The Fourth Bear

“Not really,” replied Jack unconvincingly, and went upstairs. The bedroom door was locked, and he rapped very gently on the frame.

“Go away,” came a voice from inside, so he went downstairs to look after Stevie, who had discovered the dusty delights of the coal scuttle.

“Hi, Dad!” said Ben, who had just walked in. “How’s it swoggling?”

“I think your brother wants to be a chimney sweep,” replied Jack, attempting to put a cheery face on matters. “How are things with Penelope?”

Ben was sixteen and awash in an almost toxic cocktail of hormones; the object of his unrequited love was Penelope Liddell, who played the harp in the school band. Despite his hard-worked best intentions, he had utterly failed to convince her he was worthy of a date.

“Not that good,” he replied. “About a month ago, I overheard her saying she always looked forward to Laurence Sterne, so I spent the next three weeks reading nothing but Tristram Shandy and then quoted several passages and made a few obscure jokes of a Shandean nature to try and impress her.”

“What happened?”

“She asked me what I was talking about. I told her, and she said, ‘Laurence Sterne? Who’s he?’ And there’s no real answer to that except to say that he was an eighteenth-century pastor who wrote very strange books. Then she said she didn’t see how pasta could write books, and any pasta that old would be inedible anyway and that Sterne couldn’t be half as strange as me, and walked off. It was only later I found out what she really meant was how she always looked forward to ‘Lawrence’s turn… to go to the shops,’ as he usually had a few extra bob in his pocket.”

Jack patted him on the arm. “This reminds me of the time when you heard her say she loved Keats—only to find out she wanted to have two—a boy and a girl.”

“Yes,” he replied mournfully. “Life is full of little misunderstandings. I’m now an expert on Sterne and Keats, when a small investment in a Snickers bar and a can of soda would have at least got me a cheery thank-you and a peck on the cheek.”

At that moment Pandora walked back into the living room in a state of high dudgeon.

“No, no and no,” she said. “We won’t be having any live animal sacrifices.”

“Oh, come on,” said Prometheus, who had entered after her.

“It’s traditional. ”

“So was the Black Death,” she retorted, “but I’m not having it at my wedding.”

“Just one teensy-weensy bull—barely a seven-hundred-pounder. You’ll hardly even notice it.”

“No!” said Pandora, putting her foot down. “I’m not having any animals put to death at my wedding. You’ll be inviting Zeus next.”

There was silence.

“You’ve invited him, haven’t you?”

Prometheus shrugged. “I had to. Hera called and said the God of Gods was down in the dumps when he didn’t get an invite. He was right off his smoting and hasn’t even looked at a pretty handmaiden to ravish for over a week.”

“This is because I invited Aunt Beryl and you don’t like her, isn’t it?”

“I have no problem with your Aunt Beryl,” replied the Titan.

“It’s that dog of hers that gets right on my nerves.”

“What’s wrong with Frubbles?”

“What’s right with Frubbles? That’s not a dog—it’s a skeleton with hair. And why does it shiver all the time?”

Pandora thought for a moment. The shivering a

“I’ll speak to Beryl and tell her that Frubbles shouldn’t attend because… because Cerberus will be part of the wedding procession, okay?”

“Okay,” said Prometheus sulkily.

“But no Zeus, no sacrifices and definitely no Sirens. Dad, will you back me up?”

“I’m with you on this one, sweetpea.”

“Very well,” said Prometheus, who regarded Jack’s word as law, “but Zeus will only cause trouble. Forget reason—he acts like a three-year-old in charge of the U.S. Marine Corps.”

Jack bathed Stevie and put everyone to bed after di

Jack was just pondering whether to knock gently on Madeleine’s door when a movement on the edge of his vision made him stop. He turned slowly, the hairs on his neck rising. At the far end of the corridor, staring at a large, gold-painted vase that was sitting atop an occasional table, was the small, apelike creature he had seen yesterday in the closet under the stairs. It was not more than two feet high and covered with a smattering of brown hair. It couldn’t reach the vase and looked around for something to stand on. As it turned, the moonlight caught its features, and Jack shivered. A large snout surrounded a mouth filled with brown teeth that were anything but straight. Small eyes stood below a wrinkled brow, and its ears, pixielike, stuck out at odd angles from the side of its potato-shaped head. This, Jack knew, was Caliban.

He disappeared around the corner and reappeared a moment later pulling Stevie’s trike. He placed it under the table and stood precariously on top, the trike wobbling dangerously. Caliban put out two hands, picked up the shiny vase and looked at it admiringly. He stepped off the trike with some difficulty, as the vase was large and he couldn’t see around it, then took several uncertain steps toward where Jack was watching. Jack waited until the little ape was underneath him and then plucked the vase from his grip.

“Aha!” said Jack with a triumphant cry.

But Caliban wasn’t so easily dispossessed of his property, and with an “AHA! ” he jumped up and grabbed it back, then ran off as fast as his short legs would carry him. Jack yelled, “Stop!” and ran after the small figure. The farce could end in only one way. The creature tripped over a fold in the carpet, fell flat on his face and dropped the vase, which then rolled toward the head of the stairs. Caliban put a paw to his mouth as he watched the vase escape him, and Jack, more concerned now for the vase than with capturing the ugly little ape, raced past the creature, took a ru

“Crap,” he muttered. The vase was Madeleine’s, and it had been until very recently a priceless and much-loved family heirloom.

Caliban walked up to where Jack was lying at the top of the stairs and looked forlornly at the remains of the vase.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “Was it valuable?”

Jack closed his eyes as he heard a door open behind them.

“More than you know,” he answered in a low voice.

“Who did this?” asked Madeleine as soon as she realized what had happened.

“He did,” replied Caliban and Jack in unison, each pointing an accusing finger at the other.

“What?!” said Jack in outrage. “You stole the vase, pal.”

“I wouldn’t have dropped it if you hadn’t been chasing me.”

“I wouldn’t have been chasing you if you hadn’t stolen it!”

“I wasn’t stealing it.”

“What then?”

“I was borrowing it.”

“You—”

Madeleine interrupted them both. “I don’t care who’s to blame; you can both clear it up. My grandmother gave me that vase before she died.”

Caliban giggled at the non sequitur but tried to make it sound like a cough when Madeleine glared at him.

“What’s so fu

“Nothing,” he replied meekly.

Madeleine walked angrily back to the bedroom and shut the door with a bang.

“Thanks a bunch,” said Jack to the misshapen ape as they both sat on the top step, “you troublemaking ignoramus.”

“I’m not an ignoramus,” retorted Caliban crossly. “Ask me anything.”

“All right, smart-ass. Who owns Bart-Mart?”

“QuangTech,” said the ugly little ape without a pause. “Everyone knows that. ”