Bear Facts

‘Okay!’ Madame Butterfly, as I called her, tapped on my bedroom door, saw me in my pyjamas and fled.

Still in them, I was out of the hotel and across the street, where that old black man was slumped on the sidewalk with his bits and pieces, including a teddy bear, one ear half off and big button eyes, wide with appeal. ‘What,’ they asked, ‘what is to become of me?’

Two bucks and he was mine. Behind us, as the song said, little cable cars climbed half way to the stars, to the top of Russian Hill and a view over the Bay to Alcatraz Island. And with a small strip of cloth above each eye, unusual for a bear, I’d just met Eyebrows Alcatraz, the bear who got away.

Next thing, the hotel elevator took us down instead of up, where Madame Butterfly waited with more fresh linen.

She’d seen the pyjamas, so it must be the bear. ‘Okay!’ she gasped, leaving me and Eyebrows to climb half way to the stars, as far as the second floor.