CUTE BUT VICIOUS

by Barbara J. Olexer

It is a lovely afternoon in Golden Gate Park. The sun is shining

so the morning mist has burned off and it is pleasantly warm. The
Seventh Fleet is home so there are lots of sailors everywhere in
San Francisco, including the park. This particular afternoon, four
friends are strolling in the park, enjoying the flora and fauna,
including the sailors. Of these four friends, one is sweet and very
nice. One is rather dull but really very nice. One of them is very
nice, albeit quite crazed. And the other one is cute, but vicious.
Stella is a student at the San Francisco Academy of Art. She
has a backpack slung over one shoulder and from it peers a teddy
bear named Kulur. He is Stella’s mentor and constant companion.
Stella is young, red-headed, and very pretty. Kulur is light brown
and very interested in everything that goes on around him,
although he tends to be cynical about what he sees. Mim is Stella’s
mother; why she is called Mim instead of Mom has been lost in the
mists of antiquity. She answers to several other names, including
Margaret, Margie, Madge, Grandma, and Marge. She would
answer to Ms. Fitzgerald, too, only no one ever calls her that. Mim
is round and carries a large handbag, open at the top, from which
plush and perky Chipmunk Man peeks out at the world. Chipmunk
Man is very curious and rather mischievous.
“Stella, wait a minute,” puffs Mim.
Stella turns and stops, looking at Mim to see what she wants.
“Is this a foot race or a pleasure expedition?” demands Mim.
“I’m sorry, Mim. I forgot about your bunions. Do you want to
stop and rest somewhere?”
“Sure. How about getting a cup of tea in the Japanese Garden?”
“Good idea,” Stella agrees.
The four friends go into the garden and sit down at a table.
There are a number of others already seated. Two sailors are sitting
at the next table and they smile at Stella and Mim, who smile back
at them.
Mim looks around at the garden, admiring the little red hump-
backed bridge and the trees and bushes and streamlets. “This is
nice,” she says. “It’s so cool and beautiful.”
Stella sets her backpack on a bench so Kulur Bear is facing the
table. Mim sets her handbag on the bench beside her and
Chipmunk Man twitches his tail excitedly at all the new sights and
smells. The waitress brings tea and a plate of small cookies. Mim
notices that the two sailors are trying to entice a squirrel to their
table by holding out bits of cooky.
“We can walk through the garden, if you want to,” Stella says.
Kulur Bear helps himself to a cooky.
“I’d love to,” Mim says. “I haven’t seen anything this pretty
since I left Oregon.”
“Okay, good.”
“Excuse me, may I have a drink, please?” asks Kulur politely.

2
 “Oh, I’m sorry, Kulur,” exclaims Stella, handing him her tea
cup.
“I don’t see why we have to share a cup always. Why can’t I
have my own?” Kulur complains.
No one notices that Chipmunk Man scampers out of Mim’s
handbag and over to the two sailors. They delightedly feed him
cookies.
“Well, Kulur, it’s just that not many people understand about
bears and they think it so odd when I order tea for my teddy bear.”
“That’s stupid,” says Kulur scornfully.
“I know but that’s the way people are,” says Mim, hoping to
soothe him down.
“Well, I don’t like it. What if Stella has some disgusting human
disease and I catch it from her?”
“You’re being very rude, Kulur Bear. Next time I don’t think
I’ll bring you at all,” says Stella.
“Can I have another cooky?” asks Kulur, ignoring Stella’s
comments.
Mim gives him a pink cooky.
“Where’s Chipmunk Man, Mim?” asks Stella. “He’s probably
hungry and thirsty, too.”
“Of course he is. I hadn’t forgotten him, I was waiting for the
tea to cool so it wouldn’t burn him. Chipmunk Man? Are you
hungry?”
Mim picks up a cooky and holds it over her handbag. She sees
that Chipmunk Man is gone. “Oh, no, Stella, Chipmunk Man is
gone.”
Stella jumps up and looks around wildly.
“Gone? I hope he hasn’t been kidnapped. Kidnapped?
Chipmunknapped. Chipnapped?”
“People,” says Kulur, shaking his head sorrowfully.
“Chipmunk Man is fine,” he announces. “He’s conning those two
sailors out of cookies.”
Mim and Stella look around and see Chipmunk Man on the
sailors’ table.

