The Fridge was Bear

Cali opened the fridge to get some spread and found a polar bear. A real, living polar bear, or at least the head and neck of one, for they filled her view obscuring the rest of the fridge completely. In the back of her mind Cali wondered how a real living polar bear could fit in her fridge. The bear seemed as surprised by this event as Cali was.

For a moment they stood staring at each other in amazement, then the bear stretched out its enormous rubbery black nose and sniffed at Cali. Cali felt all the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention and a cold shiver ran down her spine as she remembered from a documentary on the telly that polar bears were carnivores.

The bear let out a great fishy smelling breath. Cali grimaced at the odour, it smelt like next doors dog’s breath, only much more powerful. This gave Cali an idea; she reached up and scratched the bear’s ears. The bear half closed its eyes and rumbled contentedly. Like the dog next door, the bear liked having its ears scratched.

Having made friends, the bear became interested in its surroundings. The head roved around the kitchen on the end of the long neck, sniffing and snorting. At last it came to investigate the contents of the fridge door. The eager nose passed over jars of marmalade, bottles of sauce, milk and eggs and finally came to rest on a packet of bacon. The bacon disappeared into the bear’s mouth, plastic wrapper and all. The bear chewed thoughtfully for several minutes, then with a cough it deposited the soggy torn plastic wrapper back into the fridge door.

Overcome by curiosity the bear moved forward into the kitchen. It was indeed a complete polar bear. Cali couldn’t figure out how it had squeezed its huge bulk out of the fridge, but once it had, it seemed to fill the whole kitchen. The last huge paw came through followed by a flurry of snow and a gust of freezing wind and then the fridge door swung shut, cutting off Cali’s view of the bears homeland.

She turned her attention back to the bear. It was hard to focus on anything else. It towered above her even standing on all four paws. And the paws were the size of dinner plates. It was leaving great sodden footprints of melt-water all over the lino.

The bear stood up on its hind legs and began snorting and sniffing at the cupboards around the kitchen. Apparently the tiny packet of bacon had not satisfied it. It snuffled its way along the worktop and came to the peanut butter sandwich Cali had been making. With one lick of its tongue it cleaned out the peanut butter jar, and then shoved its muzzle into the open bag of bread and seemed to inhale it slice by slice. It emerged licking its chops.

Having satisfied its curiosity with the kitchen, the bear saw the door into the hall and lumbered towards it. If the polar bear wanted to explore her house, Cali knew she could do nothing to stop it, so she followed to see what it would do.

The bear wandered into the living room and began investigating the crystal ornaments on the fireplace, no doubt attracted by their shining ice-like qualities. Knowing her mum would kill her if one of the precious ornaments got broken, Cali switched on the TV hoping to distract the bear. She flicked through the channels until she found a nature documentary. By coincidence the programme was about seals, the bear turned its attention on the screen immediately. It followed the movements of the pictures with its eyes then thrust its snout right at the screen and snuffled and sniffed enthusiastically. Cali could see it trying to figure it out. It could see seals, but couldn’t smell them. The bear turned away disappointedly, leaving the TV screen smeared with bear snot, it had realised the seals weren’t really there. Smart bear, thought Cali.

Then the bear saw the garden through the patio doors, it turned and tried to walk straight through the glass, it bounced off and sat down with a bump. There was a perfect polar bear nose print left on the patio doors. The bear was grumbling and rubbing its bumped nose with its paws. Cali couldn’t help but laugh; she opened the doors and went out into the garden. The bear followed, cautiously.

Inevitably, next doors dog came flying out into the neighbour’s garden yapping wildly. Cali liked the dog, she even walked it at weekends, but it always rushed out barking every time someone went into the garden. The polar bear seemed curious about the small furious ball of fur and it leaned its long neck over the garden fence to investigate.

For a moment Cali feared the bear might eat the dog, the dog seemed to be thinking the same thing. It had frozen in place, all its fur standing on end and it was trembling from head to tail as the polar bear lowered its head towards it. The bears head was the same size as the dog. The bear sniffed curiously at the dog and with this the dog finally broke out of its trance and tail between its legs it dashed for the safety of the house, leaving the dog flap clattering.

The bear did a lap of the garden, stopping at the bird bath for a drink. It drained it in three long slurps, then satisfied with its investigations, it headed back indoors.

The bear knocked every picture as it followed Cali up the stairs. It paused in the door to the bathroom and before Cali could blink, it had consumed a tube of toothpaste and knocked her dad’s aftershave into the sink. The smell of the stuff seemed to offend its sensitive nostrils and it backed clumsily out onto the narrow landing.

Cali guided it into her small bedroom, where the bear seemed larger than ever. It nosed at her collection of cuddly toys on the bed, apparently to see if any of them were worth eating, then flumped down across the duvet. The bed creaked and groaned alarmingly, but held the bear’s weight. Worn out by its adventures the bear began to snooze. Cali sat next to it, stroking its thick fur and rubbing its soft ears. She saw her hairbrush on her dressing table and the box which contained all her hair accessories and she crept to get them.

~~~

Cali woke up with a start at the same moment as the bear. She must have fallen asleep against it, she felt wonderfully warm and comfortable snuggled up against the bear. Then the sound that had awoken them came again. The squeaking of the back gate, someone had just come through it and next doors dog was yapping, apparently its encounter with the bear had not dampened its spirit for long.

Cali leapt up in a panic, Mum was back, she’d have a fit if she came home to find a polar bear in the house. Cali looked around frantically, there was no way she could hide the bear, it was just too enormous, she realised she would have to try and get it back through the fridge to where it belonged.