Mr. Teddy

On a warm September afternoon, a new father is watching after his son while his wife is out running errands. Upon her arrival back to the house, she mentions that she got a surprise for their baby boy. As she is telling her husband this she pulls a giant teddy bear out of a plastic bag and anxiously hands it to her son. The boy is overcome with excitement as he feels like he just met his new best friend. 

As years go by the two remain inseparable and he brings his new friend, now with the new distinguished name Mr. Teddy, everywhere he goes. The boy tells stories of how Mr. Teddy talks to him, gives him advice, and essentially is a living person inside of a stuffed teddy bear. All of his friends, as well as his father, don’t believe him, while the boy’s mother doesn’t discredit what her son is saying. 

One day at school, the boy’s teacher mentions that show and tell is quickly approaching, and students should make final decisions on what they are bringing. Obviously, the boy wants to bring in Mr. Teddy and introduce him to all of his classmates that don’t believe in his personification. He goes home to ask his mother if he can bring Mr. Teddy to school but she is incredibly hesitant to let him do it. When asked why she gave vague reasoning, essentially falling back to tell her son that Mr. Teddy probably won’t want to be around all of those people in a foreign environment. The boy half-heartedly agrees with her but stuffs him in his backpack the next morning to bring him to show and tell.

The next day at school, as his classmates are showing an assortment of items such as their father’s Rolex and grandfather’s World War II medals, the boy is giddy with anticipation to show his classmates his special friend. As it becomes his turn to present he brings Mr. Teddy upfront and introduces his classmates to him. He explains to his classmates about the special abilities that Mr. Teddy has and asks him to say a few words to the class… silence. He asks again… silence. The classroom, full of young students, erupts in laughter while the boy is confused and distraught. 

When it’s time for his mother to pick him up from school she can see the sadness on her son’s face. When asking him what was wrong the boy kept it to himself as he did not want his mother to know that he didn’t heed her warnings about bringing Mr. Teddy to the classroom. When she finally pulls it out of him she is furious as her son did exactly what she told him not to do. When the two get home the father notices the bad aura the two brought home and asks them what is wrong. His wife tells him they’ll talk about it when the boy isn’t around. When he asks his son what’s wrong he tells his dad that he felt like a friend betrayed him because Mr. Teddy didn’t talk in class. The father uses this as an opportunity to tell his son now that he is growing up he shouldn’t use his imagination so much, and essentially Mr. Teddy has never spoken to him or anyone else. The boy refuses to listen to his father and storms up to his room where Mr. Teddy begins to speak to him again. 

When talking, Mr. Teddy gives the boy some bits of advice and has a sort of sorrow in his voice as “he” knows this will be the last time the two pals would ever talk. The boy asks Mr. Teddy why he was silent, to which he had no response other than the connection they had was something special and didn’t need to have other people involved in it for it to be real. The boy is overcome with sadness as he is beginning to realize that this is the last time they would ever talk. In closing, Mr. Teddy brings up the countless lessons and guidance that he provided to the young boy along the way, and that no matter what, it couldn’t be taken from him. The boy begins to cry hysterically when his mother walks in. 

She has a sense of guilt in her words and is trying to muster up the courage to tell her son the truth about Mr. Teddy. After comforting her son she finally decides to tell her son that when she bought Mr. Teddy all those years ago she decided to put a audio recording system in it to where she could control what he would say to her son. The boy is incredibly upset to find this out until his mother reminds him that although there was no magic in the bear, the magic in the connection between the two could never be broken. Although it wasn’t Mr. Teddy directly, the lessons and values instilled in the boy today were a product of Mr. Teddy’s influence. As the years have flown by the boy still keeps Mr. Teddy in his room at all times and remembers all the good things taught to him by a magical stuffed bear.