3
 “So he is. We’d better…” Mim suggests.
Stella rushes over to the sailors.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize Chipmunk Man had deserted
us. Chipmunk Man, you come back here. You mustn’t annoy these
nice sailormen.”
“He’s not annoying us, Miss,” says the sailor with the curly
brown hair.
“Not at all,” chimes in the sailor with the blue eyes and the
dimple. “He’s the cutest little cuss.”
“Thanks,” says Stella. “Yes, he’s cute, but vicious,” she adds
darkly.
“Vicious? Surely not,” the curly-haired sailor says.
Stella picks Chipmunk Man up. “Come on, Chipmunk Man,
we’d better go back now. Thank you for taking care of him,” she
says to the sailors.
“Our pleasure, Miss,” says the dimpled sailor.
Stella takes Chipmunk Man back and hands him to Mim.
“Nice-looking boys, aren’t they?” Mim remarks.
Stella nods. “Yes, they’re nice. Well, are you ready to see the
garden?”
“Sure.”
Stella slings her backpack over her shoulder and Mim puts
Chipmunk Man in her handbag.
“No more running off, Chipmunk Man. Be nice, like Kulur,”
admonishes Mim.
The four friends walk through the Japanese Garden, enjoying it
immensely. They meet the two sailors again and exchange nods
and smiles. They stop on a bridge and watch the water trickle
through some bushes into a tiny pond.
“What next?” Stella asks Mim. “The beach? The DeYoung
Museum? The Dead Animal Museum?”
“I don’t know. I’m not much in the mood for acres of pictures.
And I’d rather go to the beach this evening, when it’s cool. I guess
we might as well see the Dead Animal Museum.”

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 “Okay. There’s a new exhibit from New Zealand or New
Guinea, I forget which. Anyway, it’s about headhunters.”
“Have you already seen it?” asks Mim.
“Yes, but I’d like to see it again. One of my teachers designed
the backgrounds and painted them and I didn’t have time to really
examine them last time I was here.”
“All right, the Dead Animal Museum it is.”
They leave the Japanese Garden and walk to the Museum of
Natural History. Inside are security guards and lots of visitors.
Stella leads the way directly to the African Room and they look at
displays of dead gorillas, dead antelopes, and many other dead
African animals. Chipmunk Man takes one horrified look and
burrows to the bottom of Mim’s handbag. He’s a little paranoid
and fears that Stella has brought him here to donate him to one of
the displays. Kulur Bear is saddened by the death all around him.
Mim walks behind Stella and notices that Kulur is crying.
“Oh, Kulur, I’m sorry,” Mim exclaims. “This is very
thoughtless of us.”
Stella stops and Mim takes Kulur out of the backpack and holds
him against her shoulder, patting him.
“What’s the matter?” Stella asks, then sees that Kulur is upset.
“Oh, I never thought of that. Poor Kulur.” Stella pats Kulur
consolingly. “We’re sorry. We’ll go in the other room.”
“And you call Chipmunk Man vicious,” Kulur says accusingly.
“We said we’re sorry,” Stella says, leading the way into the
Special Display Room.
They walk along, looking interestedly at the displays of
shrunken heads and other artifacts.
“Are those really people’s heads?” Kulur Bear wants to know.
Stella takes Kulur from Mim and they examine some shrunken
heads.
“Yes, they are really people’s heads,” Stella says. “They are
cleverly shrunken and disguised to look like plastic but they are
really human heads.”

