Pooh cocked his head. “Aren’t you coming with me?” he asked.
“I can’t,” Christopher said. “I have to get back to London.”
“But I need your help,” Pooh protested. “I have lost all of my friends.” He looked up at Christopher. He really didn’t understand this new version of his old friend. His old friend would never have left him alone. His old friend would have loved the red balloon. His old friend would have been excited to go on an adventure. This new Christopher was no fun at all. Pooh sighed. He missed his old friend Christopher Robin.
Ignoring the sigh, Christopher shrugged. “Perhaps they’re back now,” he said, though he knew he didn’t sound very convincing. “And you can tell them all about your adventures.”
“I would like to do that,” Pooh said, nodding.
“Then off you go!” Christopher said.
Pooh hesitated for a moment. He wanted to say more, perhaps change Christopher’s mind, but the man was already looking at his watch and tapping his foot in anticipation of leaving. So instead, Pooh wrapped his arms around Christopher’s legs and hugged him. Hard. “Good-bye, Christopher Robin!” he said, squeezing even tighter.
The gesture caught Christopher off guard. Awkwardly, he reached down and patted Pooh on the back. “Good-bye, Pooh,” he said. Then he nudged him toward the hole in the tree’s trunk, his beloved red balloon trailing behind him.
Without another word, Pooh ducked down and disappeared inside. Christopher let out a sigh of relief, his duty done. Now he could get back to the city and focus on his work. But as he turned to go, he caught sight of Pooh’s red balloon. It was floating in the entry to the door.
Moving down, he peered inside the large hole in the base of the tree. Pooh was in front of the green door that Christopher had always used to enter their special spot in the Hundred-Acre Wood. The bear was just crouched down, not moving.
“What are you doing, Pooh?” Christopher asked, confused. He would have thought the bear would have been eager to get through the door and back home.
Pooh looked over his shoulder at Christopher. “Sometimes if I am going Somewhere and I wait, Somewhere comes to me.”
“Right,” Christopher said, trying to wrap his head around the bear’s somewhat cryptic response. Then he let out another sigh. He really didn’t have time to dillydally. He had to get back to the station and catch the next train home to London. He pushed himself back so he was once again in the opening of the tree trunk. “Well, good luck with everything.” He knew that that was a terribly unhelpful thing to say, but it was all he could think of.
Pooh didn’t bother to even look at him when he responded. “I will need good luck,” he said, the answer sounding even sadder in the hollowed-out tree trunk, “for I am a Bear of Very Little Brain.”
“Yes, um,” Christopher stammered, not sure what to say to that. “Well, good-bye,” he finally said again and crawled completely out of the tree. As he stood up, he hit the red balloon, which was still floating near the door. He shoved it into the hole. Once more, he started to walk away. And once more, he couldn’t help pausing to look over his shoulder.
The red balloon was still floating in the air in front of the entrance to the green door. Pooh still hadn’t gone through.
Guilt enveloped Christopher. He knew that if he were to leave now, Winnie the Pooh would just sit there. And sit there. And sit there some more, hoping that “Somewhere” would come to him. But Christopher knew that would never happen. And he couldn’t just leave the bear there. Pooh was his friend. He had tracked him down all the way in London. He needed his help. Christopher took a deep breath. Work would have to wait. Right now he had a friend who needed to get home, and he wasn’t going to abandon him. Not again. Christopher hoisted his briefcase and put it under his arm. “Look out, Pooh!” he said, ducking back into the tree. “Here I come!”
Christopher Robin was going back to the Hundred-Acre Wood.
There was, however, just one problem with Christopher’s plan to return to the Hundred-Acre Wood. And that problem was the green door inside the hollowed-out tree. For while the green door was the same green door it had been when Christopher last used it, Christopher was not the same. He was no longer a thin little boy with narrow shoulders and hips. He was a grown man with broad shoulders and a bit of a belly.
