Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

by David Benedictus

  Umpire: Owl (his decision is final)

  Scorers: Henry Rush and Friends and Relations Too Small to Participate

  Extra Fielders: Friends and Relations Big Enough to Catch a Ball Without Being Squished

  “What does the scorer do?” asked Henry Rush, the beetle.

  “He adds things up and writes everything down in a book. How is your adding?” said Christopher Robin.

  “It’s very good some of the time,” replied Henry Rush, “ but it’s difficult when you haven’t got fingers.”

  “Just do your best,” said Christopher Robin, patting him gently on the shell.

  Christopher Robin made several copies of the team sheet, and decorated them with bats and balls and stumps and bails, and pinned them to the trees around the clearing. Piglet took a copy and showed it to Eeyore.

  “It’s good, isn’t it, Eeyore? We’re all on it,” he pointed. “This is where it says my name. And your name, Eeyore, is here and here...”

  “Here and here?” inquired Eeyore.

  “Yes, Eeyore, because Christopher Robin says you are to be wicket-keeper for both sides.”

  “A wicked-keeper, little Piglet? Well, well, well.” Eeyore did not know what a “wicked-keeper” was, or what it did, but it sounded necessary.

  It was time for the umpire to toss a coin to decide who would bat first. Captain Rabbit had not come back after going to clean his larder, so Tigger was sent to retrieve him, and Pooh was selected as Acting Captain for the Four Legs team.

  “Heads or tails?” asked Owl, the umpire.

  “I don’t know, Owl,” said Pooh. “Which is better?”

  “Whichever is going to come down on top.”

  “But I don’t know that.”

  “Which is why I am asking you to guess, Pooh Bear.”

  Poohcalledheads but the coin came down tails up, and Christopher Robin annouced that the Two Legs would bat first with Kanga and Lottie opening the innings.

  “Where does the wicked-keeper go?” Eeyore asked.

  “Behind the wicket, of course,” said Christopher Robin. “You have to catch the ball.”

  “How do I do that?” asked Eeyore, looking at his hooves.

  “Any way you can, Eeyore. You have pads and gloves.”

  “I hardly like to mention this, Christopher Robin, but there only appear to be two pads and others are wearing them.”

  “You’ll just have to do the best you can,” said Christopher Robin, who was beginning to think that there was too much talking and not enough playing.

  Rabbit, as Captain, made Pooh the bowler, saying he needed the exercise. Lottie hit the first ball of the innings into a clump of heather, and it was only when Friends and Relations joined in the search that the ball was found. At the end of Lottie’s first six balls, Henry Rush’s scoring team put 30 in the scoring book, under instruction from Rabbit, who kept muttering bad-temperedly, “She’s scored three sixes and three fours! Lottie should be on my team.”

  On his second go at bowling, Pooh became more confident and bowled a couple of really fast ones, the first of which struck Eeyore on the chest.

  “Well stopped, Eeyore!” cried Rabbit, andthere was scattered applause.

  “Couldn’t help it,” wheezed Eeyore.

  Then it was Tigger’s turn to bowl. He threw the ball high into the air.

  “That’s called adonkey-drop,” said Christopher Robin.

  “Not by me,” muttered Eeyore.

  This time, instead of using the bat to hit the ball, Lottie leapt into the air, twisting and turning, and caught hold of it in mid-flight. Everyone applauded her athleticism but Christopher Robin had to explain that she was not supposed to catch it except when the other side was batting.

  “Out!” cried Owl.

  “What do you mean by ‘Out’?” Lottie went up to Owl, the umpire, and glared at him.

  Owl did not react. Christopher Robin explained that if the umpire said you were out he did not need to tell you why.

  “You’re no gentleman,” Lottie told Owl and sulked for a while behind some bluebells, before realizing how pretty they looked and picking herself a bunch.

  Now it was Kanga’s turn to bat. She put Roo into her pouch and when she ran she claimed double the score.

