Once upon a time, in Bear Land, there lived a bear named Berry. His favourite food were berries because his name was Berry. He was extremely smart when it came to eating berries. Berry the Bear grew tons of berries with barbed wires to keep other bears out. A small lump of moist soil acted as a hidden button which could open a bit of wire. He relied on the crop for meals. Berry ate three large bunches of berries per day. Unfortunately, a dirt disease and a virus that killed animals, except for bears spread and many berries were wiped out. Berry the Bear had to work 12 times as hard to keep his crop in healthy condition so he and his relatives wouldn’t starve. Another day Berry got the flu, and his family couldn’t eat any berries. They were much more than famished.
One day, Berry was told a legend. “An ancient powerful god, Ber Ry, cast a spell on a berry crop. Half a berry could give an energy-burning bear enough energy for one entire month! Humans started to destroy the berry corps back then, and only one bit of crop was left. It still might be there today.” Berry had a great mind thinking, and soon he recovered from the flu. He ate a berry from each bit of crop to see if any crop had magic berries. And the fifty-ninth crop, also the last bit, had the magic berries! The bear quickly told his family, and they picked out the few berries and cut them in half. They swallowed their portions . Berry could almost feel the excitement of his family. But he was only imagining. His brother complained that he was starving, and the aunt told Berry that there was no effect at all. Then, the smartest bear in the family, Brain, exclaimed, “Why, Berry, I get it! You ate some crop, right? Look! The first berry of every crop is gone! It’s in your stomach! So you ate all the berries and now you are full. You usually feel full with 4 pawfuls of big berries, so the magic berry is always at the end of 4 pawfuls!”
The family gazed at Brain with surprise. “That means that my magic berry is at the end of 2 pawfuls!” A little bear cried.
“Exactly! Ber Ry the Powerful God put a riddle in there! No spell was cast! The stomach does it all!”
From then on, the bear family proved to others that the berry problem was a riddle. Although there was still Animal-But-Not-Bear disease, the berry famine stopped. “Ber Ry must have stopped it,” some said. Bears learned to include more berries in their diets. “And now we have to solve the Animal-But-Not-Bear Riddle,”they laughed.