Which was why he now found himself stuck quite firmly in the middle of the door. His bottom half was on one side and his top half was on the other. It was, he couldn’t help thinking, a position Pooh had often found himself in.
Pooh, who had gone through the green door first, turned and eyed his friend. He took in Christopher’s top half and peered around to see where his bottom half was. Noting it was missing, he cocked his head. “Are you stuck?” he asked.
“Apparently, I am,” Christopher said, his voice strained as the door squeezed his sides painfully.
“Happens to me all the time,” Pooh said with a shrug. “Did you just eat honey?”
Christopher shook his head. “No. I did not just eat honey.”
Taking a deep breath, he braced his arms back against the tree and pushed—hard. He didn’t budge. He took another breath and pushed again. Still, he did not budge. Finally, sucking in as hard as he could, Christopher pushed one final time. With a pop! his body came loose of the doorway and he tumbled to his freedom.
He straightened up, stretching his arms toward the sky and then wincing. He was going to have some bruises. Bringing his hand to his head, he felt the hair sticking up and knew, without needing to look in a mirror, that he was in a rather disheveled state. He sighed. At least he knew the chances of running into anyone from work here were nonexistent.
Distracted by his escape from the door, Christopher hadn’t taken a moment yet to look around the woods. But now he did. And he was shocked by what he saw. Thick fog covered everything, and he shuddered as a chill swept over him. This was not the idyllic Hundred-Acre Wood he remembered. “Pooh?” he asked, turning to look at the bear. “Was it always this gloomy?”
“Yes,” Pooh answered. Then he paused. “Or no. I forget which.”
Christopher narrowed his eyes. He was rather certain that this was not how things had always been. He knew, in fact, that when he had come to the Hundred-Acre Wood as a child, it was never gloomy and only rarely even rainy. Since it hadn’t always been like this, when had it changed? And why? A piece of him knew the answer but refused to acknowledge it. Instead, he returned his attention to the reason he was there now. “Well,” he asked Pooh, “which way?”
“I was hoping you would know,” Pooh answered.
Christopher shook his head. “I haven’t been here in years,” he pointed out. “How would I know?”
“Because you’re Christopher Robin.”
Pooh’s response was so simple and so direct that Christopher couldn’t even come up with a retort. The bear was looking up at him with complete trust. He didn’t have any doubt that, somehow, Christopher would save the day. Looking at the bear looking at him, Christopher wished with a sudden ferocity that he could have such faith in himself. “Right,” he said, putting on a brave face. “Yes, well, we need to follow this systematically.”
Pooh, however, was only half listening. His attention had been caught by a bee that chose that moment to buzz by. “Follow this simple honey bee, yes.” He began to wander off after the bee.
Pulling him back, Christopher shook his head. “No, Pooh. The key is to head in one direction, so as not to get lost.” He gestured to the woods around them. “Especially in a fog like this.” He tried to peer through the thick mist in the hopes of seeing a path or a sign. Unfortunately, the fog had made everything take on the same ghostly and blurry appearance. There was no way to tell which way was which—not without some form of help.
Luckily, Christopher was always prepared.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small, round brass object. It was his compass. “From the war,” he explained to Pooh, when the bear asked w
hat it was and why he had it. “I still keep it with me.” He moved it between his fingers in a rhythmic and practiced motion. The metal felt cool to the touch, the cover of the compass dinged and worn.
“What is a war?” Pooh asked.
“It’s something we don’t speak of,” Christopher answered, leaving no room for discussion.
Just then, a clap of thunder echoed through the woods. Pooh looked down at his belly. “It would seem I am hungrier than I have ever been before.”
Pleased to have a distraction—even one as unpleasant as thunder—Christopher looked up at the darkening sky. “It seems the weather is getting worse,” he said. Glancing back down at the compass, he watched the needle wobble. He wasn’t sure what direction they were supposed to be going, but he figured that if they went north, and kept going in that direction, they couldn’t get too terribly lost.
