Excerpt: As Yet Unnamed

There had been a small teddy bear I'd seen at a jewelery store in the Oromocto mall. It was so sad looking - his nose was crooked, one of his arms was longer than the other, and one of his legs dangled at a funny angle. I immediately fell in love with him, and begged my mother if I could have him. She said no, of course. What eleven year old child doesn't see something when they go out shopping and go, "Mommy, please can I have it?" However, I continued to ask every time we went to the mall. In fact, I even hid this particular teddy bear at the back of the row of teddy bears so that nobody else would buy him, and I pointed this out to my mother. Every time we went to the mall, I would go say hello to him - Teddy, as I originally decided to call him - and would point out to my mother that he was still hiding behind all the other teddy bears. So when I opened my stocking on Christmas morning and found a long, soft package wrapped in tissue paper in my stocking, I nearly cried when I unwrapped it and found Teddy lying there. I hugged him close to me and told him how happy I was that he was here to make me feel better.