Book #2 : Be a Marshmallow
Manuscript
by Paul Shore
C1
Chapter 1 – Frozen Parts
*It's a bright day, Eve flying over an icy fiord of Norway. Steve is asleep in Eve’s driver seat.*
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Steve: Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
*Eve goes into a dive and then starts sliding down a ski jump with her wings still outstretched (she’s sliding on her wheels, she does not have skis). Steve wakes and stands with his upper body out of Eve's sunroof and his arms reaching up.*
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Steve (whooping): Wheeeeeee-hoooooo!
Eve (shouting): Ski jumping is like a rollercoaster on snow, Steve! I knewwwwww thisssssss would end your snoring!
*They swoosh off the ski jump and swoop down, landing in an open snowy area where polar bears on skis and a red fox give them a thumbs up. The ski jump is visible in the background.*
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Steve (shivering): "Woah, that was some cold wind blowing over my private parts!"
*Crysstal, the red fox, approaches with a sly smile.*
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Crysstal: Bravo, Steve, you brave bear! That freezy breeze was a Norway welcome… a wink from the winter and a cozy hug.
Steve (chuckling): Got the wink, but I’ll stay on the lookout for that cozy hug!
*Quilo, a Norwegian polar bear wearing a Norway-flag jersey, lumbers over.*
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Quilo (laughing): Hey, Steve, my brother from another snowmother! I hear our frigid air hit you where it hurts!
Eve (giggling): Gosh, everyone knows Steve here!
Quilo (pointing at Eve’s wheels): It's incredible that your humpcaps didn’t fly right off!
Crysstal: Excuse my furry white pal… he sometimes needs a vocabulary lesson. He means your HUBcaps.
Steve: Ohh, now it makes sense! Thanks for the wheel wisdom!
Eve: Hey, look at all the bears gathering around?
Steve: Ya, it seems our fancy landing was a hit!
Quilo: You're BOTH famous around here! I'm Quilo… and she’s my coach, Crysstal.
Eve: Electrifying to meet you!
Crysstal: Quilo's name means North Wind, but beware…
Quilo (chuckling): Speaking of the North Wind, I've been known to create gusts of my own.
*A blast of air comes out of Quilo’s bum in the direction of Steve.*
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Steve (smirking): I think I felt that one!… powerful!!
Eve (laughing and rolling her eyes): That's one way to break the ice!
*Add an illustration of a block of ice shattering.*
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Crysstal: Oh, and your colored paws are famous too! Wish we had some of your awesome magic powers!
Quilo (nodding): We'd be the coolest bears around, literally!
Steve: My magic is powered by sharing kindness!
Quilo: Then you can count on us to help create some magic too.
Steve: Hey, Coach Crysstal, where are your skis?
Crysstal: I traded them in for a coaching clipboard … coaching keeps my spirit flying high!
*Steve's nose is now a frosty red beacon.*
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Quilo (chuckling): You’re one sneeze away from being Rudolph, buddy!
*They all imagine Steve’s head with a lit up red nose on a reindeer body (use body of Cupid the Caribou from book#1)*
Steve: (grinning): My nose may be freezing, but my heart is still warm.
Eve: Cold weather doesn’t stop us! Now, tell us… why are we 'bear-y' famous around here?
Quilo: Your "Bear Hug Blitz" is the talk of the animal kingdom! Everywhere critters are cheering for your world tour to help fix the planet.
Crysstal: Quilo, I believe they call their quest “Mission Bear Hug”. We are huge fans!
Steve (winking): Guess I'm a lion-ized bear of the world now!
Quilo: Huh? You aren’t a lion?
*Quilo and Crysstal give puzzled shrugs*
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Steve (shrugging): Sorry for the Mom and Dad joke. Hey, look what we've got to share...
*Steve flips open Eve’s trunk to reveal Heather the Hare, shivering and gritting her teeth in the trunk.*
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Steve (surprised): Heather?! What’s up, bunny?
Heather (shivering): Surprise! Sorry I didn’t listen and stay at home, but I didn’t want to miss out on this adventure!
*Heather leaps out, tossing buckets of Fishtachio ice cream to the bears and Crysstal. They start licking open buckets of ice cream.*
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Quilo: Oh, fish-flavored frostiness! Delish!
Heather (shivering): Hap-pp-pp-y to f-f-ff-fill your bellies, f-f-ff-furry pals! Now, about that warm hug?
Quilo (his arms reaching out): Here comes a 20 Second Quilo Hug… it’ll warm your heart, just like chicken soup.
*Quilo hugs Heather.*
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Heather: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
*Thermometer shown over Heather to show that she’s warming up.*
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Quilo: Eve, you're here for the electric vibes, right?
Eve: Yup, but this powdery place seems to be all bears!
*Heather is cozily wrapped in a blanket and the thermometer above her head is reading at the very top.*
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Quilo: Hold onto your toque… Oslo is our place where the electric dreams glow!
Steve (scratching head): I didn’t bring my winter hat! And “as-low”?... as low as what?
Quilo: No, no, Steve! O-S-L-O is our sparky city of wonders, buzzing with electric fun!
Crysstal: It will be jungle of jolting joyrides for Eve! But I gotta dash… these ski bears need some coaching!
Heather (grinning): I'm sticking with Crysstal for a lesson in coaching! These paws prefer high-fives over high-voltage anyway.
*Heather gives Crysstal a high-five.*
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Quilo: All the EVs in O-S-L-O will be charged-up to meet you, Eve!
*Steve shrugs and frowns because he feels left out.*
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Quilo (grinning): They'll be chilled to meet you too, Steve… count on it!
Eve: Yessssss… more friends for my pack! I’m so excited, I could do donuts!
*Eve spins in circles in the snow.*
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Steve: Wait, wait, before we head to the big city, let's take one last whoosh down that ski jump!
Quilo: Good thing I’ve got my ski gobbles!
*Steve and Eve laugh and imagine a turkey on skis with goggles on.*
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*Steve and Quilo climb into Eve's front seats.*
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*Eve zooms down the ski jump with the bears screaming with delight in the front seats and their arms raised. Quillo is wearing ski goggles.*
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*Eve and the bears fly off into a sky that is bursting with colors. Bears are waving from the ground.*
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Steve (yelling): Full charge ahead to As-Low!
Quilo (yelling): OSLO, here we come!!!
C2
Chapter 2 – Battery Pack
*Steve, Eve, and Quilo drive into the busy streets of Oslo filled with electric vehicles. Show a few EVs plugged in charging and others happily just hanging out.*
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Eve (excited): Now this is an eeelectric party!
Quilo (winking): Yep, in this city everybody is part of our clean energy community!
Steve: Sorry to pull the plug on this fun and be an EV party pooper! But isn’t it EVen better for the planet because many people here aren’t using cars at all?
Quilo (winking): EVe-n better?
Steve (laughing hard): You caught me!
Quilo: I get it! Taking care of the planet is 90 percent kindness, but the other half is all about action.
*Above Quilo’s words is an illustration indicating he is talking crazy talk, and Steve is shaking his head in confusion and picturing a math calculator in a thought bubble that doesn’t add up… “90% + 1/2 = ????”*
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Steve: Ummmm, I think your math is a bit fuzzy, Quilo!
Eve: Steve, you’re right about using fewer cars --- I see an electric parade of e-buses, e-trams and e-bikes!
*Illustration of electric buses and trams zooming around… don’t explicitly show humans, though somehow imply the sense that humans are in them.*
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Quilo: For sure, the human beans here get around with fewer cars and roads.
Steve: Human BEINGS, Quilo!
Quilo: Yes, like I said, human beans.
Steve: Human whats?
Quilo: BEANS!
Steve: No, no, what do you call creatures who walk on 2 legs and only have a bit of fur on them?
Quilo: HUMAN BEANS.
Steve: BEINGS!
Quilo: Right, HUMAN beans!
Steve: Beans beans the magical fruit, the more I eat the more I toot.
*Thought bubble of Steve eating beans and tooting.*
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Quilo: Why are you talking about veggies now?
Steve: (Frustrated) Dohhhhhhhhh!!!
*Steve is banging his head on Eve as she laughs.*
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Eve: Enough you silly polar boys! Quilo is right too --- these big buses and trams can move WAY MORE PEOPLE around than I can.
Quilo: And we have even bigger EVs too --- splish-splashy electric ferry boats!
*An electric ferry is seen moving across the water with Steve watching in awe.*
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Eve: And sharing the road gets even cooler with e-bicycles!
Quilo: Sure does! But when it snows, those human beans turn into frozen popcycles!
Steve (smacking one paw on his forehead and rolling his eyes): BEINGS on BICYCLES, not BEANS like POPSICLES!!
Quilo: Right, human beans on bikes... chillin' on two wheels!
*Illustration of frozen anthropomorphized green beans riding e-bikes.*
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Steve: Dohhhhhhh I give up, you win Bean Brother.
*A couple local EVs join the conversation.*
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EV1(a tiny EV car): I love being kind to the planet and zipping around without guzzling Dino-Juice!
*Thought bubble of dino juice in a glass, like in book#1 (page 43), with a big “not” sign through it.*
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EV2 (a big EV SUV): Me too! Though don’t forget that we need batteries, and that means digging up the earth to find the stuff to make them.
EV1: Yep, mining for that metal stuff that makes us electric inside is messy too!
*Illustration of an excavator digging into the ground with a big pile of dirt beside it.*
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Steve: Ya, though I hear that our scientist pals are like kitchen wizards --- cooking up cleaner and greener battery potions all the time!
*Illustration of a wizard with green batteries in test tubes over a boiling pot.*
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Eve: And hey --- have you heard about scientists squishing atoms together until they squirt out energy?
*Illustration of 2 atoms squishing together and sparks or lighting bolts jumping out from between them.*
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Quilo: Is that like when you squish 2 tomatoes together and the juice squirts in your face?
Eve: Sort of! It’s called FUSION and it’s ammmmaaaaazzzzzing!
Quilo: Ooooooo --- tell me more!
Eve: Imagine if you smashed 2 chocolate chip cookies together --- poof they disappear --- and out pops 1 oatmeal raison cookie and a fireworks show!
*Illustration of 2 cookies smashing together into 1 cookie and fireworks squirting out.*
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Quilo: Nooooo, I like chocolate chips way better than raisons!
Eve: Or if you smooshed 2 marshmallows together --- poof they disappear --- and out pops a smartie and a campfire!
*Illustration of 2 marshmallows smashing together into 1 smartie and a campfire squirting out.*
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Quilo: Nooooo, I love marshmallows!
Eve: It's weird science, but imagine if we could use that kind of kitchen magic to power things like cars --- no batteries needed!
Steve: Sweeeeet! That’d be delicious for the planet!
Quilo: Hold on, Eve. Does that mean you would have an atom-smashing oven inside of you, instead of batteries?
Eve: You’ve got it my polar pals!
*Illustration of a cookie machine on Eve’s roof that reads “MISS FUSION” on it.*
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Quilo: Reminds me of the super-cool car in that movie Back to the Future 2.
Eve: Haha, ya I can’t wait for a FUSION energy upgrade like that coolio car got!!!
Steve: Wait, what? How does a bear watch movies?
Quilo: (Shrugging) On Petflix, where else?
*Illustration Quilo watching TV with a bowl of marshmallows and chocolate chip cookies.*
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EV2: Speaking of atomic fun, I've got a science joke for you!
Eve: Let’s hear it!
EV2: Why can't scientists trust atoms?
Eve: I don’t know, why?
EV2: Because they make up everything!!!
* Everybody laughs as atoms pop out of wheels and headlights. It’s dark now and the Northern Lights are glowing in the sky.*
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Steve: All this talk of cookies is making my bear belly growl!
Quilo (laughing): Let’s go celebrate electric success with some delicious local Krumkaka waffle cookies!
Steve: With Halibut jam?
Quilo: Oh ya, you know how to live my polar brother!!!
Eve: I’ll take a zappy snack of Oslo electricity instead please!
EV1: You’ve got it, Eve, happy to help charge you up.
EV2: Here’s to a new pack of shockingly fun friends!… ZOOM---KA-KA!
*The bears each raise a huge cookie with Halibuts with 2 eyes on the same side of their bodies dripping off them like jam, while the EVs spin around them… everybody cheering “ZOOM-KA-KA”*
C3
Chapter 3 – Axolotl Landing
*The Northern Lights are in the sky. Steve and Quilo are still eating cookies and Eve is plugged in getting charged up while humming happily.*
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Quilo (still eating a cookie): Dude, why are your paws becoming snowy white?
*Steve is crying and looking at his paws that are changing from coloured to white.*
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Steve (crying): Oh, here I go being a party pooper again.
Quilo (crumbs flying): Are these cookies not rocking your taste buds, pal?
Steve (crying): L-l-l-l-l-love the cookies! I’m just worried about my mom and dad!!!
Quilo (putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder): Missing family is tough, I get it.
Steve: It’s more than just missing them!
Quilo: What’s up then, buddy?
Steve: I’m sad because I don’t know where they are!
Quilo (surprised) What? Your parents are lost?!
Steve: I don’t think they are lost --- I just don’t know where they are.
Quilo (rolling his eyes and shrugging): Now I’m LOST!
Steve: There wasn’t enough sea ice, or fish to eat, because of global warming --- so they left home to search for food.
*Image from book#1 of parents departing on an iceberg.*
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Quilo: Glow ball warming?? I don’t see what a glowing ball has to do with any of this!
*Quilo envisions a glowing ball… he’s playing catch with a seal just like the illustration in book#1, though the seal doesn’t wear a ball cap because he’s not Sammy the seal.*
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Eve: (wide-eyed): Wholly “glow ball” --- you guys sure are like brothers!!!
Steve (winking): I’ve got it this time, Eve!
Eve: (winking): I was hoping you did by now!
Steve: Global --- not glow ball! Global means that it is happening everywhere on the planet – the entire globe is getting warmer!
Quilo: Ya ya, I know all about that! Though try to keep up, pal --- we call it Climate Change now!
Steve: Ok, Mr. Coolio... CLIMATE CHANGE!
Quilo: By the way is that why you wear that cute orange swim donut?
*Thought bubble of Quilo imagining a plate of glazed donuts on a plate that look somewhat like Steve’s life ring.*
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Steve: Hey, don’t tease me! It’s a life ring that keeps me safe and makes me feel confident!
Quilo: Well, excuuuuuuuse me! So, why do you wear that pretty life ring?
