunk of my shared pink unicorn stenciled room boiling with anger. Of course, at the age of 11 just the simplest matters can make an outrage of temper. My sister had just ripped off the head of my favorite Barbie doll after I decided I did not want to play with her. I sat there contemplating how to get her back. I thought about it and knew that my sister had loved her stuffed animals as if they were real live beings. I grabbed her big white bear stuffed animal that she always slept with. I screamed down the hall to get her attention and as I see her coming down the hallway angrily, I begin to punch the bear.

My sister screamed at me to stop as I laughed at the humor that she was hurt by me hitting an object filled with cotton stuffing. She jolted down the hallway trying to grab her beloved bear away from my grip. As we struggled in the middle of the hallway, my sister decided more physical contact was in order to have me release the choke hold over her bear. I felt my sister jump on top of my back causing me to fall to the floor. I was being tackled like we were playing football. I covered the bear with my body ignoring my sister's screams.

My sister became desperate and with that she started to pull my hair. As the pain set in from her hair tugging I decided the bear is not worth it anymore. I threw it down the hallway and pushed my sister off of me. We started to hit each other like the little girls we were, now both crying while hitting each other anywhere we could. As a scream from the kitchen echoed down the hall me and my sister froze. My mother approached the hall to see us standing there quiet, now trying to act innocent. My mother questioned what was going on and of course we point the blame at one another. My mother decided a punishment of staying in our rooms for an hour without any conversation was in order. I laid in my bed now with the knowledge that my sister would do anything to protect her furry stuffed animals. I smiled at the thought that our next fight all I had to do was to reach over her bed and grab her bear once again.