  “Both Roo and me,” she said.

  “Not sure about that,” said Owl, and after several such runs judged Roo to be out because his feet had not touched the ground.

  When Kanga challenged him, Owl explained: “It says Two Legs, not No Legs. I can’t allow any of those runs to count for either of you. And you’re out too, Kanga, for arguing with the umpire.”

  Fortunately for the Two Legs, Christopher Robin was still to bat against Rabbit, and he thwacked the ball for four sixes, one after another, just like that. When Piglet took his turn as bowler he found the ball so heavy that Owl allowed him to run halfway along the pitch before rolling it along the ground. It was Piglet who finally did it for Christopher Robin, bowled out after thirty-three runs.

  This was what Henry Rush, with a little help from Christopher Robin, wrote in the smart new scoring book:

  TEST MATCH—TWO LEGS VERSUS FOUR LEGS

  TWO LEGS INNINGS

  Rabbit and Kanga had spent the morning erecting a sort of shade under the chestnut trees. It consisted of a number of sheets and blankets stitched together. Now, between the two innings, was the time for a refreshing pot of tea and some peppery cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

  While they ate, they discussed the match. Was seventy-five a winning score? Should Owl have given Roo out, or, for that matter, Kanga? How clever of Piglet to have bowled the ball that knocked over Christopher Robin’s wicket.

  A little apart from the others stood Eeyore, grumbling as usual. “This wicked-keeping. Standing there and having things thrown at me. A brick wall would do just as well.”

  “Oh, Eeyore,” said Christopher Robin. “We couldn’t have a match without you.”

  “Is that what they’re saying, Christopher Robin? Or is it, ‘Let the old donkey do it’?”

  “Have a cucumber sandwich, Eeyore,” suggested Christopher Robin.

  “Prefer thistles. More chewy on the whole. Have we finished now, Christopher Robin? Can we go home and nurse our bruises?” asked Eeyore.

  “We’ve finished the first half, Eeyore.”

  “More, is there? Might have guessed there would be. Still, maybe it will rain.”

  But it did not even look like rain.

  Soon it was time for the Four Legs to take their turn at batting, with seventy-six runs needed to win. Owl slipped on his white umpiring coat and took up his position facing the stumps. Pooh was the first to bat.

  Christopher Robin told Kanga to field at a position called Silly Mid-Off and Roo at Silly Mid-On, which meant that Kanga had to glare at Roo for several seconds before he would stop giggling. Then Christopher Robin handed the ball to Lottie.

  Twisting and turning as she ran up to bowl, Lottie sent the ball in an arc towards the stumps. When it hit the ground it shot up and caught Pooh on the nose, before falling back and landing on the wicket.

  “Out!” said Owl, raising a wing sternly into the air.

  “Ow!” wailed Pooh.

  Then it was Tigger’s turn. It didn’t take him long to score twenty-seven runs. Then, in his excitement at hitting the ball into a bird’s nest in the chestnut tree (they had had to send Owl to fly up and bring it down), Tigger bounced right over the wicket and landed on top of Eeyore.

  “How’s that?” cried Christopher Robin.

  “Painful,” gasped Eeyore from underneath Tigger.

  “Out. Caught by Eeyore,” said Owl.

  Rabbit came in to bat, and nudged the ball here, there, and everywhere until he was bowled out by Christopher Robin.

  “I thought I’d better give the others a chance,” Rabbit commented.

  The last in was Piglet, and it was now up to him to score the six runs needed to win the match for the Four Legs
. Lottie was to bowl.

  During practice, Piglet had found Christopher Robin’s birthday bat rather too long and heavy for him to wield, and Rabbit had made him a smaller version out of a cut-down broom handle. But with the first ball from Lottie, Piglet’s broom-handle bat shattered.

  “Ow!” cried Piglet. “That stung! And what will I bat with now?”

  “You’ll have to use the big one,”said Christopher Robin.