Steve: Swimming isn’t my jam --- and with so little sea ice back home, I have to be in the water a lot these days.
*Use illustration from book#1 with Steve swimming holding the life ring.*
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Quilo: No worries pal. I think it looks great on you --- LOVE the colour!
Eve (laughing): Great minds think alike Q! That’s exactly what I said, when I first met Steve!
Quilo: Colour... hey, wait, you didn’t explain why the colour has disappeared from your paws!
Steve: Well, I kinda have a superpower.
Quilo: Incredible! How? What? Where? When?
Steve: When I was born, the Northern Lights gave me the power to help heal things by throwing colour from my paws onto broken stuff.
Quilo: Woah, woah, woah!
Steve: It only works when there’s a vibe of kindness in the air --- kindness is really the superpower that lights up my paws with colour.
Quilo: You are truly a Superhero Bear!
Steve: Not right now! Thinking about my parents not having enough food to eat has drained the power from my paws.
Quilo: Got it! So your parents left to go on a fishing trip?
Steve: Yup, and now they're out on the ocean somewhere, probably worried about me too!
Eve: The Arctic Ocean back home and the Arctic Ocean here are the same ocean, so…
*Illustrate a map with a polar view that shows how close the Canadian arctic is to the Norwegian arctic… with Steve’s parents floating on an iceberg between.*
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Quilo: Does your Mom wear a beautiful purple scarf?
Steve (excited): YES!
Quilo: Then I saw your folks near here! They were catching loads of fish!
Eve: Whhhaaat!!! You didn’t mention that until now?
Quilo (shrugging): You didn’t aaaaask! Did ya?
Eve (rolling her eyes): Quilo! Getting info out of you is tougher than teaching a walrus to dance the tango!
*A walrus appears, looking angry, imaging himself dancing in a flowing red dress.*
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Walrus: Try it and I’ll give you such a pinch!
*Steve, Quilo and Eve all look stunned.*
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Eve: Adventure time! Let's track down those polar parents!
*Steve and Quilo jump into Eve’s front seats.*
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Steve: (arms raised): To the ocean!
*Eve, Steve, and Quilo fly off from Oslo, flying over steep river valleys.*
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Steve: Holy rushing rivers Quilo!
Quilo: Yep, my fluffy, climate-hero cousin --- fast-flowing rivers are common here!
*Illustration of them flying over a large dam holding back a big lake that a river flows into. The dam has large power lines coming out of it and running off into the distance over the land.*
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Eve (looking down): Wow, I've never felt the earth pulse with energy like this!
Quilo: Cool Eve, you are feeling the zappy electricity that is being made inside that dam!
*Add to the illustration of the dam an energy pulse that can be denoted by a lightening bolt surging from inside the dam.*
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Steve: I’m not feeling any zaps!
Eve: (Laughing) Your bear senses are tuned to fish, not electrons, dude!
Steve: But it just looks like a big wall with water behind it --- you say it’s called a “dam”?
Quilo: Correctamundo! It’s a science fortress! It takes raging river power and turns it into sparky electric power!
Steve: Science?
Quilo: Ever felt the powerful whoosh of water in a river, like it's trying to tickle-wrestle you?
Steve: Oh, totally! I fell in one once and I sure was glad I had my life ring on!! That rushing water was stronger than my swimming power!
*Illustration of Steve being pushed around in a rushing river with his life ring on.*
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Quilo: Inside that ginormous wall, it’s like another wizard kitchen of science fun --- transforming that water-whoosh into electricity!
*Illustration of a wizard with sparks or lightning bolts coming out of a boiling pot.*
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Steve: Could Eve charge her batteries with that electricity and zoom us around?
Quilo: Exactamundo!
Steve: How does the dam do all that
Quilo: Can you imagine a giant water pipe spinning a magnet and then electrons dancing in wires nearby?!?!
*Illustration of water coming out of a pipe and spinning a magnet while electrons dance in wires (Paul to sketch an initial image).*
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Steve: Nope! Now my bear brain is doing somersaults!
Eve: How about we save science class for later? Making hydroelectricity is complicated and super cool!
Steve: Ya, I didn’t want to go to school today! But, what’s “hydro”?
Eve: “Hydro” means “water”! So, hydroelectricity is electric power made by water!
Steve: Ah, got it! My bear brain is back in action! Hydroelectricity is electricity that comes from water power.
Quilo: Electramundo! You are a beary fast learner, Stevo!
*Steve’s paws have quietly become colorful again.*
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Eve: Plus, it’s “clean” energy because we don't have to dig up dead dinosaurs and burn their yucky juice to make it.
Quilo: Annnnnd, it’s “renewable” too! As long as clouds cry happy tears of rain or mountains share their snowcone stash of water, we'll have power.
Eve: That's right, Quilo. No fossil fuels in this energy recipe!
*Steve uses binoculars to look at some caribou, who are alongside the river below the dam, and who look a bit puzzled and angry.*
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Steve: But what those party animals down there? They don’t look too happy!
Quilo: Ya, the dam's like an uninvited guest that crashed their party, so they had to move further down the river.
Steve: And the fish?
*Steve uses binoculars to look a fish jumping out of the river, while they are travelling upstream around the dam, as they look upset and tired.*
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Quilo: The dam says, "You shall not pass fishies!... just kidding, here's a secret side door."
Steve: Those fishies have to swim waaaaaay harder to use the new path around the dam!
Eve: Yep, every way of making energy is hard on the planet in some way. Even the "clean" kinds of energy aren't totally chill.
Steve: Honest Eve, keeping it real!
Eve: Though switching from Dino Juice energy to clean-vibing energy, helps to fight climate change!
Steve: If we can’t be perfect, we should try to be as gentle on the planet as we can be!
Eve: Right! Like if you’re feeling sick and need some medicine, it’s better choosing cheery-flavored instead of fish-flavored.
Steve: Um, I prefer fish-flavoured actually!
Eve: Oops, bad example! But you get me… choose the one that heals you and that tastes better too!
Quilo: Yep! Hey, look!!!
Steve: What’s up my isbjorn, ice-bear, pal?
*They have left the dam behind and are flying out over the ocean and icebergs*.
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Quilo (looking through binoculars): Mom-and-Pop Spotting Alert! I see your folks!
*In the view of the binoculars are his parents on a flat flowing piece of ice with a huge pile of fish beside them. Steve’s dad is reading a book titled “Goodbye Dino Juice”
[Could be developed into a subtle nod to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty].*
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Steve (waving excitedly): Mom and Dad, look up, here we come!
*As Steve is waving the colours returns to his paws over a few illustrated panels.*
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Eve (excitement in her eyes): Ready for an Axolotl Mode, boys? It’s splashdown time!
Steve (eyes wider): Hold onto something... we’re going down!
Quilo (screaming and hanging on to Steve): I would prefer if you said “we’re landing” please!
*As they zoom down towards the water, Eve transforms… her wheels disappear and her bottom looks like the pontoons of a seaplane.*
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*Eve skims onto the water's surface, making a graceful landing… Steve’s parents are on the iceberg in the distance.*
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Steve: Phew, for a second there, I thought we were going for a swim!
Quilo: I got nervous when you something about an ACCIDENTAL landing!
Eve: I said AXOLOTL, not ACCIDENTAL! Big difference!
*Show an axolotl giving a thumbs-up next to a "No Accidents Here" sign.*
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Quilo: Oh, like that super-cool amphibian that's got moves on land and in water?
Eve: Exactly! Being amphibious means the Axolotl is a pro at both walking and swimming!
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Eve: Let’s zip over to see your parents, Steve!
*Eve’s electric outboard motor with an electricity lightening-bolt symbol on it zooms them towards the parents on the iceberg.*
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Quilo: Amphibious!!! That’s like being a superhero without even wearing a cape!
Steve (laughing): Eve's full of surprises… like school being cancelled on a Wednesday!
*Quilo and Steve are laughing, as Eve powers them across the water towards Steve’s parents. As they come to a gentle floating stop beside the sheet of ice, Steve's parents wave and look super happy.*
C4
Chapter 4 – Salmon S’mores
*Steve's parents have stockpiled an impressive catch of fish on their little iceberg. Steve steps onto the iceberg and his Mom comes running for him with her arms outstretched wide.*
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Mom: Steeeeevvvvie! I’ve missed you like a fudge sundae without Fishtachio ice cream!
Steve: Oh Mom, I’ve missed you a ton too, though…
Mom: Let me squeeze those cute cheeks!
Steve: ...uh, can we not do the cheek thing in front of...
Quilo (whispering to Eve): Is she going for the face cheeks or...?
Steve: … my friends, Mom!
*Mom grabs Steve by both face cheeks.*
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Quilo: Phew, thoooose cheeks!
Eve (laughing and winking): BUMmmmmer!
*Mom plants kisses all over his forehead, leaving lipstick marks.*
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Mom: Mwah mwah mwah mwah! My little snowflake!
Steve: I love you too, Mom!
Dad: What about me? Am I invisible? Or just like a boring old iceberg floating by?
*Dad gives Steve a hug, as Quilo and Eve watch on smiling.*
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Dad: Seems you have some new friends! For a minute there, we thought we were about to get squashed by a spaceship!
*Thought bubble over Dad with a flying saucer falling at them out of the sky.*
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Steve: Mom and Dad, meet the coolest explorers ever, Eve and Quilo.
Mom (she and Dad waving): Nice to meet you, Quilo! And Eve, we feel like we already know you and your awesomeness!!
Steve: How do you know about Eve already?!
Mom: Heather, Cupid, and Whiskers spilled the beans about Mission Bear Hug and your electric adventures.
Steve: You got news from my furry friends back home? How?
Mom: From The Buzzer!
Steve: From what?!
Mom: The Buzzer, dear. It's your Dad's nickname for our fancy phone.
*Dad holds up a thing that looks like a smartphone that’s beaming a signal to a passing satellite.*
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Steve: You packed a phone?
Dad (laughing hard): Sure did! You know I couldn’t live without my daily game of Bordle.
Mom: Ya sweetie, and we know how to use the Wood Wild Web!
Steve: World Wide Web?
Mom: That’s what I said.
Steve (slapping his forehead and rolling his eyes): Sure, Mom.
Mom: So proud of you and Mission Bear Hug! … spreading kindness, like jam on toast!
Dad (giving a thumbs-up): That's my boy, always Jam-Side-Up!
Steve: Ya, things are improving around here! EVs and hydro power everywhere! But sometimes, it's tough, when Burger the Booger still stirs up trouble.
Mom: Just remember, Stevie. Be a marshmallow!
*Steve's face lights up with a warm glow and he looks at how bright his colourful paws are.*
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Steve: I remember, Mom! And the yummy, Salmon S'mores!!!
*Illustration of Steve and his brother and sister around a campfire with Salmon S’mores roasting on sticks over the fire.*
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Eve: Your parents are epic! But what does “be a marshmallow” mean?
Mom: Marshmallows are soft, sweet, loveable, and squishy!
Eve: They sure are, but why BE like one?!
Mom: Be like one and let the tough stuff, that Burger throws at you, bounce right off. And stay marshmallow friendly and kind.
*Mom throws her arms open in a tada sort of motion and winks.*
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Eve (laughing): Now I get it, thanks! And hey, Steve, you really do remind me of a marshmallow --- cuddly, white, puffy and sweet!
*Imaginary marshmallow versions appear of Steve and his polar bear cub siblings laughing and bouncing around a campfire.*
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Quilo: Awww, I love thinking about old times and getting all sedimental!
*Quilo looks all warm and loving, his paws pressed together under one cheek.*
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*Everyone pauses, then breaks into laughter, as they imagine Quilo squished between layers of rocks in a mountain (ie. “sedimental”).*
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Eve: I like getting sentimental sometimes too, Quilo!
*As the day fades, the Northern Lights dance across the sky and Steve's paws glow even brighter with color.*
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Steve: Guess what, Mom and Dad? I found my magical superpower, thanks to Eve!
*Mom and Dad exchanging knowing glances with their eyebrows raised.*
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Mom: We've always known about your sparkle, sweetie.
Dad: Yep, we just wanted you to find your magical glow all by yourself.
Mom: When you were a cub, you took temper tantrums sometimes because your beautiful paws made you feel different.
*Illustration of young Steve kicking and screaming and crying on his back on the ground with his colored paws, surrounded by other cubs standing with normal paws laughing and pointing.*
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Dad: Ya, I had to take a deep breath the time you flipped out at the Flippin’ Fish Market.
*Illustration of young Steve taking a tantrum on the ground with stalls of fish for sale behind he and his dad.*
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Mom: Long ago, our ancestors whispered tales to us about your magical paws and their healing powers.
*Illustration of the Northern Lights dancing in the sky while mom and dad look up at them with baby Steve and his colored paws in their arms.*
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Dad: We hoped when we left home looking for fish that you would go on an adventure and discover your superpower.
Mom (shrugging): With the help of an electric car?!?!? Who knew?
*Quilo is draped across Eve’s hood smiling and crying tears of joy and Eve is crying tears of joy too.*
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Eve: So beautiful! Now I am getting sentimental! Sniff, sniff.
Quilo: Ditto --- sniff --- all sedimental here too!
Steve: Wow, thanks Mom and Dad!!! And look at this mountain of fish --- pretty magical too, huh?
*Pile of fish on the ice flow now comes to the foreground between mom and dad.*
---
Dad: There are so many fish here! They are practically jumping out of the water and into our paws!
Mom: We're going to have the biggest Fishtastic Feast our family has ever seen when we get back home!
Steve: Please make sure all the other animals get an invitation too!
Quilo: Imagine that --- all shapes, sizes and colours of icy animals, munching happily together!
Mom: For sure, we will! It will be a party to remember!
*Illustration of them imagining different animals about to munch on fish all together at a party.*
---
Dad: Hey kiddos, let’s have a little celebration right now too!
Steve: I saved the last bucket of Fishtachio ice cream in Eve’s trunk for a special occasion, just like this!
Eve: And what about me? I could use a jolt of joy!
Steve: There’s no place here to plug in for an electron stew, but my paws are basically fire hoses of energy right now!
*Illustration of Steve throwing energy from his paws into Eve’s open frunk, as he did in book#1.*
---
Eve: Ah, that makes my battery belly happy! Thanks!!
*Illustration of the bears each raising an ice cream cone in a cheers-like manner and Eve smiling with colored energy light dripping out of her now closed frunk.*
---
Eve: Zoom-ka-ka!
