On one of her rigorous strolling exercises Bea the wee bear met up with a very unkempt looking cat who introduced himself as Scruffy. That name certainly suited him as his fur was all matted and stuck up with some sort of goo. He explained that his owners had children who were never told by their mom to wash their hands or face.

And whenever they touched him or nuzzled their faces into his fur they left clumps of something sticky on him, like lollipops or ice-cream. He had given up on trying to stay clean. Even though cats were supposed to have very strong tongues, his got very tired and very, very sticky. When Bea did her notice exercise, she could see how Scruffy's ribs showed through his sad looking, clumped up, matted hair.

She thought to herself that she would not have to ever worry that her ribs were showing. Then she caught herself and realized she was talking negatively about herself like those mean bears did. She did not want to do that anymore. She brought her attention back to when Scruffy was saying that his favorite food had become the pizza crust.

When Bea looked puzzled he continued to explain how it was the food left from what the kids dropped on the floor under the table. He found himself hanging out a lot down there. He had to be careful not to also bite into some strange object or moldy food stuck to the floor when he was gobbling up the good stuff. He ate when the kids ate, which didn't seem to be very often. So he spent a lot of time going around door to door and from garbage can to garbage can.

He told Bea that his owners had many, many problems. The kids' dad drank a lot of something in a lot of bottles and a lot of cans. This made him change quickly from fun to very scary; an unsafe place for Scruffy to be around. The angry man would kick at poor Scruffy; one time he almost kicked Scruffy down the long steep set of stairs. He had had some practice flying; the little girl used to fling poor Scruffy down the stairs almost daily. But to be kicked down them was another thing altogether.

Scruffy knew this was what the very sad little girl must have thought would help and found some fun in throwing him down the stairs and watching him fly. He could put up with that; after all, cats can land on their feet and be kind of OK. But this man who teetered around and bumped into things and threw pizza boxes was too much for Scruffy.

Bea asked him where the mom was during all of this and Scruffy said that she was rushing around trying to get the kids out of the way and trying to calm the man down. She didn't have much time for the kids because she was busy worrying about whether the man was going to drink another can of that bad stuff. She cried a lot and just sat around watching TV. The kids would say they were hungry or needed something and she acted as if she couldn't hear them.

Scruffy said he hoped he was a comfort to them as they petted him with their dirty sticky hands and hugged and nuzzled his soft hair with their gooey, smudged faces. He said he felt so conflicted. He knew he should stay there for them but he couldn't take it anymore and needed to take care of himself. He did miss them already and hoped they would be able to find their way through life. But he had to be out of there.

Bea was quickly doing her brain exercise, knowing this was a time to learn something about her own way of living. She could never have heard ideas about taking care of herself, enough. She sometimes had this same problem. She told Scruffles about her detachment from things which have a hold on you exercise. He said he would do that exercise and was hoping they would meet again; he thought he could learn a lot from Bea.