5
 “Hey, Chipmunk Man,” Kulur calls. “Come out and look. Dead
people.”
“Kulur, not so loud,” Stella cautions. “People are staring.”
Mim puts her hand in her handbag but withdraws it quickly
with a cry of pain and dismay. She puts her finger in her mouth
and hops up and down.
“Shhhh, Mim, people are staring,” Kulur says.
“I can’t help it,” Mim wails, “Chipmunk Man bit me.”
“Bit you? Why?” asks Stella.
“I expect he’s scared,” offers Kulur Bear.
“Oh, poor little Chipmunk Man,” says Mim, calming down.
“He is not,” says Stella. “Kulur, you’re such a big fibber.
Chipmunk Man isn’t afraid of anything.” She bends down and
speaks into Mim’s handbag, “Chipmunk Man? Chipmunk Man,
come on out, we’re not going to leave you here. We’re not even
going to leave Kulur Bear here.”
Chipmunk Man cautiously pokes his head up and looks first at
Stella and Kulur, then at Mim. Reassured, he clambers to the top of
the handbag and looks around. He sees the shrunken heads and
looks pleased. Stella carefully examines the backgrounds while
Mim finds a bench and sits down. Chipmunk Man climbs out of
the handbag and scampers across the room to get a closer look at
the shrunken heads. A small girl sees him and delightedly reaches
down to pick him up. Chipmunk Man sees his peril just in time to
run away but then he is nearly stepped on by a man who doesn’t
see him. Confused by all the people and the noise, Chipmunk Man
dodges around the huge room and out into the lobby.
“Stella,” Mim calls, “Chipmunk Man is running away. He went
into the lobby.”
Stella takes out after the little rodent. Kulur Bear in her arms
yells at him to stop. Mim eases her shoes back on and gallops after
them.
Stella is just in time to see Chipmunk Man race out the door
and Mim is just in time to see Stella follow him. They all run down

6
the steps, except Mim, who hurries as fast as she can. At length
they come to a quiet pond.
A flock of mallard ducks floats lazily on the water and there are
a few people sitting on benches watching the ducks and each other.
The two sailors from the Japanese Garden are hunkered down at
the edge of the water studying the ducks.
“What kind of ducks are they?” One sailor asks the other.
“Mallards.”
“What else?”
“That’s all, just mallards.”
“Listen, just because you’re from the country and I’m from the
city, it doesn’t mean I’m ignorant. Now some of these ducks have
green heads and pretty feathers and some of them are kind of
speckledy brown. They can’t all be one kind of ducks.”
“With birds, the female of the species is always plain while the
males are bright colored. All these ducks are mallards.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I’m going to look it up first chance I get and
if you’re feeding me a line of bull…”
Chipmunk Man scampers between the two sailors, sees the
water and stops. Stella and Kulur Bear come racing up with Mim
puffing along behind.
“Excuse me,” says Stella to the sailors. “Did you happen to see
a chipmunk come by here? Oh, hi. I didn’t recognize you for a
minute, there.”
One of the sailors points down and says, “Hi. Yeah, he’s here.”
Stella smiles at the sailors. “Thanks. Chipmunk Man, come
on.” She hands Kulur to Mim and gets down on her hands and
knees to coax Chipmunk Man out of the tules where he’s peering
out at her. He finally comes out and lets Stella pick him up.
They say goodbye to the sailors and walk along the edge of the
pond until they come to a vacant bench. Mim’s bunions hurt and
she is out of breath from all that hurrying so she plumps herself
down, holding Kulur Bear on her lap. Stella and Chipmunk Man sit
down beside Mim. Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, Stella
hurls Chipmunk Man at Mim. He hits the side of her head and

7
clings there, looking extremely astonished and dazed. Mims turns
to Stella in amazement. Stella smiles wickedly.
“He jumped,” Stella says.
Although she could not prove it, Mim had her own opinion as
to which of her companions was cute but vicious.

copyright 1989