Ukuku then hugged his mother and asks why she was crying. Between sobs, she told him her story, and he felt very sorry. The only thing the shepherdess didn’t remember was her real name. But she didn’t have time to think about it either, because the father bear growled furiously. He had woken up and could not find his family anywhere.

Ukuku and his mother fled very frightened and in a hurry. They ran so much that they soon reached the house where the shepherdess lived years ago with her parents. Her scratching on the front door of the house prompted an old couple to come out immediately. After a few seconds of silence, both opened their arms with great joy and tears in their eyes.

“Paulita, my daughter! We thought you were dead!”

Upon hearing her name, the shepherdess remembered the only thing she needed to regain her identity. And after telling her story, without further details, she asked her parents for help.

The father bear was already roaring in the distance. So, grandparents, mother and grandson set a trap. When the bear scratched at the door of the house, they greeted him with boiled corn and well-fermented chicha. He invited himself to sit in a large, apparently very comfortable chair. But as soon as he made himself comfortable, cha cha pum, a huge clay pot filled with boiling water was poured over him. Finally, the bear received the punishment for having stolen Paulita, the most beautiful shepherdess. He fled, never to be seen again.

Ukuku stayed with Paulita at her grandparents’ house. But as he grew older, the bear boy became more mischievous than ever. He broke what he found in his path with his enormous strength and was even about to rip out the foundation of the house. His grandparents, who were very poor, were afraid that Ukuku would destroy what little they had, so they sent him to live with the nuns. But he was no good at studying because he couldn’t even sit still. He scratched the notebooks, broke the windows, desks, and doors, and not infrequently scared his classmates and teachers with strange roars.

So it was that the nuns sent Ukuku to live in a remote town, where he would work as an assistant to a parish priest. But Ukuku became more foolish there. He fell asleep in the mornings, lost the keys to the tabernacle, and rang the bells that called for mass at odd hours.

The whole town suffered. The priest then baptized Ukuku and gave him the new name Juan, after the saint. But the bear’s son refused to answer to that name and was about to break the parish bells. So, the priest locked Juanito (as he called him) for several days in the church. But Ukuku did not know the word bored. He went down to the saints and put them to play cards. What a surprise for the priest when he came back for Juanito!

“You lost your mind, Juanito!” he started yelling at Ukuku, when he saw what he had done.

The people of the town knew that there was a forest where the pumas did not allow anyone to enter to get firewood. The parish priest decided to give Juanita a scare and told him one day: “Tomorrow you will go for firewood on the mountain. There is a virgin forest on top of a mountain, next to some caves. Only from that wood you will bring and otherwise do not come back.”

Ukuku left the next day with three donkeys that he had to bring loaded with firewood. He walked all day, and in the afternoon, he came to the forest and collected firewood. When night came, the three donkeys were already loaded, but Ukuku felt very sleepy and went into one cave next to the forest to sleep. He tied the donkeys to a tree that grew next to the cave and went to sleep. Ukuku snored like his father and maybe that’s why he woke up the big pumas in the cave. The pumas, who were starving, came out and ate the donkeys, leaving nothing behind but bones and firewood.

The next morning Ukuku saw what had happened and, anxious, he went to look for the pumas, who were sleeping peacefully with their full bellies. Finding them like this, he pulled their tails and ears and scolded them in their own language. As punishment, he made them get up, loaded them with all the firewood, and ordered them to accompany him to the village.

When Ukuku entered the town with the pumas, the horrified people ran to hide in the parish. But the son of the bear calmly crossed the town square, arrived before the parish church, and scratched the great door with his nails. The parish priest had no choice but to leave, harassed by his congregation.