This is the story of Jose, who helped save the Nature Park of Buenos Aires
by Michele Villard Brand
Translation from German into English by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano
Once upon a time there was a sweet little brown bear, named Jose who traveled around the world to a country called Argentina.
He had heard that there is so much to do there: you can travel to the country where there is a lot of land to ride on horses with shiny fur, you can watch chicken as they lay their white and brown eggs, and you can run a race with dogs and cats.
Next to all this land lies the big city Buenos Aires, where many people live and little houses are built right next to big buildings. A very big brown river, called Rio de la Plata runs through Buenos Aires. On the weekends many colorful sailboats and motorboats sail back and forth, back and forth. And when the wind is strong you can even see big waves.
Anyway, the little brown bear, Jose, wanted to go to the river to look at all the sailboats. It was a sunny and warm day and Jose ran down the streets to get to the river as fast as possible.
How beautiful everything looked!! The sailboats rocked in the water, the colorful birds tweeted in the trees and Jose was very happy.
Suddenly Jose started to feel tired and he thought to himself: Hm, there is a nice, shady spot. I am going to lay down and rest. I am feeling a little warm with all my fur.
So, he laid down on a little bench under a big tree. Suddenly he heard a noise in the bushes nearby and two little black eyes looked at him.
“Well, who are you“?
A little mouse looked at Jose with big eyes and a big tear was running down her snout:
“I am Pipra, the mouse from the Nature Park, what is your name?“
“I am Jose, but what happened, dear Pipra, can I help you?“
“I don’t know what to do?“ cried the little Pipra. “Last week, a few children came to our beautiful park. They were laughing and playing hide and seek between the trees. Then, one of the children pulled out a cigarette lighter. Everyone started to look for small branches and they started a fire. Can you imagine! The fire and smoke started to crawl towards our little caves.
All the little mice who live here are afraid and their eyes are hurting from all the smoke. They lost their homes. All the frogs who lived in the lake can’t croak anymore at night, because their lungs are hurting because of all that smoke. The colorful fish in the watter are all hiding. The worms in the earth are also hiding because they are afraid. And so many birds have flown away and no one is singing anymore. Everyone is so afraid. And today I saw the same children again.
” Oh my, dear Pipra, that is really bad”!
Jose starts thinking and suddenly had an idea.
“I know what we are going to do, Pipra! We are going to scare those mean children, so nothing bad will ever happen again in the park”! “Do you know how to do that?”, asks the little mouse with wide open eyes.
“Of course, I do! Come and show me the park and the spot where the children built the fire.”
Jose followed Pipra quickly and both of them ran through the thick woods on a beautiful path, where lots of colorful flowers were growing. Soon, they arrived exactly at the spot where the children had made the fire.
“We are going to hide behind this big tree now and wait until the children come”, said Jose.
So they waited for a little while until they heard laughter. “They are coming, they are coming, Pirpra said exitedly.
“Shhhhhh”, said Jose. Please be really quiet, otherwise we cannot scare them”.
They heard Krack, krack, krack and suddenly 4 children were next to the water. One of them said:
” What do you think, should we make another fire? That was fun last time. Did you see all the animals who came scrambling scared out of their holes? Ha Ha Ha!!” “Yes, yes”, the others screamed.
And they immediately started to gather a big pile of branches. Just as they were about to light the fire, Jose came out of his hiding spot and growled very loudly:
“Grrrrr grrrrrr”!
Pipra was peeking out quietly from behind the bear .
“Did you hear that”? one of the children asked scared.
“Grrrrrr grrrrrr”!
Jose came closer and closer and growled louder and louder.
“Grrrrrr grrrrr!“
The children stood there as if paralyzed when they saw Jose who was now standing right in front of them. He was very mad and said very seriously:
“If any one of you EVER try to make a fire in the Nature Park again, I will scratch that child with my paws and my little friend here will bite your feet! Do you want that? Do you even know what damage you caused with your fire”?
“No………..”, said the children.
Jose and Pipra told them
“We are so very sorry”.
“Good”, said Jose. “As your punishment, you will help all the mice to rebuild their houses and then all of you will sing a song, so the frogs, birds, fish, worms and other animals don’t have to be afraid anymore and can live in peace”.
And that is what the children did. Soon after, they left as fast as they could and did not return to the park for a long time. They remembered the bear and the mouse for a long time and did not get into anymore mischief.
Jose and Pipra stayed good friends. Every time, Jose went to see the sailboats on the river, he visited Pipra in the Nature Park of Buenos Aires.
And they lived happily ever after.