Balou Breaks Away

Balou is a Teddy Bear. He is forty years old. He has twelve children and twenty-four grandchildren. He has thirty-seven mouths to feed. He lives in the jungle with his family and he is very poor. He doesn’t have any money and he doesn’t have a job. His children and his grandchildren are hungry.

Balou goes to Sao Paulo to find work. He gets a job in a toy shop and he works very hard. He wants to buy food for his children. But his boss is not honest and he doesn’t pay Balou. Balou is angry, so he leaves the toy shop.

He sees Bill Gates. He asks Bill Gates to give him $2,167 dollars. Bill Gates turns his head and looks the other way.

In desperation, Balou roams the city. He sees an old grey Volkswagon and steals it. He goes into a bank with a gun. He steals 987 dollars. He tries to escape, but he doesn’t get far in his old car. The police gather round him.

Balou cries.

The End

One of my students, a muscular rugby player, told us that he has a teddy bear that is 40 years old which he inherited from a cousin. So we made him the hero of a story. Much of the vocabulary in the story is found in Elvis Presley's "In The Ghetto".