Dad: Say what?! Zoom poopy?!
Steve (laughing): It's our way of saying "cheers"! Just roll with it, Dad!
Dad: Alrighty then --- zoom-ka-ka!
*Same illustration of the bears each raising an ice cream cone and Eve smiling… with them all yelling “zoom-ka-ka” under the northern lights.*
---
Quilo: Sorry to melt your ice cream, though we have a lot more to explore tomorrow and I’m kind of feeling sleepy!
Mom: Is it time to wrap up this Fishtachio party?
Quilo: Do penguins toot icicles?
*Quilo imagines penguins tooting icles.*
---
Mom: No, actually they do NOT!
Quilo (looking a bit sad): Sorry, my mistake. We better shut down this party before my jokes get even more inappropriate.
Eve: Sleep time everybody! Tomorrow will be a big day for Planet Hero work!
Mom: Goodnight, my little shining stars. Have sweet dreams of ice cream and adventures.
*Everybody curls up on the iceberg and sleeps with “ZZZZZZZZ”s appearing above them, as the northern lights dance in the dark sky.*
ESF1
Eve’s Shocking Facts
TBD - possibly overly didactic and should be dropped.
Similar to in book#1, an optional 1-page educational interlude about science facts.
Potential elements...
- hydroelectricity facts
- explain generators… spinning turbines/blades like in a blender making a smoothie?
- energy cannot be “created”, it can only change forms… so water energy is used to generate electrical energy, not to create it.
- Jam-Side-Up toast-flipping facts
C5
Chapter 5 – A Boogery Point
*Everybody starts to wake up on the iceberg to a beautiful sunrise... Dad isn’t visible in the scene.*
---
Steve (stretching arms wide, as he wakes): Mmmm --- is that the sweet smell of prawn pancakes?
*Dad appears with a large plate stacked with prawn pancakes, dripping in syrup.*
---
Dad: Superheroes need fuelling up to start the day!
Steve: You’re the best, Dad --- Pancake King of the North!
Dad: No, you’re the best, Stevie!
Steve: No way, you are!
Dad: No, you!
Mom: Boys, boys, you're both fantastic! Now, let's dig in before the maple syrup freezes!
*The bears are eating, while Eve is floating beside the iceberg, still in Axolotl-mode (ie. amphibious seaplane mode) in the background.*
---
Quilo: This is bear’s breakfast dream --- YUM!
*Illustration of Quilo making a huge burp.*
---
Dad: The sound of bear burps, warms my heart!
*Steve’s plate is clean, except for syrup residue dripping from it.*
---
Steve: It’s time to get this adventure team moving!
Quilo: Let’s bring it in for a goodbye hug, pals.
Eve: A Mission Bear Hug hug!
*Everybody gathers into a big bear hug.*
---
Steve: Remember to use The Buzzer to keep an eye on our adventures, okay, Mom and Dad?
Dad: You bet! This little gadget and I are like two orcas in a pod!
*The Buzzer device sticking out of what looks like a large front pocket in Dad’s fur and the screen saver on it is a smiling orca face (this nameless Orca who never has any dialog also made cameo appearances in book#1.]*
---
Mom (winking): Bye-bye, sweetheart. Remember, Be a Marshmallow!
*Quilo and Steve jump into Eve’s front seats and she starts to zoom away on the water with everybody waving and yelling “bye”.*
---
*Eve lifts off the water, transforming back into flying mode, and soaring against the backdrop of the rising sun above Mom and Dad on their iceberg who are waving.*
---
*Eve flies above the ocean... a few oil rigs appearing poking out of the water below.*
---
Quilo (pointing down): Look below! Our country is powered by clean energy and yet shadowed by these dirty giants.
Eve: It's like we are stuck between a bright tomorrow and a dark past.
Steve: I'm lost. What are you two talking about?
Quilo: Sorry Stevo! Those metal monsters are oil rigs, sucking Dinosaur Juice from under the ocean.
*They land gently on the water (Eve again transforming into her amphibious mode) near a huge oil rig, whose platform looms large above them with a flare-stack spouting flames from it.*
---
*Steve looks at his paws as they gradually go white again over a couple panels of illustration... they stay white for the rest of this chapter.*
---
Steve: Yuck --- I thought your country was all about a clean, green energy vibe!
Quilo: We are champions of the environment, but...
Steve: Then what’s up with all these Dino Juice-drinking rigs?
Quilo: It’s complicated! We still make a lot of money selling Dino Juice to other countries.
Eve (sadly): Ohhhh, like back in Canada too!
Quilo: Yep!
*Just then, a familiar figure emerges from an oily sheen on the water's surface... Burger the Booger, who has transformed into an oily black menace (his green color in book#1 has now turned to black).*
Eve: Oh noooooo, not him again!
Steve: Yikes, it's the Snot Rocket himself, Burger the Booger!
Eve: He’s back and now he’s looking blacker than a penguin’s jacket!
*Eve imagines a penguin with a black jacket with buttons up the front.*
---
Quilo: You know this germ too?!
Eve: Oh yeah, we had a messy battle with that germinator back home.
Steve: And this time he looks madder than a kitty cat caught in the rain!
*Illustration of an angry soaking wet, black cat in a rain storm.*
---
Eve: Yeah, he looks as mad as a gas car!
Burger: What's that about Madagascar? I don't do geography!
Eve: Not Madagascar, Mr. Oily Pants! Though you are just about as mean as that Makunga guy in my favourite movie.
Burger: Bahhhh! I don’t watch movies with happy endings!
Eve: I meant you look as 'mad as a gas car.' You remind me of some angry gas-guzzlers back at home.
*Eve has a flashback in a thought bubble to the gas bullies of book#1 (reuse an image from page 45/48/49/50).*
---
Steve: From green to black, huh? Fully gone to the dark side, I see.
Burger: This is the real me! Mwahahaha!!!
Steve (laughing): So, you have Camelion skills! I think you would look better in plaid!
*Thought bubble with Burger coloured plaid.*
---
Burger: Me wearing plaid? Seriously? In your dreams!
*Burger farts a big grey cloud that turns plaid in the eyes of the others.*
---
Steve (holding his noise): What a stinker! Nice musk dude!
Eve (raising her eyebrows): Didn’t we bury you in the ground... where you belong?
*Eve thought bubble of back when they buried green Burger the Booger in a hole in the ground in book#1.*
---
Burger: As long as people are thirsty for Dino Juice, I’ll keep getting out ---mwahahaha!!!
*Burger reaches out with his long slimy arms to try to grab Eve.*
---
Quilo: Watch out! He’s going to try to slime us!
*With a burst of speed, Eve propels them away from Burger as he chases them across the water in a zig-zag route, leaving an oily sheen trailing on the surface behind.*
---
Steve: Bye bye, Burgerino!
Quilo: See ya later, slick!
Burger (yelling and swearing, like he does in book#1): Curse your renewable energy! Goober-smacking fever-packing dribble-dreeble schmoozle --- stoozle ---froozle…
*Eve, Steve and Quilo are back in the air with Burger and his oil slick disappearing in the distance below on the water.*
---
Eve: Burger the Booger isn’t a very nice dude, though he did make some sense back there!
Steve: EVE? Are you ok?! Did you download a virus or something?
Quilo: Yeah, I think your brain has its wires crossed!
Eve: You mean my computer circuits!?
Quilo: Circuits, fuses, noodles, doodles… pick your tangled mess.
Eve: The real mess is that humans still like to drink lots of Dino Juice!
Steve: Burger did babble about that didn’t he?
Eve: Yep, and he’s right!
Quilo: You agree with that greasy goblin on something?!
Eve: As long as people like Dino Juice, I’m afraid that Burger the Booger is not going to transform into something nicer.
Quilo: Uh oh, that means he’s going to keep popping up like a bad weed!
Steve: You mean, spreading kindness won’t fix the planet?
Eve: Spreading kindness sure helps, though there is more we can do!
Quilo: I've got a lightning bolt idea!
*A lightbulb is lit up above Quilo’s head that has a lightning bolt within it.*
---
Eve: Zap us with it, Quilo.
Quilo: ACTION!
Eve: I think you’re onto it, Quilo!
Steve (looking confused): Huh?! I thought we were in action!
Eve: We sure are pal, though I think what Quilo means is we need many more actions.
Quilo: Right! And faster!
Steve: Faster? Why?
Eve: Because the hotter our little planet gets, the harder it is to cool it down!
Steve (shrugging): How about we just crank up your A/C?
Eve: You mean my Air Conditioning?
Steve: Ya, blow that cool air on us and the problem will be solved.
Eve: Very funny my fuzzy buddy --- but let’s get a bit serious please.
Quilo: We need lots of Planet Hero Kids, coming up with action ideas everywhere!
Eve: Right on! More action by everyone --- kids, grown-ups... even pets!
Steve: Do you think Burger the Booger can ever change?
Eve: Anything is possible, Steve!
*As they continue to climb into the sky, leaving Burger and the oil rigs behind, Eve’s computer screen flashes and reads “SOS. REGENERATION HELP NEEDED.*
---
Eve: Somebody is calling for help... from California!
Quilo: Ooooh, the land of Hollywood superheroes and super-sized snacks! Can I tag along?
Steve: Pretty please with cherries on top, Eve! If we’re going to California, can we bring Quilo!?
Eve: All aboard, my polar pals! Before we blast off for California, we need to pick up Heather and say goodbye to Coach Crysstal.
*Back on the ground by the ski jump and the jumping bears, Steve, Eve, and Quilo are with Crysstal and Heather.*
---
Quilo (excited): Grab me a surfboard! Let’s hang ten, dudes!
Heather: Whoa, whoa! Slow down surfer! What’s up?
Steve (excited): We are about to fly off to sunny California, dudette!
*Steve and Quilo are doing hang-ten hand gestures and dancing.*
---
Eve: Somebody in California needs our help, so we are blasting off soon!
Heather: Can I stay here to help Coach Crysstal? I’m sure you can handle a sunny adventure without me.
Eve (winking): Sure you can stay, Coach H!
Crysstal: Adventure awaits you, Quilo! Bring us back some epic tales!
Eve: Jump in! The launch countdown has started!
*Steve and Quilo jump in to Eve. Her computer screen is counting down and a map showing a dotted line from Oslo to San Francisco is displayed.*
---
Steve: Bye-bye, Crysstal and Heather! Keep the jumping high and the landings soft!
Quilo: Zoom---ka-ka, everybody!
Eve: Next stop, California! Regeneration, here we come.
Steve: Whatever that means!!!
Eve: Let’s go find out!
Quilo: From chilly icbergs to smoking hot beaches --- spreading kindness AND action, like jam on toast!
[“spreading kindness, like jam on toast” was the tagline of Mission Bear Hug established at the end of book#1.]
*Vibrant colours return to Steve’s paws over a couple illustrated panels, followed by them zooming off into a sky filled with the Northern Lights, yelling “zoom---ka-ka”.*
---
C6
Chapter 6 – Call Me Bruice
Steve and Eve, and Quilo, are soaring above the Golden Gate Bridge with a traffic jam on it.
---
Eve (wide-eyed): I‘m feeling a buzz from down below about regeneration.
Steve: I still have no clue what that word means
Eve (smiling): It’s about healing --- like when a starfish grows a new arm!
Steve: Starfish can regrow arms? And that’s called regeneration?
Eve: Yep! And that’s one of the most awesome healing superpowers I know of on planet earth!
*Illustrate Steve imagining a frowning starfish missing one arm with a band-aid over where the arm should be. And then in the next panel the starfish is grinning, while flexing a new arm that has grown.*
---
Steve (scratching his head): I’m not sure what starfish with superpowers have to do with traffic jams --- look at that mess down there!
*Illustration of the traffic jam on the bridge below them with honking all around it.*
---
Eve: Beats me --- let's dive in and find out!
*Eve dives towards the Golden Gate Bridge and lands in the middle of the traffic jam, where a Grizzly bear named Toby is directing traffic, while holding a glass honey jar that a Goldfish is swimming in.*
---
Toby (with arms outstretched in a welcoming manner): Welcome to a Golden Gate Jam --- stickier than honey, but not as sweet!
*Goldi the Goldfish bobs up from the water in the jar with a splash.*
---
Goldi: I’m Goldi the Goldfish, born in California… call me GG for short and I’ll stop talking, before I bore ya.
*GG splashes back down into the jar.*
---
Steve (confused): A rhyming fish in a honey jar --- now I've seen everything!
*GG leaps out above the honey jar.*
---
GG: A simple reason for me speaking in rhyme… I grew up reading Dr. Seuss books all the time.
*GG splashes down into the jar again, and then pops out of the jar again.*
---
GG: A jar empty of honey, sweet and fine… filled with water, saving me just in time!
Eve: Just in time?!
Toby (winking): I can explain... the lake GG lived in dried up, so for now she’s making waves in this old honey jar of mine.
*An Orca leaps over the Golden Gate Bridge from the ocean below. Goldi looks scared and dives back into the jar.*
[Note: This nameless Orca who never has any dialog also made cameo appearances in book#1.]
---
GG: Whale looks like an attacker… I bet he thinks I’m a tasty fish cracker!
Toby: It’s all good, GG. You’re swimming in safe water with me!
Toby (extending a paw to Steve): My name is Tobias Leo DaGrizzly, friends call me Toby.
[Note: “Tobias Leo DaGrizzly” is a nod to Leo DiCaprio, who is know to be an environmentalist. And “Toby” is a further DiCaprio reference, since it was the name of the character of a movie role that was his first with his future best friend Tobey Maguire.]
Eve: Hi Toby, I’m Eve and this furry guy is Steve.
*Cars honk and an electric big-rig dances (standing up on his rig vertically) in the middle of the road on the bridge. The letters B R U C are across his grill just like M A C K is across the grill of a brand of trucks. And he has electric lightning bolt decals on his doors, like tattoos.*
---
Steve (with a concerned look): Did you send us an SOS message about regeneration, Toby? We are here to lend a paw!
Toby: An SOS?! Nope, not me.
Eve: Hmmmm....
Toby: Though we could use some help! Hot as a dragon burp here! Dry as a cactus toot!
*Thought bubble illustrations of a dragon burping fire and a cactus tooting smoke.*
---
Eve: Yikes, too dry! It’s like everything is turning into a raisin, right before our eyes!
