Once upon a
time, a little white bear was born in London. He spent his first five years
there learning about punk rock. When he was five, he convinced his parents to
let him go to America for a Punk Rock concert in the city of Las Vegas.
The punk
rock show was very crowded, and the little white bear was pushed around quite a
bit. Then he fell down and bonked his head.
The next day,
he woke up in the hospital with a headache and one big problem – he didn’t
remember his name. The doctors and nurses knew he was from England because of
his accent, but they didn’t know his name. Poor bear.
After two
weeks, the white bear was ready to leave, but the doctors couldn’t let him go
until he picked a new name. One of the doctors suggested he pick “Teddy”
because he reminded her of a teddy bear she once had as a girl. Everybody
agreed Teddy would be a very good name.
Teddy wandered
around Las Vegas for a while, but didn’t know where to go. Being a bear, he got
quite hungry. He saw a bakery and decided to go into to see what he could find
to eat. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any money and the baker got very mad and
chased poor Teddy right out into the street.
Teddy was so
scared of that angry baker that he ran into another store without even looking
at the name. It turned out to be a souvenir store. And do you know what Teddy
saw there? It was a whole shelf of bears that looked just like him, except for
one thing – they all had purple bowties and Teddy didn’t. He found a piece of
ribbon on the floor and tied it around his neck so he could blend in. Then he
sat on a shelf with the other bears so the baker couldn’t find him if he came
into the shop.
Every now
and then, people would come into the shop looking for something to take home to
their families. Sometimes they even picked a bear from the shelf, but Teddy
never got picked. He was tired of not being picked.
Teddy god
mad and left the store looking for a way to make himself stand out from the
other bears on the shelf. He saw another building that had all kinds of
colorful pictures in the window. He went in. It was a tattoo parlor. He didn’t
have any money to get a tattoo, but the tattoo artist was from England and felt
sorry for Teddy, so he told Teddy he would give him two free tattoos.
Teddy had to
think very hard about what kind of tattoos he wanted. He decided he wanted the
words “Las Vegas” on his front to remind him of the place he had his great
adventure. Then, on his back, he had the tattoo artist write, “City of Lights,”
because that’s the slogan for Las Vegas and he thought it sounded very punk
rock.
Teddy
thanked the tattoo artist for the new tattoos and said goodbye. The tattoo
artist said Teddy looked great, and that his name from now on should be “Teddy
Vegas,” because that was also very punk rock. Teddy liked that idea.
Just as
Teddy Vegas was heading back into the souvenir store, he walked under a ladder
with a painter at the top. The painter was startled by seeing a bear with
tattoos and lost his balance. And all his paint came falling down on Teddy
Vegas in a big splash of color.
When Teddy
Vegas finally got himself cleaned up, he wasn’t a white bear any more. His fur had
been turned into all the colors of the rainbow!
Finally, Teddy
Vegas headed back to the souvenir store. He climbed up on his shelf with all
the white bears, and he was definitely one of a kind.
Just then, a
man walked in looking for a unique teddy bear to take home to his little
daughter back home in St. Louis, Missouri.
He looked at
the white bears and thought “These bears are not unique at all. I guess I will
have to just get my little girl a plain old white bear.” Then he noticed Teddy
Vegas. He was all the colors of the rainbow AND he even had tattoos! The man
picked up Teddy Vegas and paid for him.
The man took
a plane back to St. Louis. He got in his car and drove to his house. When he
got home, he gave Teddy Vegas to a two-year old girl named Abby, and they lived
happily ever after.
