The Dancing Bear by Michael Morpurgo

Nothing ever really disturbed our life until some ten years age,
when a small bear came down out of the mountains.
Nothing was ever to be the same again.

High in the mountains, in a tiny village lived a lonely orphan child, Roxanne. She was a girl with blessed gentle nature, like an angel. But she had a avaricious grandfather who served as her only mother and father, hit her, and miserably cared nothing but money. 

Things changed when one day Roxanne brought back a bear cub and adopted it. She took care of the bear cub and named he as Bruno. Bruno grew up as one of the village children. He was always gentle and biddable. From time to time, Roxanne would sing to Bruno, like an angels sing. They run together, lived together, play together, and laughed together. They were friends, true friends indeed.

Times flied. They both grew up. Roxanne was no longer a girl, but a young woman. So was Bruno. He was not the bear cub when he first came to the village. He became an adult bear. Roxanne tried so hard to keep Bruno from being sent to a zoo, but Bruno had been stayed in a big cage since then.

Another incident followed. People from other places came to see an adult bear, and this included a singer and his film crew. They came to the village to film the singer's musical video and most importantly it should include a bear dancing with the singer's song. Roxanne's greedy grandfather wanted to make use of Bruno to earn money. So they forced him to dance, but of course failed. Bruno would not dance without Roxanne's singing. So they made Roxanne sing with the singer, and then Bruno danced as they wished. After that, the singer persuaded Roxanne to go with him, and he promised to make her a superstar as him. 

At the end of the story, the film crew departed as schedule. Did she go with them? I wish she didn't, but Roxanne did. She promised Bruno that she would be back one day. But as she left, Bruno was sitting back against the bars of the cage and gazed after her. He stayed still until people came to fed him, and notice that , 

he was dead.

It is tragedy, and I like tragedy. It touches my feeling and stimulates my thinking. If I were Roxanne, would I go with the film crew? Should I? My answer is: maybe I would too. Like Roxanne, I grew up in a country. I knew little about the world outside those fields and villages. If there were chances to visit other places, I would like to go too. But life won't be always perfect. If I got something, then I must have lost something. If I decided to go then I must have lost the connection with the one I cared but remained. It's crucial, but worth experiencing. After all, it's real life, not a film.