*Illustration of shrivelled oranges with sad faces; and another of a puckering version of GG standing by a dried up lake.*
---
Toby: We need water!! Can you guys help?
Steve: Holy shrivelledness Batman!
*For a moment Steve and Eve don Batman and Robin masks and strike a heroic pose.*
---
Eve: We’ll try to help find water! But first, can we help clean up this traffic jam and get you out of a sticky situation?
---
Toby: Yes, plllllease! Sticky is fun --- when I’m eating honey!
*Attention turns to the big-rig named BRUC and the traffic jam.*
---
Steve (with a concerned look): Hey Mr. Big Rig, did you send out an SOS about regeneration?
Bruc (saluting): No siree!
*Steve looks to Eve and shrugs.*
---
Bruc: I love regeneration! I do it when I’m zooming downhill… charges me up a bit!
Eve: Hey, me too --- making energy for my battery belly when zooming downhill!
Bruc: Like making our own free food to eat later! Yummm!
Steve (winking): Wow, another member of your pack Eve! He’s an Elcihev Cirtcele too... oops, I mean he’s an Electric Vehicle!
[Note: “Elchihev Cirtcele” (Electric Vehicle spelled backwards) is a reference from book#1.]
*Steve and Eve laugh and BRUC looks puzzled, and then Steve becomes very serious.*
---
Steve (yelling with his paws in the air): WAIT! What in the blazing barnacles has your sparky kind of electricity REGENERATION got to do with a starfish regrowing an arm?!
*Steve in his confused imagines a starfish with 2 wheels zooming downhill and a bolt of electricity coming out of it.*
---
Eve: Easy Stevo, both magically make something out of thin air that was lost before.
Steve (giving a thumbs up): Ok, I’ll buy that story for now!
Eve: Let’s get this traffic moving!
Steve: Hey BRUC, did you cause this traffic mess big fella?
*Bruc is now down on all his wheels horizontally... ie. not standing up vertically on his rig.*
---
Bruc: Mess? You mean this dance party?!
Eve: Love your name, BRUC… perfect for a big strong TRUCK!
Bruc (puzzled): Say what? My name rhymes with juice, not truck!
Eve: Ohhhh, like B-R-U-C-E, Bruce.
Bruc (smirking): No, like B-R-U-C, Bruce!
Eve (shrugging): Ummm… ok, whatever grinds your gears Bruck.
Bruc: Bruuuce!
Eve (laughing): Alrighty then, Bru…ce!
Bruc (winking and whispering to Toby): Gets 'em every time!
*Cars honk again and Bruc dances (still standing up on his rig vertically) in the middle of the road.*
---
Eve: So what’s up with the traffic jam dance-off?!
---
Bruc: We’re celebrating doing our part to help fix the planet!
Steve (confused): Whaaaaat?
Bruc: Look around --- we are charged up for clean cruising --- electric, just like Eve!
*Pan out to reveal all sorts of cheerful electric vehicles gathered around. Another electric big-rig with big bold headlights, electric pickup trucks “humming” (musical notes above them), and electric cars smiling. Show electric lightning bolt symbols somewhere on all those vehicles, similar to what Eve has on her back end.*
---
Bruc: We call it a POWER Dance Party!
Steve: I love a good dance party!
Bruc: Check out my moves.
*He shakes or spins, again standing up vertically on his rig. Musical notes swirling above him.*
---
Steve (eyes popping with surprise): Look at Bruc go! He’s got moves like Jagger with a jolt!
Eve (laughing): Well, that’s groovy, Bruc --- but please move this POWER Dance off the bridge, ok?
Bruc (winking): Flattery will get you nowhere!
Eve (winking back): Ok, then forget my politeness --- scoot your big chassis out of the way, kind sir!
Bruc: Ok, ok, Sparky, you didn’t have to say that twice!
Eve (shrugging) I didn’t!
*An e-pickup truck, skids to a stop by Eve.*
---
Evan (smiling and winking): Hellllo!
Eve (blushing): Hi there.
Evan: ‘Evan and Eve’, a match made in heaven!
Eve (wide-eyed and blushing): Ummm, wild guess, is your name Evan?
Bruc: Oooooooo, sparks are flying!
Eve (smiling and still blushing): He does seem to be attracting my electrons a little.
Evan: I’m Evan B, ready to amp up an adventure!
*Horns honking again all around the traffic jam with Toby and GG wide-eyed.*
---
Evan: Looks like you could use a zippy ride, Toby and GG.
Eve (batting her eyelashes): What does the B stand for? Brave? Buzzing? Brawny?
Evan (smiling): Well, my last name is Mighty!
*Evan swings around to show his backside and license plate that reads “Evan B Mighty”.*
---
Evan (winking): I don’t like to brag, so just call me Evan and let’s roll.
Eve (speechless, eyes wide and blushing)
Evan (hearts floating above his head): Woah, I think you are overloading my circuits.
Eve: You had me at “Helllllo”.
*Eve shakes her head, like she’s confused.*
---
Eve (winking and blushing): No, no... you’re just, well, kinda electrifying in a sweet way.
---
Steve (pointing and yelling): Ok, ok, you love birds, let’s take this energy off the brrrrrridge!
Evan: Hop in, Toby and GG --- you don’t want to be roadkill!
* Toby with GG’s jar held tightly in both hands hops into Evan's truck bed.*
---
Bruc (yelling): POWER Dancing pause everybody --- let’s clear out!
Eve: ZOOM---KA-KA!
Evan: ZOOM---KA-KA!?!?
Eve: Roll with it, cutie!
Evan: ZOOM---KA-KA!
Bruc: ZOOM---KA-KA! To the grocery store! I have juice to unload!!
*They drive off the bridge with GG sloshing in her jar. The traffic jam clearing as the traffic falls in behind them. In the distance is a grocery store with a sign on it that reads “Food is Life”.*
C7
Chapter 7 – Goldilox and the 3 Bears
*Bruc is at the loading bay of a grocery store that has a sign above it that reads “Food is Life”. His cargo of juice bottles is being unloaded by a forklift (an electrical symbol on the back of the forklift implies that it is electric too). The 3 bears (Toby carrying GG in her jar), Eve, and Evan are gathered around watching.*
---
Eve: Really Bruc?! Juice?!
Steve: Not Dinosaur Juice, I hope!
Bruc: Ewwww, gross, nobody drinks that stuff around here! It’s apple juice.
Toby: Uh-oh, plastic bottles! That's a no-go zone for me!
Bruc: You guys don’t like plastic bottles?
Eve: Imagine our planet is like a giant fishbowl, and we are all the fish.
Bruc (rolling his eyes): Okaaaaaaay.
Steve: But you and Evan would short-circuit underwater!
Eve: Ok, ok, imagine just you bears are all fish in the giant fishbowl.
Toby: Alright, I'm a fish. Continue.
*Thought bubble image of GG and the 3 bears swimming in a giant fishbowl that is spherical like the earth... illustrate a north and south pole sticking out of it and an equator line drawn around it to help convey that it’s representing the earth.*
---
Eve: What if someone kept throwing tiny pieces of plastic in our fishbowl, making it hard to swim and breathe?
Steve: Wait, bears can breathe under water now?!
Eve: Steve! Just pretend for a second, will ya?
Steve: Sorry, go on, go on.
*Thought bubble image of GG and the 3 bears swimming in the earth-shaped fish bowl that is now also strewn with plastic bottles.*
---
Quilo (clearly sweating from the heat): The plastic would be like annoying, like tiny UFOs trashing up our home.
Eve: Thank you, Quilo! Tiny plastic Unidentified Flying Objects --- that's some wild imagination you have!
*Thought bubble image of GG and the 3 bears swimming in the earth-shaped fish bowl that is now strewn with alien flying saucers instead of plastic bottles.*
---
Toby: Funny thinking about mini-UFOs, but seriously, we need to keep our fishbowl --- I mean our planet --- clean!
GG (leaping out her jar, teary eyed): We all learned from our teachers... plastic in the ocean hurts swimming creatures.
Quilo (sweating even more): Plus plastic garbage messes up surfing beaches too, dude!
Bruc: Hey, I was just messing with you! THESE apple juice bottles are glass!
Steve: Glass? That’s a good thing, right?
Bruc: Yep, after kids drink the yummy juice, the bottles get returned, cleaned, and reused.
Eve: Reuse is cool, Bruc! Though regeneration is cooler!
Steve: RE-use, RE-cycle, RE-what now? My head is spinning!
*Image of Steve’s head spinning.*
---
Eve: Let me take a shot at explaining.
Evan: Hit us with your best shot, rockstar, Miss Benatar!
*Eve is imagined standing up playing a guitar shaped like an electricity bolt.*
---
Eve: Remember how starfish can regrow legs?
*Reuse the earlier illustration of a frowning starfish missing one arm with a Band-Aid over where the arm should be and then it grinning while flexing a new arm that has regrown.*
---
Steve: Oh ya, I forgot, that’s regeneration, right?
Eve: Right! By the way, Axolotls can do it too!
Toby: So can newts!
*Illustration of an axolotl and a newt high-fiving with one sparkling new arm each.*
---
Eve: Right, again! More ammmmazing creatures!
Steve: You said regeneration was like a healing superpower.
Eve: Great memory, Stevo!
Steve: So, glass bottle reuse is better for the planet than plastic recycling, though regeneration would be next-level healing power?
Eve: Right on!
Steve: So how can we help?
Eve: We can start by giving nature space to do what it already figured out how to do long ago.
Steve: Stay out of nature’s way --- got it!
Evan: And be friends with nature too! Like by replanting forests that were cut down for wood to make tables and chairs!
Eve: You’re on it, Mr. Evan B Mighty... Smart!
Steve: And how about letting old forests heal, the way the trees know best?
Toby: Sounds like regeneration to me! Or maybe RE-wilding!
Eve: RE-WILDING? That’s a new one for me --- and I like it!
Steve: Sounds like this is all about letting nature fix itself --- going back to its roots!
*Image of a forest where large trees are taking care of seeds and seedlings... maybe the large trees are holding water cans and sprinkling the seeds and seedlings.*
---
Eve: Bingo! That’s REGENERATION!
Toby: I’m going to tell my family not to buy drinks in plastic bottles anymore!!!
Eve: Climate kindness in action --- way to go, Toby!
Steve: Shhhhh --- don’t let Burger the Booger hear that, he loves plastic!
Goldi (screaming): Oh me, oh my... Burger the Booger, nooooooo, I’ll die!
Evan (shaking his behind): Relax, GG! Make like Taylor and shake it off! Burger doesn’t scare me!
Eve: Please be kind, Evan --- it’s ok to be scared sometimes. Taking action can help us feel better though!
Goldi (screaming): Burger, he gives me such a fright... though I try to stay calm with all my might!
Evan (winking): How about we choose a secret codeword to help stay calm when something upsets us?
*Characters sit quietly thinking of words shown in thought bubbles... Steve (“BELUGA”), EVE (“ELECTRONS”), QUILO (“GASTRONAUT”), Toby (“HONEYCAKE”), EVAN (“MIGHTY”), GG (“CARLOS”).*
---
Toby: How about HONEYCAKE? It's a superhero snack --- sweet, buzzing with energy, sticky-yummy good, and it chills me out when the world feels upside down.
*Image of a honeycake that looks to be oozing honey while bees buzz around it.*
---
*Everybody raises their eyebrows as they watch the buzzing bees.*
---
Eve: Perfect, HONEYCAKE is our codeword!
Steve: Cool! Now let’s get back to plastic bottles and Burger the Booger.
Goldi: HONNNNEYCAKE!
Steve: Whoa, GG! Hitting the panic button already? Let's try some big in-and-out deep breathing, like whale-sized breaths!
*GG swimming in the jar all puffed up holding her breath and imaging a humpback whale blowing out a breath.*
--
Evan: So, why does Burger the Booger love plastic?
Steve: Plastic bottles are kinda like him --- they are made from the same stuff.
Eve: Yep, all plastic things are made from fossil fuels... oil... Dino Juice.
Toby (smirking): I bet that Burger the Booger sneezes plastic bottles!
*They all laugh at the thought of Burger sneezing plastic bottles that look like snot droplets coming out of his nose.*
---
Bruc: What if we could make plastic bottles from plants instead of from oil?
Steve: Now you are just being a silly dreamer, Bruc!
Bruc: Ohhhhhh noooo, I’m not! See those soda bottles being unloaded from my backside right now?
*Illustration of more bottles being unloaded from Bruc.*
---
Eve: Ya, they look like plastic!
Bruc: Sort of --- though that plastic is made from plants! And after the kids enjoy the soda, those bottles can be turned back into soil to grow more plants in.
Steve: Woah!!!! Why didn’t you tell us about that before?
Bruce (laughing and smirking): You didn’t ask!
Eve: Omg, now that IS regeneration!!!! Drink bottles made from plants, that become soil, that grows more plants!
Evan: I’m feeling charged up just thinking about it!
*Illustrate a circular image that shows the cycle described in Eve’s words above... plants morphing into bottles and then bottles morphing into different plants.*
---
Steve: Hey Quilo, pal. Are you ok? You’ve been quiet, since we got to Cali?
Quilo: It’s the heat dude! Feeling dizzy --- can bearly think.
Steve: Ha! Still cracking jokes, even while melting into a puddle!
*Illustration of Quilo dripping sweat and looking droopy tired.*
---
Quilo: We are like “Goldilox and the Three Bears”.
Steve: Oh wow, he is losing his mind!
Toby: Quilo, I think you mean Goldilocks.
* Illustration of these 3 bears and GG (with long blond hair) sitting around a breakfast table on wooden chairs.*
---
Quilo: Ya, ya, Goldilox!
Toby: Noooo --- a blond little girl, not the fishy lox goodness I like with my breakfast bagel!
*Illustration of Toby with a bagel with lox and cream cheese on it.*
---
Quilo: Ya, right, Goldilox.
Toby: It’s “Goldi-LOCKS”... locks... like hair... golden hair.
Quilo (still sweating, dizzy and now looking puzzled): GG doesn’t have any hair!
*Quilo imagines GG with long flowing blond hair.*
---
Goldi: No hair do I have, though I do have a hunch… Quilo Bear thinks I would make a tasty fishy lunch!
* Quilo licking his lips and looking wide-eyed at GG *.
---
Quilo: Hmmm, I am thirsty and maybe a weeeee bit hungry!
Toby (snapping his fingers): Snap out of it, Quilo!