  “But it’s bigger than I am!” worried Piglet.

  “Maybe you can hide behind it, little Piglet,” said Eeyore.

  “I’m sure Lottie won’t bowl too fast at you,” said Christopher Robin, but there was a glint in Lottie’s eye that suggested otherwise.

  The otter ran in to bowl.

  “I don’t want to be here,” muttered Piglet, shrinking behind the bat as Lottie approached, looking huge. “I’d much rather be in bed.”

  The ball, released at great speed by Lottie, landed on the beginnings of a molehill and bounced onto the very edge of Piglet’s bat. Piglet dropped the heavy wood with a squawk, but the ball had acquired such momentum that it sailed high into the air and straight over the stones that marked the boundary. A moment of amazed silence was followed by Owl raising his wings and flapping them in the air.

  “Six runs,” he announced. “Four Legs win the match.”

  “I did it!” Piglet was hopping up and down in excitement. “I hit a six! I won the game!”

  The other players on the Four Legs side—Tigger, Pooh, Rabbit, and Eeyore—gathered around Piglet and raised him high into the air. Christopher Robin, Lottie, Kanga, and Roo looked on, smiling despite their disappointment.

  “Three cheers for the Four Legs!” cried Christopher Robin. “Hip, hip—”

  “Hooray!” cried the others.

  “And three more cheers for Piglet!” cried Roo.

  So they cheered and cheered some more while Christopher Robin helped Henry Rush and his young assistants to complete the page in the scoring book.

  It had a few rubbings out, but looked like this:

  FOUR LEGS INNINGS

  FOUR LEGS WIN!

  Late into the evening, everyone sat around a bonfire (the shattered bat had come in useful as kindling) and listened as Christopher Robin told them stories of the great cricketers of past generations.

  “But,” he added, “in the annals of cricketing legend, whenever and wherever stories are told, they will also mention the mighty six that Piglet hit with a bat taller than he was in the Test Match between the Two Legs and the Four Legs late one summer’s afternoon in the Hundred Acre Wood.”

  “Oh...” sighed Piglet happily, as he carelessly toasted a cucumber sandwich. Then he dreamed for a while, until he was roused by Pooh announcing that he had composed a hum to commemorate the occasion.

  “I would very much like to hear it,” said Lottie, who had, after all, been the top scorer of the match.

  “So would I,” whispered Piglet.

  And so here is the hum as hummed by Pooh on the night of the great match, as the eyes of the cricketers shone and glistened in the firelight under the chestnut trees:

  Who was it hit the winning run

  For the Four Legs against the Two?

  Though the bat in his hand

  Disappeared into sand,

  Was it me?

  No—

  It was you.

  Who was it won the cricket game

  For the Four Legs against the Two?

  Though his bat was as big

  As a fully grown pig,

  Was it me?

  No—

  It was you.

  Do we give a fig for the little pig

  And the Four Legs who beat the Two?

  We give more than that

  For the pig and the bat,

  And the mighty hit

  Which completed it,

  And the mighty swish

  Like a massive fish.

  Was it me?

  No—

  It was you.

  Not Pooh

  But Piglet.

  It was you!

  “But,” said Pooh, “it wasn’t really like a fish, only I couldn’t think of anything else and then I ran out of time, and sometimes it’s best to have something not quite right in a hum so that everybody can say: ‘Humph! I could have done it better myself.’”

  “I couldn’t have,” said Christopher Robin quietly.

  Chapter Nine

  in which Tigger dreams of Africa

  EEYORE, THE OLD GREY DONKEY and ex-headmaster, had been working on his letters with the aid of broken sticks. He was now expert at the straight letters like A and E and F and H, but needed to find bendy sticks for the curvy ones like C and R and S.

  “Then you can’t make Christopher Robin,” said Piglet, and added after a moment’s thought, “or Piglet.”

  “Or Eeyore,” said Eeyore. “Can’t make anything, except THE. What good is THE without something to come after it?”

