The Care Bears and the Queen of Care-a-lot

THE COMPLETED STORY

Inspired by a True Story

Note: New Cleveland is a fictional town parallel to the real Cleveland, Ohio.

Chapter 1: Rainbow Colors

Sophie Summers walked alone on the bike path on a summer afternoon. She hummed a random tune and kicked pebbles as far as she could as she took her stroll.

It was Friday, the 7th of June, a day right after school let out. It was sticky and hot out in New Cleveland, Ohio. Birds and crickets filled the air with noise. She was planning to have a wonderful afternoon alone, and no one was going to ruin it.

"It's summer vacation, and the first thing I'm going to do is be outside and color." she said to herself, already thinking about what she was going to draw that afternoon.

The woods on the side of the path started to get thicker. Sophie began to look for her secret hiding place. When she found a little trail leading down into the trees, she took it down and was careful not to loose her footing.

Dirt got on her rainbow leggings and light up sneakers. The branches of bushes snagged at her aqua tank top. She wore a backpack over her shoulders, which carried her art supplies.

Sophie found a log bench and sat down on it, taking her backpack off.

She sat still for a few moments trying to enjoy the summer heat and took a drink of water from her aqua water bottle. Her black braids fell down her shoulders and moved when she looked around at the canopy.

Her mom had been the one to braid her hair, but now her dad did. She missed her mom terribly ever since she passed away two months ago. Nothing was the same now. Her dad had to work more and she had to deal with being alone most of the time. She didn't have any friends and certainly wasn't going to look for any in the near future. What was the point of having them anyway?

Sophie thought back to the time when she did have a best friend.

Her name was Emily King, who was half-French and half-American and was a little rich snob. Sophie hated her now. It all started on the day that she learned her mom had gotten cancer. Emily began to bully her, and found two new friends to help her. As if Sophie wasn't in enough emotional trouble they made it worse. She hated all three of them with every fiber of her being.

It was difficult to move on from loosing her mom. She missed her every day.

While her dad wasn't around much, when he was, he would try and make sure he knew her feelings. As a result of her mom passing, she got a light gray kitten named Cloudy a few weeks later. The kitten helped a little, but she wasn't able to replace her mom. At least Sophie didn't feel so alone anymore…

She put away her water bottle and pulled out her drawing pad and crayons. She looked at her previous drawings. She had stopped drawing four months ago as her mom's illness had gotten worse. Her last drawing was of a girl hunched over in the rain. That was certainly how she had felt then.

Sighing, Sophie flipped the page and started to choose her crayon. Then she looked up at the sky through the trees, and easily imagined a cloudy paradise.

She put on her headphones and selected some classical music on her iPod, and started drawing. Colors blossomed onto the page as she drew clouds and rainbows.

Meanwhile, up in Care-a-lot, Wish Bear and Cheer Bear arrived at the Care-a-lot castle looking for an important book that could help them. They had to hurry, as Care-a-lot was in trouble.

They rushed up the stairs to the attic.

The points on the Caring Meter were dropping and almost at an all time low. No matter how many caring missions they all went on, the points only seemed to keep dropping. What was going on?

"I hope we find that book soon." Wish told Cheer.

"Me too." she replied.

Wish sighed with frustration as she searched through yet another box with no luck.

"This old room could really use some serious cleaning up." she said, waving her paw in front of her nose. It was dusty and cobwebs were hanging on the ceiling. She sneezed.

"Excuse you. And yeah. I wonder if there was an easier and quicker way to look for that book." Cheer nodded.

Wish closed her eyes and made a wish. I wish to know where the book Tenderheart wants is located.

Her symbol glowed brightly and sparkled. When it stopped, a glow emerged from one of the boxes at the far end of the attic.

They both moved the boxes out of the way and got over to the box that was glowing. Together they opened it and discovered a lot of unique antiques, probably gathered by True Heart and Noble Heart. At the very bottom Cheer picked up the book.

It was a beautiful book with a rainbow cover and a fancy gold crown.

"The Legend of the Queen of Care-a-lot." Cheer read the title.

"It sounds like a good book, if you ask me." Wish said smiling, "Well, let's go get this book to Tenderheart."

Cheer nodded and said, "You know, I'm not sure why Tenderheart kept it up here instead of in the bookshelf in the Hall of Hearts."

"Have you seen that shelf lately? It's pretty full."

"Hmm."

"Oh… that reminds me. I have heard of the legend before. I think that the Queen created Care-a-lot or something. Before True Heart and Noble Heart found it."

"You know about it more than I do." Cheer said.

They just skimmed through the book leisurely for a moment. They were certain since it was important enough, Tenderheart would hold a meeting about it for everyone to hear.

They left the room with the book and headed back to the Hall of Hearts.

