“Ivory Coast,” murmured Roo. “Sounds lovely.”
Tigger said: “I was just wondering: where do I come from?”
“Don’t you remember?” asked Kanga.
“Now you come to mention it, I do. I remember a forest, with trees much taller than the ones in the Hundred Acre Wood. And monkeys. I’m sure I remember monkeys. At least, I think I am sure.”
“Sounds like Africa,” said Kanga. “Now it’s bath-time, and then bed.”
“Oh no, not bath-time!” cried Roo, which was what he always said.
Tiggersaidnothing.Africa...Africa...it sounded right.
Tigger found he could not sleep. He tried lying on his back, but he did not know where to put his legs. He tried lying on his side, but his whiskers tickled. He tried standing up, but only Eeyore could sleep standing up, so finally he curled up in a corner under the ironing board and shut his eyes. But sleep would not come. His skin felt crawly, as if all his stripes were running into one big stripe, like raindrops on a windowpane, but, when he opened his eyes to check, he was not all orange or all black but just the same as he always was. He did not feel Tiggerish. He did not feel well. He burped and groaned. And, finally, he slipped into a fitful sleep.
Then he muttered: “Africa,” but his eyes remained shut.
“I ’spect he’s dreaming of the jungle,” said Roo, when they found him the next morning, still muttering. “That’s what I ’spect.”
At midday, Kanga sent Roo with a message to Christopher Robin’s house.
“Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin!” cried Roo. “Tigger’s not well. He’s twitching and making noises.”
“What sort of noises?”
“Rude ones, mainly.”
“It’s probably influenza,” said Christopher Robin. He had had it himself, and Matron had said to keep warm and drink lots. So he made a thermos of hot cocoa and took it around to Kanga’s house, along with a blue blanket that had a silky bit around the edge.
“But I don’t think he’s cold,” said Roo. “At least, he doesn’t feel cold.”
When Christopher Robin put the blanket over Tigger, he kicked it off, and when he poured out a mug of hot cocoa, Tigger sent it flying all over a woolen rug which a cousin of Kanga’s had crocheted and sent her for Christmas.
Christopher Robin called on Rabbit and Owl.
Rabbit said: “Keep him warm and give him cocoa,” which was not a lot of help, while Owl brought a black leather bag from which he removed a stethoscope, and listened to Tigger’s chest.
“What can you hear?” asked Roo. “And can I be doctor next?”
“No,” said Owl, “you cannot. All I can hear is drums, but it’s probably just his heartbeat.”
Tigger rolled his eyes and his tail stuck straight out behind him.
Just then, Pooh arrived, clutching a pot of honey.
“Do you think Tigger would like this?” he asked.
“Tiggers don’t like honey,” said Piglet.
“I had forgotten,” said Pooh, and he smiled a small, relieved smile.
That night and all the next day, Tigger lay under the ironing board muttering to himself, watched over by each of his worried friends in turn. Then on the third day, when Rabbit was checking the tidiness of Kanga’s cupboards while her back was turned, and going “tut-tut,” Tigger got up and slipped outside.
“Poor Tigger,” said Christopher Robin. “I wonder where he thinks he’s going.”
“To Africa, perhaps,” said Pooh.
Roo asked, “Which way is Africa?”
But nobody seemed to know.
It was Eeyore who found Tigger, lying on his back under an oak, staring at the branches.
“Africa!” Tigger muttered reproachfully at the tree.
Eeyore lifted him gently onto his back and brought him home.
“I was not always very kind to him,” the old donkey admitted, and sighed. “If only he hadn’t bounced.”
“He’s still not well,” said Piglet. “Look at how loose his skin is.”
This was true. Tigger’s skin appearedtobe several sizes toolarge.
“His tongue is not a good colour,” said Lottie. “I am not sure what colour it is meant to be, but I don’t think it’s that colour.”
“It’s meant to be tongue-coloured,” Owl suggested. “And it is now the colour a tongue goes after it has eaten too many blackberries.”
“Unripe, unwashed, and without custard,” added Lottie.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Christopher Robin, “if I were poorly, what I would most want.”
“To be well again,” said Pooh.
“Yes, Pooh, but what else? I think I should like to be surrounded by friendly and familiar things.”
“But he is,” said Pooh.
“If he’s decided he’s African...” Owl said, reasonably enough, “we can’t carry him to Africa; he’s too heavy. Unless . . . Eeyore?”
“Certainly not,” said Eeyore.
“I wonder,” said Christopher Robin. “Since we can’t take him to Africa, then I wonder whether we could bring Africa to him.”
“Africa!” said Tigger faintly, and burped.
Tigger lay in his favourite corner, restless and twitchy still, but in a kind of half-slumber. All around him the others had been busy and now they were putting the finishing touches to what Christopher Robin had proposed.