  “None at all,” said Piglet, who had come to see Eeyore just in case he hadn’t heard Pooh’s Cricketing Hum.

  Eeyore looked down at Piglet’s feet.

  “I do appreciate this kind visit,” he said, “but I’ll thank you for not standing on my thistle patch. I’m running short.”

  “Should I help you look for some more?”

  “If you have nothing better to do, Piglet. Old thistles are fine if you’ve got the teeth for ’em, but for crunchiness and fullness of flavour there is nothing to beat a patch of young thistles with the purple flowers still on them. What’s more, little Piglet, they are a cure for aches and pains.”

  “Do you have some of those then, Eeyore?”

  “After being wicked-keeper what can you expect?”

  Just then, Lottie, who had been teasing the trout in the stream, which was sparkling and fresh again after a summer storm, joined them.

  “Fine morning,” she said pleasantly.

  “No,” said Eeyore. “It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.”

  “Don’t mind him,” said Piglet. “He’s out of thistles, Lottie.”

  “Is that all? I know where the best thistles are. Would you like me to take you there, Eeyore?”

  As they walked through the Forest carrying paper bags, a stripy thing bounced up to them.

  “Good morning, Tigger,” said Piglet nervously.

  “No,” said Eeyore. “It wasn’t, and now it’s getting worse.”

  “Hallo, Piglet; hallo, Eeyore; hallo, Lottie,” cried Tigger. “Where are you all off to?”

  “We’re looking for thistles for Eeyore’s aches and pains,” said Piglet.

  “I shall come too!” Tigger bounced high over a tree stump and back.

  “Could you not limit yourself to small bounces?” Lottie asked.

  “Very small bounces,” Eeyore warned.

  “Like this!” said Piglet. He did a small bounce to show Tigger what he meant, and tripped over some bindweed.

  The four of them set off. On the way, they met Kanga and Roo, who were enjoying the air after the storm, and the whole party headed into a cluster of trees.

  Just inside, they passed a clump of blackberry bushes, heavy with succulent berries.

  “Those are blackberries,” said Lottie. “Best in a pie with shortcrust pastry and custard.”

  “Tiggers like blackberries,” said Tigger, after tasting one.

  “Well, be careful, Tigger,” warned Kanga. “Only eat the black and juicy ones, and don’t eat too many.”

  Tigger tasted several, and then grabbed a whole pawful, and then another and then another. As he munched, he said something which could have been: “Oommphph!” unlessperhapsitwas“Splurghfff!”

  After a few swallows, Tigger beamed broadly and said, “Tiggers like blackberries very much,” with which he grabbed another pawful.

  Meanwhile, Eeyore had come to a copious clump of purple thistles and was chewing on one.

  “Not the best,” he mumbled as he chompe
d away,and grudgingly added, “Not the worst, either.”

  When Kanga, Tigger, and Roo arrived home, Kanga said she would make them pancakes for dinner. But Tigger said that he didn’t think he would be able to eat any pancakes, so Roo said that he would eat them for him—and he did. When the pancakes had been disposed of, there was Extract of Malt for afters, but Tigger said that he didn’t think he could eat any of that either.

  “Not even Extract of Malt?” asked Kanga. “My, my. That’s what comes of snacks between meals!”

  After dinner, Roo brought out the big atlas, which they had borrowed from Christopher Robin. While Kanga darned socks, Roo and Tigger jumped over oceans, conquered nations, and tore off a corner of Madagascar by mistake.

  Suddenly, Tiggers at back on his haunches, and looked down at West Africa, which was spread out beneath his feet. He blinked a couple of times, and let loose a magnificent burp.

  “Tigger, dear!” said Kanga, a little less mildly than usual. Roo started to giggle, then looked more closely at Tigger.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Never better!” said Tigger, burping again and looking startled. “What’s that country?”

  Looking over Tigger’s shoulder, Kanga identified it, “That’s the Ivory Coast.”