The Three Bears meets Tarantino

Once upon a time, there were three bears. Father Bear had obsessive compulsive disorder and in the mornings would only eat food that was stone-coloured, thick and gluey. So it was porridge for breakfast again, no matter how many times Baby Bear spat into it and said he preferred Coco Pops. He was a little tyke and his nursery teachers didn’t know what to do with him.

Mother Bear was stirring the porridge with her stump because Baby Bear was using the wooden spoon as an imaginary AK47. The stump was the result of an unfortunate encounter with a neighbour, one of those domestic niggles about chucking snails into next door’s garden. Mrs B didn’t like to talk about it.

There was a knock at the door and a blonde poked her head round. “Is this Cafe Nero?” she said. She pronounced both ‘café’ and ‘Nero’ with the emphasis on the second syllables and that was something Father Bear had never been able to stand in a woman. In a flash, he’d jumped up, grabbed the bubbling pot from off the Primus (things weren’t good financially, what with having to keep changing Baby Bear to a new nursery) and poured the porridge over the blonde’s head. She slumped to the floor, covered in breakfast. Baby Bear yelled like a Red Indian and, just to finish things off, broke a chair over her prostrate body while Mother Bear shook her head and scratched her right ear with her stump, wondering whether there was enough bread for toast.