As a very young cub, Gonwid had a noted propensity for
flatulence, and his parents used it to raise their stock with the other bears
in the valley. They would take little Gonwid a-visiting, saying ‘Meet our one
cub gasworks. We call him Gonwid the Wind.’ The other bears would chortle
heartily. ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ they would exclaim. ‘Like that. Gonwid the Wind. Nice
one.’ And, having attained the enviable position of Valley Comedians, even if
only briefly, the parents would bask in the warm light of social approbation.
Gonwid, however, was already possessed of a virulent – and sometimes
violent –dislike of mockery, and responded to his parents’ habit of climbing
socially at his expense by developing a precociously deep growl that was wondrous
to behold. He also disowned and abandoned them as soon as he was old
enough to realise that men with murderous metal tubes were usually American tourists,
and rebelled against all convention by living alone in the hills, becoming vegetarian,
and making friends with unlikely creatures such as caterpillars instead of
other bears.
And this is why Gonwid now has a reputation for grumpiness
and well practiced avoidance of his own kind, although he is much given to
expressing random acts of kindness to children and the rest of the animal kingdom,
rarely having to try too hard since such acts are fundamental to his nature. His
only regret at having turned vegetarian is that his conscience won’t allow him
to eat American tourists bearing murderous metal tubes, but this is just one of
many complications that provide him with an endless stock of things about which
to grumble endlessly.
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