Unfortunately, while Christopher was staring at the compass, Pooh had been staring at him…and the compass contraption. It was the same color as honey, so he instantly liked it. Plus, Christopher had said it would help them get to where they were going. Something he also liked. The only problem he could see was that Christopher didn’t seem ready to use it. So, he decided, after waddling over to his friend, he would just have to do it. “May I see the compass?” Pooh asked, holding out his paw.
Startled, Christopher handed it over.
Immediately, he regretted his actions.
Pooh began to walk away, compass in hand. “No! Wait!” Christopher shouted. “You must keep us north! North!” The words echoed back at him through the fog. Already, Pooh was disappearing from view.
“I’ll follow the very handy arrow,” Pooh shouted back over his shoulder.
Christopher let out a sigh. He had no choice but to follow Pooh—whatever direction that happened to be.
Pooh was getting worried. They had been walking for what felt like hours and hours, and they still hadn’t seen any sign of his friends. They hadn’t seen much, actually, except for a pervading fog. To help pass the time, Pooh had begun to play a little game as they walked. He tried to see shapes in the fog, the same way he would when he lay on his back and looked up at clouds in the sky. So far, he had made out a pot of honey. And a honey bee. And some honeycombs.
“Does anything look familiar?”
Christopher’s question startled Pooh. He was tempted to ask if Christopher meant the pot of honey Pooh currently saw floating in the air beside Christopher’s head, but he decided against it. “The fog?” he said instead.
“Besides the fog!” Christopher said, his tone impatient.
Just then, out of the fog, emerged something other than fog. Unfortunately, it was not something that Pooh was happy to see. It was a sign. And written on the sign, in childish handwriting, were these words: BEWARE OF HEFFALUMPS AND WOOZLES.
“Oh, bother,” Pooh said, stopping short, leading Christopher to bump right into him.
“What’s the matter?” Christopher asked. But upon peering around the bear to see the cause of his sudden stopping, he saw the sign. Recognizing the handwriting and the warning, he groaned. “You can’t be serious. There are no such things as Heffalumps and Woozles.”
Pooh pointed at the warning. “Of course there are,” he said. “Didn’t you see the sign?”
“Terrifying elephant- and weasellike beasts who wander the world to prey on happiness aren’t real, Pooh,” Christopher said. “Now come on.” Pushing past the bear, Christopher walked right past the sign and continued on his way.
Watching him go, Pooh hesitated. He trusted Christopher Robin. He always had. But it had been Christopher Robin who’d helped paint the sign in the first place. So what was he to do? I shall continue to do Nothing different, Pooh decided, for that is the best Something to do. With his mind made up, he resumed walking.
“Christopher Robin,” he said as they made their way through still more fog, “what is your work?” He wasn’t entirely sure what “work” was, but Christopher mentioned it often enough that Pooh figured it was important.
“I’m an efficiency manager at a luggage company,” Christopher answered.
Pooh nodded, though the words meant little to him. “Do you have many friends there?”
“I have people who rely on me,” Christopher answered. Turning, he looked back at Pooh, curious why the bear was suddenly so interested in his life outside the Hundred-Acre Wood.
“So, yes,” Pooh said.
He looked so pleased to think that Christopher had friends that the man suddenly found himself overexplaining himself and his role. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think of them as friends. It only makes it harder if I have to let some of them go.”
Pooh cocked his head. “Where will they go?” he asked, confusion written all over his innocent face and in his response.
“I don’t know, Pooh,” Christopher said. “I don’t know.” He swung his hand through the thick fog, as though trying to hit it. He didn’t know. He had absolutely no idea what would happen to all the people who he had crossed off lists to make that magical 20 percent cut. He didn’t know what would happen to their families. He didn’t know if they would find other work. He had no idea about any of it, and up until now, he had been able to push the horrible, wracking guilt out of his mind. But now Pooh was making him see what he would truly be doing.