Tenderheart was in the rainbow rescue beam room looking at the computer screens with a worried look on his face. A red light was blinking. It showed a little half Native-American girl's face with dark brown eyes, and black hair in two braids, and next to it was her name: Sophie Summers. Five black dots were coming in closer to her, which obviously didn't mean anything good.

"We brought you the book!" Cheer said happily and put the book in Tenderheart's paws.

"Thank you, Cheer. It's just the one I needed. I'm glad it was still around… oh dear…" he looked up at the screen again.

"What is it, Tenderheart?" Wish asked.

"A girl named Sophie is in trouble!"

Back in the forest down on earth, a girl with purple and green hair, and an odd troll rudely interrupted Sophie. Quickly she found out they were Beastly and Shreeky. Shreeky ripped the paper away from her instantly getting her attention.

Sophie took off her headphones and shouted, "Hey! What was that for?"

"Now we have your attention." Shreeky laughed.

Sophie scoffed.

"Give that back! And what do you want?" She asked, still trying to get her drawing pad and crayons back from Beastly.

"Glad you asked." Shreeky said, "We want you to come with us. Help us out."

"I don't know why you think I would want to help you, even after you stole my stuff. I came out here to enjoy this nice afternoon by myself—"

"No one cares about what you were doing. This weather is bad! I hate it! It's hot and yucky!" Beastly complained, destroying her drawing pad and eating her crayons. Shreeky nodded in approval.

"No!" Sophie felt herself wanting to cry. Why did he have to take his anger out on her things?

These two were no better than Emily, Vera, and Tanya. The instant she made that connection, she made up her mind.

"I'm not ever going to help you." she said, disliking them in that very moment.

Shreeky grabbed her wrist and said, "Oh yes you are — and whether you like it or not!"

Shreeky's hand was cold and clammy, and Sophie shouted for help.

"Help me! I'm being kidnapped!"

"Shut up!" Shreeky yelled louder.

Sophie didn't listen to her. Beastly tried to steal her backpack and her iPod, but she wasn't going to let him get away.

"Keep your hands off my stuff! And would you leave me alone!" she yelled.

She snatched grabbed her backpack and iPod back before he tried to scale a tree. Sophie knew there wasn't any hope for her sketchpad or crayons that Beastly ate, and decided her afternoon plans were canceled.

"I'm going home. It was a mistake to come out here anyway." she said.

Sophie ran up the steep side of the hill and reached the bike path.

And as if her afternoon couldn't get any worse, there were three girls riding their bikes down the path. And they weren't just any three girls. They were Emily, Tanya and Vera. And they spotted her. They were already too close for her liking.

"Oh no." she knew she was in serious trouble. Running away wouldn't help. There wasn't a chance of her walking past them without them noticing her. She was trapped. Fear rocked through her like a concert that she didn't want to be at.

Believe it or not, but Emily used to be her best friend once upon a time. They would go over to each other's houses and play all kinds of games, from playing with dollhouses, coloring contests, to watching movies. Emily even liked the Care Bears back then, too. Sophie loved them. But she had to hide her interest for them when things got worse later on. Sometimes Emily got a bit bossy, but Sophie never complained.

Then one day – it was the day her mom went into the hospital - when they were coming home from school together, Sophie took off her backpack to get something out. But she never got the chance. For some reason, Emily swiped Sophie's backpack away and put it on her shoulders as if it were her own.

"Hey, give that back!" Sophie said.

She tried to reach for the backpack, but since Sophie was shorter, she had a hard time. She jumped up and reach for the strap, but touched Emily's chest on accident.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed, and started to speed up towards her home.

"Then give my backpack to me!" Sophie cried, trying to get it from her friend. Sophie jumped up to get it again, but something terrible happened. Emily pushed Sophie down to the road. And she dropped Sophie's backpack too. Sophie was hurt – she had scrapes and bruises. She was a different person when she stood up.

Sophie picked up her backpack and ran home crying. Her dad hugged her, and told Sophie that she should send an e-mail to Emily's parents as well as Emily, asking for an apology.

So she did. But Emily never said sorry. That was all she wanted.

Sophie then made the mistake of teasing Emily through e-mails. She didn't tell her dad. Emily begged her to stop, but she wasn't going to until she said sorry. That was the moment that their friendship died.

That day, Sophie's mother was diagnosed with cancer. Her dad told her the news after she told him what happened on her way home from school. They went straight to the hospital.

In the following days, whenever Sophie was at school, Emily picked on her, taunted her, did mean things to her, even stole her notebooks and pencils and wrote rude things on her desk. One time Emily even destroyed Sophie's English text book. Sophie stopped teasing Emily, realizing that she was never going to say sorry, but Emily never stopped bullying her.

And all she wanted was for Emily to say sorry.

If only there was someone out there who could help her.