Steve: Isn’t “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears” about wild animals scaring away a little girl with long blond hair?
Quilo: It’s not about breakfast bagels?
Toby (slapping his forehead): Oh-my-goodness, I think I am going to lose it!
Eve: Can somebody please be a dove and hand Quilo one of those apple juices!
Steve: Maybe that will help him to stop talking dribble-drabble.
Toby: Hey, Goldilocks was testing the beds, chairs, and porridge of a family of bears without asking for permission!
*Image of knocked over chairs around a table with spilled bowls of porridge and the golden hair of a young girl flying out a door.*
---
Quilo: So, they scared away Goldi the Cereal Burglar?
Toby: I think the bears were going to eat breakfast with her, but they scared her off.
Quilo: Well, that will teach her for taking stuff from animals without asking first!
Eve: Now, now --- we are on a mission to spread KINDNESS, remember?
*A hand and arm (that look like the hand and arm of Bugs Bunny) delivers Quilo a bottle of apple juice... and then he gulps it down in a couple more illustrated panels.*
---
Quilo (looking refreshed): Ahhhh, thanks! Sorry gang, thirst makes me growly!
Toby (winking): And kinda nutty!
*Toby imagines a big acorn nut above Quilo’s head.*
---
Eve: Now, back to the mystery of the SOS message asking for help --- any clues?
Toby: Our dry weather and wildfires might be a hint.
*Toby imagines a forest on fire.*
---
Eve: Detective Toby is on the case! What’s our next move, Tobs?
Toby: Check out the desert is my guess!
Eve: Desert, coooool! I've always wanted to meet a cactus!
*Eve imagines a dry desert dotted with cacti.*
---
Quilo (smirking and winking) Desert, HOT actually!
Eve: Funny guy... off to the HOT desert, let’s fly!
Steve: You’re a poet and you didn’t even know it --- like GG!
Evan: I’ll take Quilo and we will meet the rest of you there. Let’s go find some clues!
Eve: ZOOM---KA-KA! See you there!
*Eve flies off with Steve, Toby and GG... Evan is seen driving below with Quilo sitting in his truck bed drinking another apple juice and surrounded by stacks of bottles.*
---
SBN
Steve’s Bear Necessities
TBD - possibly overly didactic and should be dropped.
Similar to in book#1, an optional 1-page educational interlude about bear facts.
Potential elements to explore...
- compare polar bears and grizzly bears
C8
Chapter 8 – Don’t Drink My Water
*As Eve arrives over the dessert with Steve, Toby and GG onboard, they are singing.*
---
Eve, Steve, Toby (singing, Buble lyrics): Birds flying high. You know how I feel. Sun in the sky. You know how I feel. Breeze driftin’ on by. You know how I feel.
*Into the scene soars Kakor the Condor, who joins the signing.*
---
Kakor: (singing, Buble lyrics): It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life. For me. And I’m feeling good. I’m feeling good.
Toby: Whoa, a singing Condor! That’s weird!
Kakor (laughing): I’m weird?! A singing Grizzly Bear with a Goldfish, travelling with a Polar Bear in a flying toaster? That’s WEIRRRRD!
Toby: Maybe I should have said “that’s rare” instead of “that’s weird”!
Kakor (laughing): No worries, pal! With a face like mine, I've been called worse!
*Close up of Kakor from the shoulders up… pink, yellow and black face and neck with no feathers… ring of black feathers at base of neck that looks like a furry scarf.*
---
Steve: You are the biggest birdy I’ve ever seen!
Kakor (slyly): Yaaaa, nothing that flies around here is bigger than me! Except for planes and that cute metal thing you are sitting in!
Toby: This is Eve, she’s an EV. I’m Toby. My fishy pal is GG. And my bear brother here is Steve.
Kakor: Hi, I’m Kakor, the fearless flyer!
Steve: We had some tasty Kakor cookies in Norway. Did your parents think you were as sweet as a cookie, when they named you?
Kakor: Nah, they named me Kakor because I had no fear of failure. I tried to fly before I even had feathers!
*Image of a baby condor in a huge nest with an empty cracked open egg, who is trying to fly with tiny wings that have nothing but fluff on them.*
---
Toby: Wait, wait, I get it, I get it! Cuz I’m a big CG5 fan!
Kakor: Go for it!
Toby: You got no kakorrhaphiophobia, right Kakor?
Kakor (proudly, his wings in a flexing sort of position): Zero fear of failure, correct!
Steve: And a smart cookie too! Can I call you ‘Cookie’?
Kakor (winking): Well, my soaring skills are pretty sweeeeet!
Eve: You kinda look like a dinosaur.
Kakor: Pollution from humans almost made us condors into dead dinosaurs --- extinct!
Steve (smelling one of his armpits): Who stinks?
Toby: Stevo, ‘extinct’ means gone forever from the world.
Kakor: Exactly! But luckily, humans realized their mistake and helped us to avoid extinction.
Steve: Is that an example of how some humans are trying to heal the planet now?
Eve: Exactamundo! Kakor just shared a REGENERATION success story!
Kakor: Great word! Though the story’s happy ending is not quite complete yet.
Eve: Are you ok, Kakor? Your head looks sunburned.
*Kakor’s head apears redder than usual.*
---
Kakor: I’m fine, thanks. Just enjoying the sunshine a little too much --- it's gotten way hotter around here lately!
GG: Trying to stay cool as best I can… feels like living in a frying pan.
Kakor (looking a little angry): What in the world is the fish poet trying to say?!
Toby: GG is telling us that she is boiling hot too.
Eve: Too hot and not enough water. Hmmm, sounds like a common problem these days!
Kakor (annoyed): Tell me about it! I really need a drink!
Eve: Let’s look for a place to cool off, drink up, and recharge.
*They look down and only see desert, a bunch of big shiny mirrors and a group of small animals (who turn out to be rabbits).*
---
Toby (squinting and maybe shielding glare from his eyes with a paw): I don’t see any water down there, but I spy some shiny things.
Eve: I’m feeling a pulse of high energy again. Let’s go check those things out!
Kakor: Bet I can dive down there faster than you!
*Eve with her friends hanging on goes into a steep dive with Kakor just ahead of her.*
---
Steve (eyes wide): Here we go again! Hold onto something... we’re going down!
Toby (screaming and hanging on to Steve): Can you please say “we’re landing” next time!
*On the ground beside a long winding series of solar panels, that they thought were mirrors, they meet up with Evan, who has Quilo and a stack of apple juice in his truck bed.*
---
Evan: Nice stunt flying! We spotted you zooming down --- glad you didn’t crash!
Quilo: We brought apple juice to the desert --- anybody want a drink?
Steve: Yessss, pleeeeeeease! My mouth is already feeling as dry as the backside of a lizard!
Toby (as he puts GG in her jar down on the ground): Me too please --- this bear loves applie juice, as much as honey!
Kakor: Only water for me, thanks. The sugar in that stuff is no good for my tummy!
Quilo: Ok, suit yourself!
*Quilo, Toby, and Steve all pop the cap off apple juices and juzzle the drinks down.*
---
Steve (licking his lips): Ahhhhh, I feel better!
Quilo: Hey, what are these big shiny things?
Kakor: I don’t know what they do, but I always find water under them!
*There is a water canal under the solar panels and Kakor drinks from it, as GG looks on intently from her watery jar in Toby’s arms.*
---
*A large group of rabbits wearing construction hard-hats gather watching.*
---
Lead Rabbit: Solar panels! They turn sunlight into electricity to power everything!
Kakor (surprised, as he stands up from drinking): Whoa, where did you little guys come from?
Lead Rabbit (scared): Yikes, a bird of prey, runnnnn!
*All the rabbits scatter.*
---
Kakor: Don’t worry, I’m not into Rabbit Snacks. You are way too little to bother eating --- I poop bigger than you.
All the animals together: Grrrrosssssss!
Kakor: Sorry, inappropriate?
Lead Rabbit: Phew, thought for a second that we were all going to be Rabbit Snacks!
*All the rabbits return and gather again.*
---
Eve: Cool, solar farm! Did you fluffle of bunnies build it?
Lead Rabbit: We sure did!
Steve: Our friend Heather the Hare has a famous cousin, who grows carrots on his farm. Isn’t that more normal for rabbits?
Lead Rabbit (shrugging): Normal shmormal! Being different is cool!
Evan (smirking): So, what's up, doc? Why put the solar panels above this creek?
Lead Rabbit: See the shade it makes?
*Image that makes the shading effect of the panels on the creek and the animals obvious.
---
Kakor: Yeah, thanks --- you can throw shade on me any day!
GG (from her jar of water that’s sitting on the ground still): Cooling the water keeps it around… feeding more plants that live in the ground.
Lead Rabbit (pointing with a thumb to GG): Smart guppy!
Evan: I just Boogled this on my computer because I’m super confused.
Steve: What did you find out?
Evan: The more shade over the water, the less water evaporates on the way to all the veggie farms around here!
*GG jumps above the water in her jar and gives a thumbs up with a fin; behind her is a pile of huge avocados with a sign that reads “Giant Avocados for Sale”.*
---
*Now all the rabbits are drinking from the creek.*
---
GG: Nice to help where veggies are grown... though I need much more water to call home.
Steve: Making clean energy and saving water all at the same time! Smart move, rabbits!
Lead Rabbit: Thanks! We used to dig ditches for Dinosaur Juice pipelines --- this feels way better for the planet!
*Lead Rabbit is imaging their old work of digging ditchers for an oil pipeline.*
---
Eve (smiling): Climate ACTION and planet kindness, yesssss!
Steve: This is awesome, but why are my paws turning white?
*Looks at his paws as the colour dissappears from them gradually over a couple illustrated panels.*
---
GG (screaming): HONEYCAKE!!!!
*Everybody turns to see Kakor is drinking from GG’s jar with her still in it.*
---
Toby: Get away from GG, you big bully!
*Toby chases Kakor around in circles and eventually gets him in a headlock.*
---
Toby: You're lucky I don't pluck the rest of your feathers out, you flying...
Kakor: Take it easy, furball! It was just a little sip! And that fish’s water tastes weird anyway --- yuck!
*Steve is now between Kakor and Toby, who has GG in her jar in one of his hands held away from Kakor. Steve’s arms are outstretched to keep the fighters apart and his paws are white.*
---
Steve (shouting): Alright, break it up, you two! No need for a feather-and-fur fight!
Eve: Looks like we've got more than just climate change to deal with!
Evan: We can’t afford to waste time fighting with each other, right my little Love Bug?
Eve (blushing and looking shocked): Excuse me!?
Evan (also blushing now): I mean, we can’t afford to waste time fighting with each other, right Eve?
*Everybody rolls their eyes and little hearts are imaginied bouncing around in the air above Evan and Eve.*
---
Steve: We need to share kindness with everybody... and always!
Kakor (looking sad): Sorry, team.
Steve: We forgive you, Kakor. Big whoop!
Eve: Ya, big whoop, forgive and forget.
Kakor (happy again): Thanks, friends!
Eve: And we need to work together --- like those rabbits do --- to find solutions to help heal the planet!
Kakor: Let’s start by finding GG a new watery home!
Steve: That’s the spirit, Kakor!
Evan: ACTION and kindness packaged together!
*The chapter ends in tension... Toby and GG still upset with Kakor.*
---
C9
Chapter 9 – Stop Burning Stuff
*The sun is blazing over the desert and the solar farm. Toby is still clutching tightly to GG in her jar and giving Kakor a stern gaze.*
---
Kakor: Sorry again for accidentally taking a sip of your water, little fishy.
*GG scowls silently at Kakor from the water in her jar.*
---
Toby: That was no accident!
Kakor: Ok, ok, I did it on purpose, I was thirsty --- I AM sorry though.
Toby (still looking upset and turning his back on Kakor): Humph!
Kakor: Please forgive me!
*Toby and GG look at each other with pursed lips.*
---
Kakor: And why in the world does GG live in a jar anyway?
Toby (shrugging): Oh, you must know --- a bit of a water shortage --- a drought!
Kakor: Ah, so we’re all a bunch of thirsty critters, huh?
Toby: Yup, GG's lake had shrunk to just a muddy, little puddle, so I scooped her up in this jar that used to be the home of my favourite honey.
*Illustration of Toby saving GG from her drying up lake with his honey jar.*
---
Kakor (smiling): Re-USE! That’s even sweeter than recycling, wouldn’t you say?
GG (smiling): Thank you Big Birdie for trying to be funny... made me forget for a minute that it’s too hot and sunny.
*Steve is dripping sweat into a pool by his feet and is rolling up his sleeve fur to expose the black skin of his arms (like on page 80 of book#1).*
----
Toby: Yikes, you two bears look like you're melting faster than ice cream sandwich on a barbeque!
Steve: Well, we are Polar bears. P-O-L-A-R – Polar – as in, the North Pole!
Quilo: Ya, we aren’t built for desert weather!
*Quilo now seen beside Steve has his leg fur rolled up to expose the black skin of his legs and is also rolling up his arm fur.*
---
Toby: Black skin under all that fluffy white fur --- that’s super cool!
Steve: Not cool at all right now... hot-t-t-t-t-t-t-t!
Quilo: Honestly, I’m dreaming of a dip in a giant tub of Fishtachio ice cream right about now!
*They all imagine a pool-sized tub of ice-cream with Quilo floating on his back in it.*
---
Toby: Still, it’s super cool about your dark skin!
Steve: No matter what colors or types of animals we are... we are all in this hot spot together!
Quilo: Abso-toot-ley!
*Color returns to Steve’s paws in a couple of illustrated panels of close-ups on his paws, as our characters are being kind to each other again.*
---
*As Steve looks at his colorful paws, hearts dance around the heads of the others.*
---
Toby: Glad to see the awesome color back in your paws, Steve!
Steve: Surround me by kindness, and taaadaaa --- back comes the color!
Quilo: Right, I remember hearing about the magic superpower of your paws to fix broken things.
Toby: Wait! What? If you can fix broken things, then please use your magic to fill GG’s dried up lake with water, right now!
Steve: I wish I could!
Toby: Why can’t you? I thought kindness was the magic superpower to fix the planet!
Steve: Sorry gang, there are limits to the superpower of kindness --- re-filling a lake is too much for these Superpaws.
*Steve imagines his paws throwing coloured light at a dried up lake bed and only a tiny bit of water re-appearing where the lake used to be.*
---
Toby: Well then, we gotta find GG a new watery home fast!