“Did you let me go?”
The bear’s question bounced off the fog and echoed in Christopher’s head. He had never thought about it, but now, looking at the bear who still trusted him enough to follow him through the fog and believe his stories about Heffalumps and Woozles, Christopher came face-to-face with the realization that he hadn’t been the only one to suffer when he went away to school. He had left the Hundred-Acre Wood and his friends; and yes, he had ultimately let Pooh go. He had let him go—and the result? He looked around at the gloomy woods. The result was a world gone to pieces.
He could only imagine what the world would look like for all the men and women who wouldn’t have jobs by the following week’s end….
“Pooh? I swear that’s the same sign.”
Christopher was standing still in front of a sign that looked strangely like the one he and the bear had passed several hours ago. In the same childish writing was the warning to watch for Heffalumps and Woozles. Christopher peered closer. Then he groaned. It wasn’t just strangely similar, it was exactly similar. It was the same sign. Looking over at Pooh, he narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure we’re still headed north?”
“Let me look,” Pooh replied, flipping open the compass.
“You haven’t been looking?” Christopher said, a bad feeling forming in the pit of his stomach.
The bear shrugged. “Not since I started following these footsteps.” He pointed down at the ground in front of him.
Following his gaze, Christopher bit back a roar of frustration. “Pooh!” he said forcefully when he had managed to compose himself—just barely. “Those are our footsteps! We just went in a circle. What’s wrong with you? All you had to do was follow the compass!” Even as he said the words, a part of Christopher knew he was being unfair. Pooh wasn’t a weathered war vet. He wasn’t even human. He was a bear!
Pooh’s shoulders drooped and his ears went back. “But…the compass led us to the Heffalumps and Woozles,” he said.
“There are no Heffalumps and Woozles!” Christopher responded, unmoved by Pooh’s explanation. “I should never have trusted you with the compass.”
“I’m sorry,” Pooh said, his voice barely a whisper. “I’ll put it back with the other Important Things.” Walking over to Christopher, who was clutching the briefcase in his hands so hard that his knuckles had turned white, Pooh popped open the lock. Before Christopher could even blink, the briefcase fell open—and so did the brown folder full of all his paperwork. At the very same moment, a gust of wind blew through the woods, sending the “Important Things” flying.
Christopher let out a shout and began chasing after
the loose papers. “They’re irreplaceable! I’ll never remember all of this!” he said as he bent and stretched, trying—but failing—to collect every sheet. As he pried one sheet of paper off a pricker bush, he looked over at Pooh. The bear was standing very still. For some reason, that made Christopher even more irate. Before he could stop himself, Christopher stalked over to the bear. Mean, angry words spewed from his mouth. “You know what? You’re right, Pooh. You are a Bear of Very Little Brain. Do you know what will happen to me if I lose a single sheet of this? Winslow’ll eat me for breakfast.”
“A Woozle will eat you for breakfast?” Pooh said, incorrectly repeating what he thought Christopher had just said.
“Yes, Pooh,” Christopher said, his voice quivering and his eyes going wide and looking a bit crazy. “A big Woozle is going to gobble me up!”
Pooh, still not quite sure what to make of the scene unfolding in front of him, frowned. Christopher was laughing, but he didn’t sound happy. And he was agreeing with Pooh, though he didn’t seem to mean it. “That doesn’t sound like fun,” Pooh finally said.
Once more, Christopher let out the strange laugh that bothered Pooh. “It won’t be,” he agreed. “But that’s the real world for you. There’s more to life than balloons and honey, you silly bear. Why did you even come back?” He looked down at the papers in his hands, wet and limp from the heavy fog. His voice grew lower and his shoulders sagged. “I’m not a child. I’m an adult now. With adult responsibilities.”
“But you’re Christopher Robin,” Pooh said.
“No, I’m not,” Christopher said. “I’m not how you remember me.”
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