Two friends were walking along a path through the woods one day when they suddenly stumbled upon a grizzly bear.

“Run!” shouted one friend as he turned around and flee. The other friend quickly followed behind, and when he looked back, he saw the bear was already approaching fast towards them.

“The bear is coming for us!” shouted the friend at the back. “We’ll never be able to outrun it. Quick, find a tree to climb!”

The friend at the front heard him, ran towards the nearest tree and quickly climbed up 15 feet and rested on a strong bough. The other friend, however, was half way up a tree when he slipped and fell to ground on his back. He wanted to get up, but it was too late; the bear was already over him, sniffing his face.

The friend in the tree saw his troubled friend. “Stay still and play dead,” he shouted from atop the tree, “I heard bears don’t maul you when they think you’re dead.”

The friend on the ground already knew this, and he lay still and held his breath. The bear prodded his body with his paws for about several seconds before his nostrils came to the friend’s ear. The friend on the treetop saw that the bear seemed to be whispering something to the friend on the ground.

After a short moment, the bear left and disappeared into the woods, leaving the friend on the ground unharmed. The friend on the treetop quickly descended and rushed towards his friend, who was slowly getting up while brushing off dirt from his pants.

“I’m very sorry,” said the friend from the tree in an apologizing tone, “I know I shouldn’t have left you on the ground just now. The bear was right; as a friend, I should have come down and helped you anyways.”

“What do you mean?” said the other friend, puzzled.

“The bear,” said the other friend, “I saw it whispered into you ear. I’m guessing it spoke to you about being careful with choosing friends, especially ones who will leave you behind during troubled times, am I right?”

“No, not at all,” said the friend, laughing a bit as he placed an arm on his partner’s shoulder. “That wasn’t what he said at all, and I fully understood what you had to do back then; even if you came down, you’d have been mauled anyway. And I wouldn’t want my friend to be mauled just to save me, now would I?”

“But, if the bear didn’t say what I though it had said, what exactly did he say?”

“Owh, that,” replied the friend, smiling towards his puzzled friend. “The bear said that he was really a vegetarian, and that we shouldn’t have feared him. He whispered this to me because he was afraid other carnivorous bears nearby might hear and make fun of him.”

The other friend was speechless.

“Owh and one more thing,” continued the smiling friend, “the bear also said that, contrary to popular belief, the playing-possum trick doesn’t work against bears, because they’re generally too smart to fall for it.”

THE END