Steve: Yep! And when we do, these melting polar bears need a swim too!
*Everybody laughs, while imaging GG, Quilo and Steve swimming side by side in a lake.*
---
*Eve and Evan zoom back into the scene with skidding stops.*
---
Quilo: Hey, where have you two Love Bugs been?
Eve (blushing): We took a quick whirl around the block --- to have a chat.
Quilo (singing): Eve and Evan, sitting in a tree, K-I-S ...
Evan (smirking): No! More like T-A-l-k-i-n-g, talking!
Quilo (smirking): About whaaaaaat?
Eve: He was sparking my imagination.
Quilo (winking): Ah-ha, just as I thought!!!
Eve (blushing): Oh, stop! I mean, he really got me charged up about healing the planet!
Quilo (winking again, silently)
Eve: We were talking about it being time to get back to spreading kindness, like jam on toast!
Evan: And mixing kindness with ACTION!
Eve: Like those eco-friendly rabbits. Putting climate solutions into action!
Toby: Or like by finding GG another lake to live in!
Quilo: Or like by changing hearts and minds?
Steve: You mean like trying to change Burger the Booger?
Quilo: That’s aiming for the stars, but YES!
Eve: Speak of the devil, look who’s coming!
*Burger approaches, he has a burning log in his lips (like a cigarette) and is trailing a streak of brush fire behind him.*
---
Steve: Hey, Slick, careful or you’ll light up more than just that log!
Eve (whispering): Stevo, remember, hearts and minds, hearts and minds.
Steve (rolling his eyes): Hi Burger, how’s life?
Eve (winking silently)
Burger: Not great. Everybody is upset about the air and pointing fingers at me!
Eve: Oh? Tell us more.
Burger: They say the earth’s ‘atmosphere’ of air is super thin --- like the thickness of the skin of a rubber balloon stretched over a beach ball.
Steve: Wow, that is suuuuper thin!
*Illustrate a balloon stretched over a beach ball and zoom in to show how thin that is.*
---
Burger: And they say, all the nasty pollution gets trapped in that tiny layer of air that we all breathe.
Eve: Sounds yucky, continue...
Burger: Plus, they say, the air is heating up, making things tough for everyone.
*Toby with GG in her jar in his hands appears beside Kakor... Toby coughs.*
---
Steve: Maybe we need to stop burning stuff?
*Burger looks at his burning log for a moment and then puts it out on the ground, like he’s putting out a cigarette.*
---
Burger (smirking): Yeah, maybe. But it’s not like you guys are perfect angels either!
Evan: Nope, we're not perfect, Burger. But we're trying to improve every day, working towards a cleaner, greener future.
Steve: It's about taking steps together.
Eve: Steps that heal what’s broken.
Quilo: Steps that regenerate what’s been lost.
Evan: Steps that solve problems in new ways.
Kakor: Steps that cool things down.
Toby: Steps that help fix the planet.
Burger (looking sad): Sniff, sniff.
Steve: Hey, boogers aren’t all bad!
Burger: What?!
*Steve pulls a booger out of his nose and holds it out on his finger.*
---
Steve: Our bodies make boogers from dirty stuff that we breath in through our noses, so that stuff doesn’t make us sick!
Burger (looks confused): Yum!
Steve (excited): So, there’s a place for boogers on the planet too!
*Steve waves his arms in a tada type motion, flicking the booger off his finger... it flies past his friends who all say “Grossssss!” as it sails past them.*
---
Burger: Maybe staying in the ground isn’t such a bad idea after all... sniff, sniff.
*Burger turns and slithers away, a book can be seen in his back pocket that is titled "Goodbye Dino Juice".*
---
C10
Chapter 10 – Mother Nature
*Booger is disappearing into the distance across the desert, leaving a charred path behind him.*
---
Eve: Do you think we’ve been too hard on him?
Evan: Too hard on Burger the Booger?! He’s made a big mess of the planet!
Eve: True, but can’t anybody change, once they understand facts and a little about science?
Steve: Science can help Burger to learn about the damage he has done, though having him really care and want to help fix the planet may be a bigger challenge.
Eve: Wow Steve!!! It sounds like you’ve been reading the book “Braiding Sweetgrass”.
Steve: Nope, but my mom and dad have read it!
Eve: Coolio, it seems your folks have shared some of its wise words with you!
Steve: Yeah, Mom and Dad say it’s important to learn about science, and also to listen to the lessons that nature is teaching us.
Eve: Woah, I’m so proud of you Steve!
Evan (shrugging): You two have lost me with all the braiding grass stuff. Can we talk about science a bit more?
Eve: Sure Evan, what sciency stuff is exciting your electrons?
Evan: Plant science!
Eve: Ok, hit us with some green education!
Evan: Did you know leafs are nature’s solar panels?
Steve: The “Leafs” are hockey team, do you mean “leaves”?
Eve: Nice spelling correction, Professor Steve!
Steve: So Evan, are you saying that leaves make energy?
Evan: Yep! Plants have been photosynthesis wizards, since long before humans and rabbits thought about solar power!
Steve: Photosynthewhat?!?
Eve: Photosynthesis Steve. It’s when plants change light energy into another form of energy... food!
*A plant wearing a wizard hat is seen catching sunlight in a pot that it’s stirring and eating from.*
---
Evan: Exactamundo, Eve! And did you know that plants also clean the air, while they are cooking up their food?
*The wizard plant is then seen making a tada type gesture with it’s branches, while it smiles widely.*
---
Steve (smiling): Smartie-Plants!
Evan: Smart, for sure! Clever plants make sugar for themselves to eat and oxygen for us to breathe!
Eve: Shockingly brilliant! And they eat up dirty old carbon dioxide and store the carbon bits in their bodies and in the soil.
Steve: Can we pllllease wait until high school to learn more about this stuff! My bear brain is overheating, pals!
Toby: Ya, love you, geek squad, but can we take a recess break? We gotta find water for GG --- she can’t live a happy life in this honey jar forever!
*GG is seen shrugging above the water in the honey jar in Toby’s hands.*
---
Kakor: The best way to find a lake for GG would be to fly up in the sky and look down!
Eve: Let’s soar! And keep our eyes open for regeneration action too!
Kakor: If you’re charged up about nature’s regeneration power, we can visit my friends Suz and Zep along the way.
Evan: Suz n’ Zep?! Are they in a rock band!?
Kakor: Suz and Zep are Mother Trees --- guardians of the forest.
Quilo: Sounds to me like more school time is coming!
Eve (winking): Yeah, with really TALL teachers!
*Everyboyd laughs as Eve takes off with Steve, Toby and GG onboard, Kakor takes to the air too, and Quilo jumps into Evan’s truckbed again.*
---
*As they fly, they see a farm of modern turbines below.*
---
Toby: Wow, look at that wind turbines making electricity.
Eve: There are so many ways to make clean power!
Kakor: Watch out for the spinning blades!!!
Toby: Yeah, thinly sliced Kakor doesn’t sound tasty!
*Everybody laughs while imagining Kakor sliced up on a dinner plate.*
---
Steve: Do you know why wind power is popular?
Toby (shrugs silently)
Steve: Cuz it has a lot of fans! Get it!?
Toby: Ha-ha! Save it for another book, pal!
*The desert below transitions into a dense forest in which there are 2 large conifer trees poking out of the forest, taller than all the other trees.*
---
Kakor: Eureka, we’ve found them!
Eve: The Mother Trees?
Kakor: Yep, my mothers from another... ummmm ... never mind.
Steve: Your green friends are huuuuuuge! Bet they have oodles of noodles!!
Toby: You mean lots of needles?
Steve (shrugging): Ya ya, like I said.
*Kakor and Eve turn into a steep dive.*
---
Steve (eyes wider): Hold onto something... we’re going down!
Toby (screaming and hanging on to Steve): I asked you to please say “we’re landing”, instead of “WE’RE GOING DOWN”!
*On the ground, beside the huge bases of the trunks of two Redwood trees, they meet up with Evan and Quilo.*
---
Steve (looking straigt up the trunk of one of the Redwoods): Mamma Mia! You’re huge!
Suz: Nice to meet you little baby bear.
Steve: Little baby?!
Suz: When you are hundreds of years old, and as tall as a family of giraffes standing on top of each other...
*Illustration of a family of giraffes standing on top of each other and the top one looking eye to eye with Suz.*
---
Steve: … everybody down on the ground looks like a little baby?
Suz: Totally! Everything looks tiny to me!
Steve: You’re so old, I bet you remember when dinosarus used to poop around here!
Suz (sternly): Careful now, you young fluffball!
Zep: I see you have a new furry little friend, Suz.
*Steve turns to look up the trunk of the other nearby Redwood that just spoke.*
---
Steve: Hi there! I’m Steve and these are my friends. We...
Suz: … oh, we know who you are! In fact, we called for you!
Eve: You sent the “SOS. REGENERATION HELP NEEDED.” message?
*Flashback to the message on Eve’s computer screen.*
---
Zep: Yep, we did!
Steve (confused, scratching his head): How?!?!
Suz (winking): We have lots of friends in underground places.
Zep: And those friends have magical communication skills!
Suz: We wanted to speak with you about regeneration.
Steve: Wait, what? You don’t have an emergency that needs our help?
Zep: Well, we are ALL in a climate emergency.
Suz: And we had a feeling that you were a bit bummed out about the health of the planet.
Zep: So, we wanted to share some good news!
Suz: Yeah, we wanted you to see some of the great climate-healing action going on in California.
Toby: Like those solar-powering rascally rabbits, making clean energy and saving water at the same time?
Zep: Yesss! Awesome bunny teamwork, right?
Steve: For sure! And we need many more radically smart solutions to fix the planet!
Suz: Exactly, Steve! More sciece in ACTION!!
Zep: Ya, that would help nature to have time and space for regeneration!
Eve: So, you two arranged all this? You really are wise old trees!
Suz: We plants have been around, since long before animals and humans, so we’ve had time to become wise!
*The two trees and Kakor wink.*
---
Zep: Steve, I heard that someone’s mother once said, “be a marshmalllow”.
*Image of Steve speaking with him Mom, and Zep and Steve imaging him as a marshmallow.*
---
Steve: WHAAAAAT?!?! How did YOU hear about that?!?!
*Steve falls onto his bum in awe, looking up at the two mother trees.*
C11
Chapter 11 – Connecting Everything
*Steve is getting up and dusting himself off. Everybody is looking up at the 2 mother trees in awe.*
---
Steve: How do you know about my mom telling me to “be a marshmallow”?
Eve: Remember, Suz and Zep did say that they have underground friends with magical ways of sending messages?
Suz (winking at Kakor): And don’t forget about our flying, feathered buddies too!
Zep: Steve, you really do look like a squishy marshmallow… with ears and a puffy tail!
*Zep imagines Steve looking like a giant marshmallow.*
---
Eve: Hey Zep, you know this guy does gross stuff sometimes that could burn up a marshmallow, right?
*Flashback from the scene in book#1 (shared from Eve to Zep) in which Steve lights a fart on fire, followed by him looking a bit singed.*
---
Zep: OMG, thanks for the warning, Eve!
Eve: I’ve told Mr. Tooty Patootie that he better be careful about playing with GAS!
Zep: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to see a marshmallow get a burnt bum!
*Eve and Zep laughing and imagining a screaming marshmallow on fire on a stick that got too close to a campfire.*
---
Steve (blushing): When my mom said, “be a marshmallow”, she meant that I should let tough stuff bounce off me...
Zep: ... while you stay sweet and kind to everybody!
Steve: Zowie, you really do know what “be a marshmallow” means!
Zep: Yep, and I also know Momma Bear taught you that it will take more than being sweet and kind to save the planet.
Steve: Woah, have you met my mother?!
Zep (winking): No --- I just knowwww mothers!
Steve: Well, my mom says that ACTION is a kind of medicine for when I’m feeling a bit bummed out.
Zep: Right on! Action, along with kindness, will help heal the planet --- that’s some regeneration medicine.
Evan: There’s that fancy word again, regeneration.
Suz: I love that word! Or instead you could say, let’s help the planet to repair or regrow.
Evan: Like that starfish party trick of regrowing a lost arm!
*Evan imagining again a frowning starfish missing one arm with a Band-Aid over the spot where the arm should be and then it grinning while flexing a new arm that it has grown.*
---
Zep: That starfish trick is one of nature’s best examples of regeneration!
Evan: I hear that some folks say "re-wilding".
Steve: Ooooo, I like that... re-WILDing... making things wild all over again!
Evan: And I hear that there are many places on the planet doing awesome things to help nature to regenerate, right?
Suz: For sure! Did you know that in Costa Rica they are doing a great job of helping forests to re-wild?
*Illustration of a clear cut with only a couple trees left standing in it, who are frowning... and then in the next panel a fully regrown forest with smiling trees.*
---
Steve: I would love to see that! How about a field trip there someday, Eve?
Eve: For sure! We could hang out with three-toed sloths up in the trees and giant Leatherback sea turtles in the water.
Steve: Sea turtles with soft shells and sloths with only 3 toes? Nature is so awesomely wild!
*Illustration of a swimming sea turtle and a sloth in a tree above the water’s edge showing off 3 toes… like making a 3-fingered peace sign.*
---
Zep: I bet you’d like it there! They have clean energy dance moves too --- hydro-powered!
Quilo: Like the energy we make from rushing water in Norway?
Zep: Yep, just as squeaky clean!
Suz: I don’t mean to throw cold water on your electric dance moves, but Costa Rica still has a gigantic plastic garbage problem to fix!
Zep: True that, Suz! No place is totally eco-perfect yet.
Suz: Good news is that kids all around the world are taking amazing action!
Evan: Yeah, like near here there are kids working to stop using plastic in their schools.
*Image of the globe and happy kids standing on all sides of it.*
---
Quilo (with 2 thumbs-down paws): Down with plastic packaging!
Steve: Hey, can we get back to hearing more about your magical underground pals, Suz?
Suz (winking): The marshmallow has a good memory!
*All the characters turn to listen to Suz again.*
---
Suz: Ever see mushrooms in the forest?
Steve: There are no forests where I come from --- just snow and ice.
Toby: Yep, around here, during every wet season, our forest floor explodes with mushrooms.
Suz: Fungi!
Toby: Thanks, Suz. I am a FUN-GUY!
Suz: Oh, Toby, you’re a ton of laughs, though you are definitely not a mushroom!