At first Tigger was aware of a gentle drumming. Was it his heart? No, it was coming from outside him.
He opened his eyes. Where on earth could he be? Above him was a canopy of lush green branches, and around him were swathes of fern and mosses. Water was dripping from the leaves, and it was hot and steamy. There was even a hissing of snakes.
“Where am I?” asked Tigger in wonderment. “Could I be...could I really be in Africa?”
Then Christopher Robin’s voice said, “Tigger, you are wherever you want to be. It’s called imagination.”
Tigger closed his eyes and fell happily asleep. Which was just as well, as it meant that he did not see Lottie drumming on two upturned wastepaper baskets with rolling pins belonging to Kanga and Rabbit, or Pooh up a ladder with a watering can, or Christopher Robin tending a fire, or even Roo blowing into the spouts of various kettles to make what he imagined might be snake hisses.
From that moment, Tigger’s slow recovery began. He began to do bending and stretching exercises, and his burps turned into occasional gentle hiccups. He demanded a spoonful of Extract of Malt every hour on the hour, and within a couple of days his skin no longer hung loose, his tongue was the pinkish colour proper for a fit Tigger, and his stripes —well, his stripes were the brightest and the best defined ever seen in the Hundred Acre Wood; possibly as bright as any in Africa.
One morning a week or so later, Roo and Tigger and Piglet were sliding down the water chute when Christopher Robin and Pooh came briskly up to them. Christopher Robin was carrying a big book, and Pooh a sheet of handsome blue writing paper.
“Tigger,” said Christopher Robin, “we have something important to tell you.”
“Really?” said Tigger, and splashed water over Roo, who splashed water over Piglet, who splashed water over Tigger. “What’s that?”
“You ought to be sitting down,” said Christopher Robin. “It’s sitting down stuff.”
“Righty-ho!” said Tigger, and sat down twice with a bit of a bounce in between.
“Shall I tell him?” Pooh asked Christopher Robin, who nodded.
“Tigger, you aren’t African!”
“’Course I am!” said Tigger.
“You can’t be.”
“Why can’t I be?”
“You’re a tiger and there aren’t any tigers in Africa,” Christopher Robin explained. “Tigers come from Asia. China and India and places like that.”
“And circuses,” said Pooh.
Tigger thought about all this for a moment. It was a good deal to take in.
“Who says?”
Christopher Robin
opened the big book at a place he had marked with a slip of paper.
“The Encyclopedia does.”
“Hmm . . .” Tigger considered this with his head on one side. Then he looked triumphantly at Pooh. “Bears don’t come from England.”
Christopher Robin smiled and said: “Well, there’s one here, and there always will be. Pooh Bear.”
“Am I the only one?” asked Pooh.
Christopher Robin thought for a moment.
“Well, maybe not the only bear in England,” he concluded. “But in all the world you are the one and only, incomparable Winnie-the-Pooh.”
Chapter Ten
in which a Harvest Festival is held in the Forest and Christopher Robin springs a surprise
SUMMER WAS ALMOST OVER. The windfall apples lay on the ground, which was heavy with dew, and one morning there was mist curling in the hollows down by the stream.
Christopher Robin and Pooh were paying an Encouraging Visit to Eeyore, who was gloomier than ever. But after a few minutes Eeyore was showing no sign of being Encouraged, and his friends were running out of things to say.
“Did you know that it will soon be Harvest Festival?” asked Christopher Robin, after a particularly long silence.
“What’s that then?” asked Eeyore suspiciously.
“Well, every September, people get together to celebrate the Gathering-in of the Crops,” explained Christopher Robin. “They make corn dollies and collect produce and put it on display. Then they sing about everything being bright and beautiful.”
“Is it?” Eeyore asked. “Can’t say I’d noticed.”
“What’s produce?” asked Pooh.
“It’s food that you’ve got to spare, Pooh. Like a pot of honey.”
“It is?” Pooh said, wondering if honey could be spare.
“Yes, and it ought to be the best pot. The idea is to give things to the Less Fortunate.”
Pooh gulped, thinking of his row of honey jars, especially the pot second from the left at the back, which was the tallest and the fattest.
“Who are the Less Fortunate?” asked Pooh. He felt that he would be one of them, if he had to give away his honey.
“Well, I’m not sure,” said Christopher Robin. He lay on his back, looking up at the sky with a thoughtful expression. “We could have a Harvest Festival here in the Forest,” he said. “I could build a cart to put the produce in and tow it behind my bicycle. Then the Less Fortunate could see it and take things.”
“You’ll do as you like, of course,” said Eeyore loudly, “but I’m not singing. Bad for thestomach.”
Although Christopher Robin had learned carpentry at school, nobody had shown him how to make a cart, and it turned out to be quite tricky.
The wheels ended up rather squarish, and when he came to make the tires there was no rubber, so he used a pair of old pajamas instead. