"Why did you tell her!" someone asked while Claire stirred awake.
"We didn't... exactly... tell her..." the kid with the yellow eyes said.
"But you called her by name though." someone else said. "Claire isn't that dense."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Claire and the kid formally known as Edward said together.
Everyone looked at Claire as she sat up in the bed she was in. Claire looked around where she was. The interior looked like Care-a-lot, but there were no Care Bears in sight. Instead, there were kids and teens of varied ages with abnormal eye colors.
"Please tell me I'm so sick I'm hallucinating." Claire told the kids and teens. They looked at each other, then at Claire and shook their heads.
"Sorry Claire." a girl with pink eyes said. "We wish it wasn't real either."
Claire stared at the girl for a while and then asked,
"Cheer?"
The girl nodded her head.
"Yes Claire, I am Cheer." she said in a way that made Claire feel like she had lost her memory or something.
Claire looked around the room and saw the faces. And the eyes, they were the biggest clues of all. She took educated guesses as she pointed to each one,
"Cheer, Funshine, Share, and Grumpy. Tenderheart, Love-a-lot, Bedtime, and Oopsy."
The ones Claire addressed, nodded their heads. When Edward's real identity was confirmed, Claire got up and walked over to him.
She looked at him for a few minutes, Oopsy had a face that Claire didn't understand.
"Are you really Oopsy?" she asked.
"Yep." he said with a wide smile. Claire nodded then slapped him across the face. Everyone looked at him surprised, Oopsy looked like he was confused and hurt as he rubbed his throbbing and red face.
"That's for lying to me you jerk!" Claire shouted at him. "But this," she said softly before giving him a hug, "Is for being a great friend. You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this."
Oopsy didn't feel so bad now, and hugged Claire back. For once since never, they were the same height and Oopsy was going to use this to his advantage as much as he could. He had something he had to do before he was a Care Bear again, and it was better now the never. But it had to wait until they were alone first...
"I hate to break you two up," Grumpy said, "But I need both of your help."
Claire and Oopsy stopped hugging and stood at attention next to each other, ready for Grumpy's orders.
"Oopsy, I need you to help me with that machine so we can be bears again. Claire, we'll need you to hide us with the rest of the human world. Clothes, food, houses, you name it, we need your help with it."
"Wait a minute," Claire said, "You're telling me that you guys are going to be hitch-hiking at my house? No way. No way!"
"Well, there's no way for us to stay here!" Grumpy pointed out. "Everything's too small for us."
"You just now realize that?" Claire asked. "Why do you think I have this?" she said, showing the bracelet that had their Belly Badges in silver on it. "I'm too big for the Care Bear Transporter, which was the perfect size for a Care Bear if you remember correctly."
How could they forget? They were Care Bears up until they woke up and found themselves human a few days ago.
"We need to live with you until Grumpy, Oopsy, Tenderheart, and Funshine get a machine working to change us back." Cheer told her.
"No, you guys can't do that! Isn't there, like, 20 or so of all you guys together? What am I going to say to Dad? Or the neighbors? There is no reason on Earth why more then 4 tents have appeared in the backyard when my only other friend is Sari!"
"Well, we can't stay here!" Grumpy argued again.
"See if I care!" Claire unexpectedly said.
Everyone gasped.
"Oh shut up, you're not Care BEARS anymore. Heck, you might as well be known as the Care Humans if you stay like this!"
"Now Claire," Oopsy said trying to soothe her, "We all know that you're upset that..."
"Shut up who-ever-you-are-now!" Claire snapped, shoving a pointed finger at his face, "You are in NO place at all to be talking to me at the moment!"
Oopsy backed up in fear of being scratched, and he was smart enough to know that Claire needed space.
"Claire, you need to calm down." Cheer said.
"I'll calm down when I'm dead!" Claire declared. "But until that happens, how in the world did you guys become human to begin with?"
The Care Humans looked at each other and then at her.
"We've had ideas," Funshine said.
"But none of them made sense." Share added.
"What ideas came to mind?" Claire asked.
It took five minutes to tell Claire of all the ideas that the Care Bears had. Grizzle was listed in two of those theories.
"And how do you guys not think it wasn't Grizzle? For the love of goodness, doesn't he have ideas to make machines like that?"
The Care Humans looked at each other, and then at Claire.
"We can't get up there without Belly Badges." Cheer told her.
Claire and Oopsy smacked their foreheads in disbelief.