*Illustration of Toby looking like a mushroom growing out of the soil.*
---
Toby (looking confused): You’ve got me in the dark now, Green Mamma.
Suz: Mushrooms are the fruit part of amazing stuff that grows mostly under the ground --- fungi.
Steve: So, mushrooms are like apples popping up from the underground branches of fungi?
Tzep: Suz, these Planet Hero Kids are quick learners!
Suz: The underground branches are called mycelium. They are like nature’s internet!
Toby: My-celly-YUM? I’m getting hungry!
Suz: Close, Toby! Say it with me like this… My-Silly-Um.
*All the animals with a common speech bubble saying “MY-SILLY-UM”.*
---
Suz: Perfect! All the mycelium branches connect under your feet, helping we trees to share water and yummy stuff, through our roots.
Steve: My mom always says it’s a 'Wood Wild Web.'
* Illustration of underground network of mycelium and tree roots passing notes, and a sign above that says “Wood Wild Web”.*
---
Zep (winking): Moms usually know best, Stevie!
Suz: Our mushroomy friends help us to feed and water our baby trees, through those connections of theirs.
Zep: See how everything is connected?
Toby: Mind-blowing nature! Cool! Smart!
Zep: Want to hear something even more brain-exploding?
Toby: Sure, what else!
Zep: Some fungi can even munch on plastics!
*Illustration of mushrooms munching on plastic bottles.*
---
Steve and Toby (yelling): Whaaaaaaat?!?!?!
*Steve and Toby’s heads are exploding out their tops like volcanos.*
---
Eve: So, how did you trees send a message to my computer? Do mushrooms have texting skills too now?
*Show the “SOS. REGENERATION HELP NEEDED” message on Eve’s screen again.*
---
Suz (smiling): Maybeeeee... fungi zap out electrical messages all the time --- you just gotta listen carefully.
Steve: No way!
Suz: Waaaay!
Quilo: Don’t stop be-leafing in the magic of nature, my friends!
Eve: You big plants are the coolest teachers ever!
Steve (laughing): And the greenest!
Suz: Speaking of teaching, it looks like we have some young eco-learners visiting.
*Suz points a branch towards a school bus (with a lightning bolt symbol on it, indicating that it’s electric; and tie-dye swirls on both sides) that is parked by a few tents and kids are sitting by a campfire (backs to the reader) roasting marshmallows.*
---
Zep: Fun! But keep it safe, no campfires when it’s dry please!
Suz (talking to Toby): Hey, Smokey the Bear --- can you politely ask them to put out that campfire!
Toby (wearing a broad-rimmed Smokey the Bear hat that says “Smokey” on it): I’m on it!
Quilo: Go, Forest Stranger!
Toby: That’s RANGER.
Quilo (shrugging): That’s what I said, Smokey!
*Toby runs off to talk to the kids, returns later smiling.*
---
Toby: All clear, the campfire is out! And more good news, those kids aren’t using plastic bottles or leaving any trash!
*Illustration of Smokey the Bear with a fire extinguisher and a thumbs up.*
---
Evan (sleeping): Zzzzzzzzzz...
Eve (looking tired and droopy): Wakey, wakey, Evan --- time to recharge. Hey gang, Evan and I need an electron lunch!
Suz: Follow that electric school bus! I bet she’s heading back to school, where you can find a place for a charge-up.
*Illustration of kids filing onto the school bus.*
---
GG (jumping out of the water above her jar): Electron stew for you... but water still needed for me, you see?
Kakor: We haven’t forgotten about you, fishy friend.
Zep: Patience team, remember, everything is connected!
Suz (winking): Listen for a message from the fungi --- they might just have a hint for you.
Zep (winking): I spy water in your future, GG!
Toby (winking): Thanks, Mother Trees. We will keep our ears to the ground for clues!
Steve: Follow that school bus!
Eve: Zoom-kaka!
Quilo: Zoom-Kakor!
Evan: Zoom- kakorrhaphiophobia!
*Evan speeds off behind the school bus with Quilo, Steve and Eve flying off above with Toby and GG onboard, as Kakor flies beside.*
---
C12
Chapter 12 – School Bell Poo Bell
*The troupe catches up with the electric school bus at the school... Evan on the ground and Eve landing from the air. The bus is plugged in charging up (beside a row of charging cables coming out of the wall of the school) as the last of the kids are filing back into the school (we only see them from behind). The bus is yellow with a tie-dye swirl on each side.*
---
Hippie the bus: Zowie! That was a shockingly cool landing!
Eve: Thanks, my electric sister! I’m Eve.
Hippie: I'm Hippie. And who are these funny pals of yours?
Eve: The furry one with the life ring is Steve. The big white one is his polar bear cousin, Quilo. Our wheeled electric buddy is Evan. My flying wingman is Kakor. And Toby and GG complete our eco team.
*Illustrate 1-panel close-ups of each character with their names above them, as Eve lists them off in the main panel where they need not be illustrated all together.*
---
Hippie: Nice to meet you all! So, Steve, what’s up with the life ring?
Steve (shrugging): Well, I’m not a great swimmer and the sea ice back at home is melting, so better safe than soggy, right?
Hippie: Stylish and smart --- I dig it! And what’s the story with the fish in the jar?
Toby: We’re on a mission to find GG a new watery world --- her old lake packed up and left without her!
Hippie: Radical, in search of a new pad for the fishy friend!
*Eve and Evan are drooping and looking tired.*
---
Steve: Any chance you can juice up our electric buddies with some electrons? They are exhaustipated!
Hippie (laughing): You all look exhausted and I’m exhaust-less, dude! Sure thing, grab a couple power cables and plug right in!
Steve (while holding a power cable): Thanks, sometimes I feel so tired that I can’t even poop!
*Eve and Evan seen happily plugged in and charging beside Hippie, who is also still plugged in.*
---
Eve: Ahhhhh, that feels good in our battery bellies, thanks!
Evan: Hey Hippie, what do the kids say about cruising in an electric school bus?
Hippie: They totally vibe with it! No dinosaur juice guzzling and no stinky exhaust toots!
Eve: Dino-juicelss and tootless! What else do they love?
Hippie: They looooove the quiet cruising. And helping chill out climate change!
Evan: Awesome! And they’re breathing easy without yucky fumes messing with their lungs and brains.
Hippie: Yep, these brainy munchkins totally get it --- kids today are mega smart!
*Toby is looking at a large recycling bin that is near where the EVs are charging.*
---
Toby: HONNNNNEYCAKE!
Quilo: The CODEword!!! What’s up, Toby?
*Steve looks at his paws as the bright colours drain out of them and they turn white.*
---
Hippie: Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up the bus! You have a CODEword?
Eve: It helps us to stay calm and support each other when things get a bit scary wild.
Hippie: Nice mooooove!
Toby: This school sure does need a giant recycling bin --- too many plastic bottles!
Hippie: Hey, hey, the kids are on it --- they know plastics are trouble!
Toby: You sure about that?
Hippie: Ya man, they also know most types of plastic can’t be recycled and end up as garbage buried in the ground or junk clogging up the oceans.
Toby: So, they are taking action?!
Hippie: They sure are! Peek behind that bin!
*Between the recyling bin and the wall of the school there are pallets stacked with glass bottles.*
---
Toby: Whoa! Are those glass bottles heading for a re-do?
Hippie: Even better than that, CareBear!
Toby: How?
Hippie: The kids convinced the school to use bottles made from plants!
Toby: Say whaaat?!?
Hippie: Yep, and the used bottles can be turned back into soil, that can help to grow new plants all over again.
Evan: Just like Bruck told us! Awesome kids making a difference!
Hippie: Bruck?
Evan: Sorry, his name is actually Bruc.
Evan (imaging Bruc): A POWER Dancing machine! He’s an electric big rig truck.
Hippie: Oh, Bruc! He delivers our juice! We know him.
Eve: Hmmm... like Suz and Zep said, ‘everthing is connected’.
Hippie: Connected?... reminds me of a zinger joke! Who might you find driving an electric school bus?
Steve: I’m stumped, who?
Hippie: A conductor!
*Everybody looks blankly and nobody laughs.*
---
Hippie (laughing): Sorry, maybe that is more of a high school science joke!
Eve: Back to the kids... sounds like they are sparking big changes in the world!
Hippie: These kids aren’t just talking --- they take ACTION! Writing companies. Avoiding plastic toys. Asking parents only to buy stuff that uses less plastic packaging. All to help our planet breathe easier!
Steve: Wow, you have a bunch of Planet Hero Kids here!
Hippie: And I’m their Planet Hero Bus!
*Steve’s paws go back to their brilliant colours and Hippie looks awestruck watching them change.*
---
Hippie: Those are some Superpaws!
Quilo: His paws light up like the Northern Lights when kindness is all around!
Eve: And he spreads that magic light to fix things!
Steve: Just a bit of magic power, Eve. It takes kindness and real action from everyone to heal our planet!
Eve: You are so right, my frosty friend!
*Illustration of the planet smiling.*
---
Evan: Hey, Hippie, do you know when people started recycling?
Hippie: Bien sûr!
Evan: Are you speaking French now?
Hippie: Yup! “Bien sûr” means “of course”. Recycling started in the city of Paris, which is in the country of France.
Evan: A long time ago?
Hippie: More than 100 years ago!
Evan: Ancient history.
Hippie: Yep, and it was Monsieur Poubelle who started it all. He got people to use garbage cans.
*Illustration of a man with a big curved moustache, wearing a French beret, standing with a stack of tin garbage cans in front of him and the Eiffel Tower in the distance.*
---
Quilo (laughing hard): Poubelle? Like, POO-Bell?! Seriously?!
*Quilo is imaging a bell made out of poop.*
---
Hippie: It’s true! And now, "poubelle" is the French word for "garbage can”.
Quilo: And what's up with your name? Must be a funny story there too?
Hippie: It also has a French connection. Can you guess?
Quilo (laughing): Hmmm... because you are as big as a hippo?
*Quilo is imaging Hippie looking like a hippopotamus.*
---
Hippie: Easy there, Mr. Smarty Icebear!
Quilo (shrugging): Was just taking a wild guess!
Hippie: Well, there is another French guy, Monsieur Lenoir, who invented one of the first cars and called it the Hippomobile. The kids thought that was so cool, so they started calling me “Hippie.”
Eve: And then they painted those groovy tie-dye swirls on you?
Hippie: Yep, every happy Hippie needs some tie-dye swirls!!
*Everybody is laughing while gathered around Hippie, except GG who has jumped out above her jar with her ‘arms’ in the air yelling “HONEYCAKE”*
---
Toby: Sounds like GG wants us back on the job, searching for her new watery pad.
GG: Hippopotamus and poo, funny to all of you... though I still see no water, so what are we going to do?
*The sun is setting behind GG and a crescent moon is rising.*
---
Eve: I’ve been listening for a Mushroom Message clue, but no news to report yet. Don’t worry GG, we will find you a new home soon.
Steve: Let’s all catch some Zs and continue our search for a watery place for GG in the morning.
Toby: Good idea, Steverino! Sweet dreams everybody!\
Hippie: Don’t worry, everyone. Get some rest. Tomorrow is a new day.
*Illustration of all the characters lying down to sleep around Hippie, Eve, and Evan, who are still plugged in charging... with ‘zzzzzz’ above them all.*
C13
Chapter 13 – Dreams Into Action
*Our group and Hippie wake up by the school... the bears stretching their arms wide as they awaken... Kakor perched on top of Hippie beside GG’s jar with her inside it*.
---
Steve: Did anybody else have a wild dream?
Quilo: I did! I felt like the Aurora Borealis were talking to me in my sleep!
Toby (puzzled): Say what? A Roar for Boring Alice? Who is Alice and why is she boring?
Eve (laughing): He’s talking about the power of the Northern Lights, Toby.
Steve: Yep, Quilo is using the sciencey name for them. My family calls them the Dancing Lights.
Eve: The science name sounds like this, Toby… Oh-Roar-A-Bore-E-Alice.
Toby (winking): Too hard for this bear’s tongue to say. I’ll call them the Dancing Lights too!
Quilo: The lights talked to me in my dream, like grandparents do... they told me to keep shining bright!
Steve: Like a disco ball in the sky!
*Illustration of a disco ball in the sky with the Northern Lights around it and Quilo dancing.*
---
Eve: Was there anything else cool in your dream Quilo?
Quilo: Yeah, I dreamed that back home the oil rigs were gone from the ocean and wind turbines were making clean energy there instead!
*Illustration of Quilo imagining a Norway fjord with a few wind turbines standing out of the water spinning... and the silent orca again making a cameo appearance jumping out of the water.*
---
Toby: So cool Quilo! I dreamed of a forest of giant old trees for as far as my eyes could see!
*Illustration of our 2 Mother Trees,, Suz and Zep, high-fiving, while surrounded by other large trees (almost as tall as they are).*
---
GG: Clean energy brings dreams of water crystal clear... swimming with many fish cousins so very near!
*Illustration of GG swimming happily with many different types of colourful fish all around her in beautiful clear blue water with healthy plants or corals below them.*
---
Kakor: Splashtastic GG! I dreamed of a peaceful place, where nobody fights with each other anymore.
*Illustration of Kakor flying, towing a flag featuring a peace sign, while wearing a tie-dyed hat.*
---
Evan: Let your peace flag fly, Kakor! I dreamed of a place where every single car, truck, bus and bike are charged with electrons and ready for action!
*Illustration of a city street scene in which a variety of charged up EVs (cars, trucks, buses, bikes, scooters... with humans in/on then) are smiling.*
---
Eve: EVs EVerywhere, Evan! I dreamed of a place where all drink bottles are made of plants!
*Illustration of plants making drink bottles out of themselves.*
---
Steve: Going plastic free, Eve! I dreamed of a place where Burger the Booger transformed into a giant pile of sweet, strawberry jam!
*Illustration of Burger now in the form of a giant glob of strawberry jam with a smile on his face in a forest.*
---
Eve: Strawberry jam? Could you spread him on toast?
*Illustration of several pieces of toast with Burger, the now jammy booger, spread out all over them.*
---
Eve (laughing): Anything is possible, my friends! BELIEVE!
Toby: All our dreams sound amazing! How do we make them come true?
Steve: Keep spreading KINDNESS, like jam on toast?
Eve: YES! Though now we know that it takes more than spreading kindness, right?
Steve: Right --- it takes ACTION too!
Eve: Exactly, Steverino. We need to all spread kindness AND take action too.
