Return to the Hundred Acre Wood
Page 10
Piglet was quite correct. It was Christopher Robin’s bicycle and Christopher Robin was riding it.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Christopher Robin came rattling into the glade on his bicycle. He jumped off and leaned it against a tree.
“Sorry I left the party, but I wanted to fetch you a little surprise,” he explained.
From his bicycle basket, he took some large objects that were carefully wrapped in old jerseys. They turned out to be the gramophone and a box of records. The animals watched as he unwrapped them and set them down on the grass.
“I thought we could finish the day with some dancing,” he said cheerfully. “Then I will take your generous presents to the Less Fortunate.”
Christopher Robin glanced into the cart, and then peered inside more closely.
“Or maybe I won’t,” he added. Then he leant over the gramophone to wind the handle, and finished quietly, “Anyway, I’m leaving this here for you.”
Then the loudest, jumpiest, most harmonious and tumultuous music came tumbling out of the gramophone horn—and nobody could stay still.
Shake your feathers
Move your feet about
For I’m sweet about you.
Feel the beat because
I’m incomplete because
I am lost without you.
They danced a proper Hundred Acre Wood dance this time. At first it owed something to Lottie’s dancing class, but then it became wilder, with much leaping up into the air. Tigger and Kanga vied to see who could jump highest—the results were pretty even—and Roo and Piglet vied to see who could crouch down lowest —they were both beaten by Henry Rush, who hurried into a clump of heather immediately afterwards, for fear of being trodden on. And even Eeyore danced, a dance all his own, with flying hooves and mane and loud braying and his tail going here, there, and everywhere.
After “Shake Your Feathers,” they played “The Bam Bam Bammy Shore” and “Yes, We Have No Bananas” and “My Grandfather’s Clock.” And while “The Bam Bam Bammy Shore” was playing for the second time, Christopher Robin stopped dancing, and rolled up the jerseys, and put them in the basket of his bicycle.
Pooh, who was by now rather tired, left the dance as well. He padded over to see what Christopher Robin was doing, although he thought he could guess.
“Ah,” said Pooh solemnly, because this was one of those moments when you had to say something, even though nothing was quite right for the occasion.
“Well then, Pooh,” said Christopher Robin, leaning his bicycle back against the tree.
“So . . .”
He stopped to give Pooh a hug. It was a bit awkward, because Christopher Robin was quite tall these days, but Pooh hugged him back as best he could.
Over Pooh’s head, Christopher Robin finished, “I’ll be away for a while again, but I know you’ll look after the Forest.”
“I’ll try,” said Pooh. Really, he wasn’t sure what Looking After the Forest might involve. But if Christopher Robin thought he could do it, that meant that he could.
Christopher Robin let go and gave Pooh a nod. He got on his bicycle and pedaled swiftly away, turning just once to give a last wave and a smile before he was lost among the trees.
Later, after Owl and Rabbit had had an argument over who would look after the gramophone and the records, and Lottieand Eeyorehadsolved theargument by carrying off the whole lot between them, Pooh and Piglet walked home through the moonlit wood.
“I wonder why things have to change,” murmured Piglet.
Pooh thought for a while, then said, “It gives them a chance to get better. Like when the bees went away and came back””
“I suppose so,” said Piglet, a bit hesitantly. Then he cheered up. “It’s been a good summer, really. Do you remember that six I hit to win the cricket match?”
“I do,” said Pooh, a bit less cheerfully than Piglet, as he also remembered being hit on the nose by the cricket ball. And he remembered Piglet going down the well, and the Census, and the Academy, and the produce, and the gramophone. It all seemed mixed up with the fluff in his head, but at the same time it was so special that it deserved a hum. So he sat down on a log and made one up.
Christopher Robin has gone away.
He would not stay, no, he would not stay.
When will we see him? Will he be back?
Did he even have time to pack?
He left his music, but took his machine,
The best and the bluest we’d ever seen.
He left us all wondering: Gone for good?
No! He’ll be back to our lovely wood.
One day perhaps when the sun is high,
Out of the blue we will hear him cry:
“Piglet and Eeyore, Rabbit and Pooh,
I’m back again to spend time with you.”
“I’ve singed it, but I haven’t signed it,” said Pooh, “because I can’t write.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Piglet. “I was worried you weren’t going to put me in like you always used to. But then at the end you did.”
“You don’t rhyme with very much,” said Pooh.
“Are there many rhymes for Christopher Robin?” wondered Piglet.
“I don’t think so. Not good ones.”
“We could go and ask him tomorrow.”
Then they remembered that Christopher Robin wouldn’t be there tomorrow, or the next day.
So off they went, together. And if you pass by the Hundred Acre Wood on an early autumn evening, you might see them, arm in arm, strolling contentedly under the trees, until they are swallowed up by the mist.
DAVID BENEDICTUS’S stories were inspired by his familiarity with Pooh’s adventures after having worked on audio book adaptations of previous Winnie-the-Pooh tales. The author of over twenty books, he has also worked as a journalist, director, and teacher. In writing Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, Mr. Benedictus hopes to “both complement and maintain Milne’s idea that whatever happens, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”
MARK BURGESS has been illustrating children’s books for many years and has drawn countless classic characters, including Paddington Bear and Winnie-the-Pooh. He spends his free time reading, gardening, and walking in the woods near his home in southwest England, where he lives with his wife and cat. Mr. Burgess illustrated this sequel in the style of E. H. Shepard with the approval of Mr. Shepard’s estate.
A. A. MILNE (1882-1956) was a playwright and a journalist as well as a poet and storyteller. Inspired by his son, Christopher Robin, Milne published his first stories about Pooh in 1926. An instant success, Milne’s children’s books have since sold millions of copies and been translated into fifty languages.
ERNEST H. SHEPARD(1879-1976) gained renown as a cartoonist and illustrator. His witty and loving illustrations of Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends have become an inseparable part of the Pooh stories.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Praise
Chapter One - in which Christopher Robin returns
Chapter Two - in which Owl does a crossword, and a Spelling Bee is held
Chapter Three - in which Rabbit organizes almost everything
Chapter Four - in which it stops raining for ever, and something slinky comes ...
Chapter Five - in which Pooh goes in search of honey
Chapter Six - in which Owl becomes an author, and then unbecomes one
Chapter Seven - in which Lottie starts an Academy, and everybody learns something
Chapter Eight - in which we are introduced to the game of cricket
Chapter Nine - in which Tigger dreams of Africa
Chapter Ten - in which a Harvest Festival is held in the Forest and Christopher ...
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