“I love flowers,” said Douglas, the bear. “I think tulips are my favorite, but I love every flower.”

“You should see the pretty flowers Annie grows in her garden. She's got the prettiest tulips, big and red and all of her flowers smell so pretty,” said Shannon. The bear scratched her arm and ran off to play.

“Annie's got flowers? I wonder if she would mind if I took one. I could bring it home and put it in a vase and look at it all day.” Douglas grinned.

He ran down the street and when he came to Annie's house, he saw the white fence. “I guess I'll have to sneak in so she doesn't see me.” Douglas opened the gate ever so quietly and crept around to the back garden. “There's her flowers. Oh my. Shannon was right. Those are the pretties tulips. I must have one.” Douglas pulled one of the tulips out of the ground. He held it up to his nose and sniffed it. “This smells so lovely.” He looked at all the other flowers. “They're all lovely. I don't think Annie would mind if I picked one or two.”

Douglas picked one flower and then another, and another, and another, and before he knew it he'd picked half her garden. “Oh my. What shall I do?” He spotted a wheel barrow in the other side of the garden, so he brought it back to the pile of flowers and put them inside it. He pushed the wheel barrow home to his house, emptied it, planted all the flowers in his own garden and then took the wheel barrow back to Annie's house. He was turning to leave when he heard a noise.

“Ahem, Douglas. What do you think you're doing? Where are all my flowers?” Annie stomped her foot on the ground in anger.

“Umm, uh, I, uh, borrowed a few.”

“You borrowed my flowers? It looks to me like you stole half of them. Bring them back right now,” Annie said.

“But I love flowers. Yours are so pretty. I only wanted one, but I couldn't stop once I started,” Douglas pouted.

“Bring my flowers back right now, or I'll tell your mother,” Annie said.

Douglas pushed the wheel barrow back to his house, dug up all the flowers, put them in the wheel barrow and pushed it back to Annie's. It took him all day long to re-plant them in her garden. When he was finished he went and knocked on Annie's door. “I'm done. I'm sorry, Annie. I didn't mean to take them all.”

Annie saw the flowers back in her garden. She said, “Douglas, you are welcome to come to my garden any time you want and sit among the flowers. Just don't take any without asking me.”

Douglas promised that he wouldn't. Every day he stopped by. He helped Annie water them and weed them and one day she even let him take a bunch of them home to put in the vase on his table. Douglas never took anything else without asking.