Steve: How about using buses and bikes more, and cars less?
*Illustration of a city scene dominated by buses and bikes on a road with Eve and Evan surrounded by them.*
---
Eve: Love it!
Evan: Change from gas vehicles to electric vehicles, as the old gas ones need replacing?
Eve: Spoken like a charged-up EV, yes!
Quilo: Plant gardens to grow our own veggies?
Eve: A green-thumb action, brilliant!
*Illustration of Quilo and Toby gardening.*
---
Kakor: Talk to parents and schools about reducing plastic packaging?
Eve (winking): Yes! Adults do listen to their kids!... well, sometimes.
Toby: And how about asking parents to vote for leaders who want to help with climate action?
Eve: So important --- we need adult climate leaders too!
GG: Using less water, when washing a dish... leaves the water in the lakes and oceans for we fish.
Eve: Reducing the amount of water that we use to wash everything, even our bodies!
*Illustration of Steve washing Eve with a very small bucket of water.*
---
Hippie: Spend less time alone on our phones and more time together in nature?
Eve: Making friends with each other and the planet --- more of that for me too please!
GG: HONEYCAAAAAKE!
Toby: Woah, what has frightened you this time, GG?
*GG is up in the air above her jar pointing with a wide-eyed look on her face.*
---
*Burger the Booger appears with a tree still burning between his lips like a cirgarette.*
---
Steve: Thanks for another action reminder, Burger, --- STOP BURNING STUFF!
*Burger butts out his burning tree on the ground.*
---
Eve: That IS another good action idea, or is that a non-action idea?
Burger: Want an even better idea? STOP BUYING STUFF!
Eve: Our snot-rocket friend is making sense, again!
Steve: Ok, Farty Pants, go on...
Burger: Simple really --- just buy less stuff --- less toys, less gadgets, less phones, less clothes, less stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff!
Eve: So true! The more stuff we buy, the more energy we use up, and the more garbage we make.
Burger: And usually, the less happy we are!
*Everybody falls to the ground in shock over Burger’s wisdom.*
---
Eve: Wait a minute! I just remembered that in my dream, the fungi showed me a map to a lake for GG!
GG: Water, water, water at last... can we go, go, go there fast?
Hippie: This bus has gotta go pick up kids in time for the school bell.
*Hippie has unplugged and is imaging kinds standing at a bus stop waiting to be picked up for school.*
---
Evan: Thanks for the electrons, Hippie! We’ll send you a selfie from GG’s new lake home, when we find it.
Hippie: Peace out, my electric brother. Good luck GG. Smell ya later, alligators!
*Hippie zips off down the road, yelling “Byyyeeeee”.*
---
Eve: I’ve shared the map with Evan --- see you all at the lake!
*A close up of Evan’s dash shows a map of central California with a lake appearing on the eastern edge of the state and a winding dotted line marking the route from where they are (SE-central CA).*
---
*Fast forward to all our characters by a beautiful blue lake with mountains in the background. Toby is holding out GG in her jar towards the lake.*
---
GG (leaning on the edge of the jar crying): This wonderful lake, it’s beautiful and clear... this is not the place for me though, I can’t live here.
Toby: Whaaaaat?! Now might not be a good time to be fussy my fishy friend!
GG (still leaning on the edge of the jar crying): Fussy or picky or ungrateful, not me!... though a Garibaldi Goldfish needing salty water I be.
Toby: But I saved you from the Salton Sea, which IS a lake!
*Illustration of Toby scooping GG up in his jar from a lake that is nearly dried up.*
---
GG: True, though your logic is faulty... it was a drying up lake that had become salty.
Toby: You weren’t born in the water that I saved you from?
GG: Escaped from my aquarium crib, where I was born in Coachella... I realize that will be hard to believe my fine fella.
*Illustration of GG with a baby bonnet on, running on her tail away from a big fish tank that looks like a baby crib.*
---
*GG seen still leaning on the edge of the jar crying with the new lake in the background.*
---
Steve: No worries GG, dry up those tears. We will search until we find the perfect place for you!
*Steve looks at his paws that have gone white and then wipes GG’s face with one.*
---
GG (blowing her nose into Steve’s paw): Kerhonk!
Steve: Yuck, fish boogers --- those will wash out, right?
Toby (shrugs silently)
Eve: We are all in this together! Next destination, salty ocean waters!
*GG smiles picturing waves at an ocean shore.*
---
Steve: ZOOM---KA-KA!
Eve: 3... 2... 1... blast-off!
*Eve is seen blasting off into the sky with Steve, Toby and GG onboard again.*
---
ESF2
More of Eve’s Shocking Facts
or a Jam Side Up Toast Flipping Guide
TBD - possibly overly didactic and should be dropped.
Similar to in book#1, an optional 1-page educational interlude about science facts.
Potential elements to explore...
- solar energy / recyling / forest ecology
- there are goldfish that live in oceans and in lakes
- marshmallow root appears to loosen mucous and inhibit bacteria
C14
Chapter 14 – Change is in the Air
*Eve and Evan are driving side-by-side on a highway. Steve, Toby and GG are in Eve and Quilo is riding in Evan, while Kakor flies low above them. There is smoke in the distance. Steve’s paws are still white.*
Quilo (has a finger in his nose): Forest fire smoke gives me the biggest boogers!
Steve: Quilo, you look like you’re digging for treasure --- grossssss!
Quilo (with a dirty booger on his figure that he is examining): No gold, just a smoky, black booger.
Toby: Ewwwwww, I can see that dusty, dirty booger from here!
Quilo: It’s not so gross. Smells kinda like bacon on a barbeque. Should I taste it?
*Quilo’s tongue wags at the booger on his finger that is giving off smoke.*
---
Evan: Yuck bro, DON’T play with that thing --- you’re grossing me out!
Quilo: Sorry! Boogers aren’t all bad, you know?
Evan: Really? I’m going to Boogle it.
*On Evan’s computer screen shows, “Are boogers any good for the world?”*
---
Evan: Wow, you’re right! Boogle says that noses make boogers to trap dirt and germs, so that stuff doesn’t get into your body and make us sick!
Toby: Yeah, but what about Burger the Booger? He’s just an oily snot-ball of Dino Juice, causing trouble for the planet!
Eve: Maybe even the worst boogers should be given a chance to change, Toby.
Evan: Everybody deserves a second chance, right?
Steve: Think he could transform from Dino Juice into a yummy, sweet Apple Juice Booger?
*They imagine Burger looking like he’s made of mushy apple sauce and smiling, while Steve and Quilo are looking at him while licking their lips.*
---
Kakor (laughing while still flying above the cars): You bears are disgusting!!
*The real Burger is seen at a gas station talking to the gas car characters from book#1.*
---
Quilo: Hey, look! There’s Burger --- let’s stop to see what he’s up to.
Steve: Aren’t those the DinoJuice-drinking bullies that used to pick on you, Eve?
Eve: Yep and I forgive them, big whoop! Let’s go say hi.
*The 2 EVs pull off the highway and stop beside Booger and the gas cars, who are talking in front of gas pumps.*
---
Burger: Ya, they are kind of annoying Do Gooders, though they have some good points about how to help heal the planet.
Toby: What did that pollutionator say? I must need to clean the wax out of my ears!
*Illustration of Toby pulling huge amounts of wax out of one ear with bees buzzing all around him and some flowers.*
---
*Steve taps Booger on the back... he hadn’t noticed their arrival yet.*
----
Booger: Oh, hi, Bear Do Gooder #1.
Steve: I hope you meant that in a nice way this time!
Booger (shrugging): Kinda, yeah.
Quilo: I can’t believe it, I think he’s being nice!…
*All the animals fall to the ground in surprise.*
---
Orange Gas Car: Booger was just telling us that you and your EV friends might not be crazy after all.
Steve (standing up again): Ummm... thank you?
Toby (whispering towards Eve): Burger and his friends are actually… changing?
Eve (winking): Didn’t I say that anything be possible?
Quilo: It could be trick --- don’t trust him yet!
Evan: Let’s give him a chance --- listen to what he has to say.
*Burger stands in front of the gas pumps and his gas car friends.*
---
Burger (sad): I know I’ve done a lot of damage, but it’s hard for me to change.
Steve: Change is usually hard. Can we help you, Burger?
Burger: For starters, my big boss, Marley, shouts at me all the time to keep doing what I’m doing.
Eve: Loud bosses can be difficult... go on...
Burger: Ya, they are always yelling 'drill, baby, drill!' and sucking oil out of the earth with a big plastic straw.
Eve: Sounds tough, Burger. Could take some time for them to see that the planet needs help to heal.
Burger: Yep! And these guys still need fuel for their gassy bellies.
Purple Gas Car: Electrons don’t fill our tanks, pal!
Orange Gas Car: Though we are getting old. Gonna retire soon and let your EV cousins take our places.
*Illustration of the 2 gas car with grey beards and canes, talking with 2 very young, cool-looking EVs.*
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Purple Gas Car: We do like your silent electric power and zippy fastness!
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Eve: That’s the nicest thing a gas guzzler has ever said to me!
Evan: Me too --- pinch me, I must be dreaming!
*Close up of one of Steve’s white paws pinching Evan*.
---
Evan: OUCH! Ok, ok, definitely not dreaming!
Burger (smirking): Part of me still likes being a villain --- especially the mwahahaha evil laugh!
Eve: Hard to give up that laugh for sure! Though maybe being the change you deep down want to see in the world is worth the sacrifice.
Burger: Sigh! I’m going to keep reading, learning, and thinking about transforming.
*Steve is looking at his paws as colour is returning to them over several illustrated panels.*
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Steve: Open mind, open heart --- great start, Burger!
---
*Burger slithers off with a book under one arm that is titled “Goodbye Dino Juice”.*
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Steve (his paws fully colourful again): Did that really just happen?
Eve (smiling): It sure did, Steve!!
*The troupe stands with shocked expressions on their faces, as burger disappears into the distance.*
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C15
Chapter 15 – Action Heroes
*Arriving at the ocean by Monterey, California our group runs into Sammy the seal, who is surfing*.
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Sammy: Hey, long time no see, Steverino!
Eve: A friend of yours, Steve?
Steve: Yeah, and an ice cream bandit sometimes too!
Sammy: Remember when you and I borrowed all that Fishtashio ice cream in the Arctic? Good times!
Steve: Borrowed? You mean, stole!
Sammy (winking): Potayto, potahto! Ice cream bandits forever!
Quilo: You guys were Fishtashio Bandits?
*Flashback to scene from book#1 when Steve and Sammy are stealing ice cream.*
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Steve: Yeah, never again! --- no matter how hungry I might be!
Sammy (grinning): Now I've traded ice cream robbery for catching waves. Surf’s up in California!
Steve: What about food?
Sammy: Plenty of fish here, dude! All-you-can-eat buffet!
*GG wide-eyed in her jar in Toby’s hands.*
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Steve: What about the melting ice?
Sammy: Who needs to worry about climate change when you’ve got perfect surf, dude?
Steve: Don’t look up now, pal, but...
*A big wave curls over Sammy, comes crashing down on him, and tosses him around, landing him on the beach spitting out sand.*
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Eve: Sammy, you should care!! Our planet needs all the help it can get.
Sammy (shrugging): Maybe, but for now, I’m riding these sweet waves. Catch you later, dudes!
*Sammy disappears into the waves, lying on his surfboard.*
---
GG (ecstatic): The ocean, the ocean!... for me a healing potion!
Toby: Time to set you free in your big new home, Goldie!
*Toby pours GG into the water, and she is seen repeatedly jumping out and back in with joy. Each time that she is under the water, we see her swimming in a massive kelp forest.*
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GG: New energy I feel below from a forest of regenerated kelp... I can’t thank enough for all of your help!
Evan: There’s that regeneration word again! What’s up with that?
Eve: Kelp is a remarkable type of seaweed! When we give it space to grow, it can regenerate amazingly quickly.
*Show in a couple successive panels, kelp getting larger and larger, surrounded by more and more fish... and in the last panel, the smiling starfish with the regrown arm and the bandaid from earlier in the story... with a thought bubble above him that reads “regeneration magic”. *
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Evan: I love it when you have all the answers, smart, little cutie!
Eve (blushing): Oh, Evan, stop it, you’re frazzling my circuits!
*A thought bubble appears above Eve filled with hearts and odd symbols that evoke the idea of her thoughts being scrambled.*
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GG (glowing): Kelp forests we fish hide in to escape from some strangers... in there we find good eats and protection from dangers!
Kakor: GG, you’re glowing! So glad we found you a new watery home!
Quilo: Teamwork makes the dreamwork!
Kakor: Remember though, the drought problem still needs fixing for lots of thirsty animals!
Toby: One step at a time, Kakor. Anything can be solved with action and kindness!
Steve (his paws glowing too): Right on! Action AND kindness together can heal the planet!
*The sun is setting and GG’s jumping and splashing around is lighting up the water with sparkles... it is bioluminescence, though that word won’t be tackled in the text of the story.*
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Steve (in awe): Wow, the ocean is talking back to us! Look at those sparkles!
Eve: And look at your paws!
* Steve holds up his paws that are glowing even more brightly, seemingly communicating with the sparkling ocean as energy waves move between the two.*
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Eve: Incredible --- healing energy from the ocean AND the sky!
Steve (looking at his paws): Wowzah!!!
Eve (with her frunk open): Throw some of that energy in here and let’s get Mission Bear Hug back into the air!
*Steve throws colourful light energy into Eve’s frunk, like he did in book#1.*
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Steve: Where are we headed next, Eve the wonder car?
Eve: Let’s blast off and see where the energy of Planet Hero Kids takes us!
Quilo: Good luck, you two adventurers! Toby and I are going to stay here close to GG and learn how to surf.
Evan (with 2 surfboards in his truck bed and Kakor on his roof): Kakor and I are going hang here too!
Eve: We’ll miss you all!
Evan: Buzz me anytime, Sweetness!
Eve (blushing): Thanks, Evan B. Mighty cute. Play safe, everybody!
Steve: Bye gang --- we’re off to spread more kindness and action, like jam on toast!
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*The story concludes with an illustration of Steve’s mom and dad smiling from their iceberg with the Northern Lights dancing above them, giving thumbs-ups and winks into their phone and holding a sign that reads “Be a Marshmallow”, as our troupe waves back through Eve’s screen.*
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Everybody (cheering): Zoom---ka-ka!
THE END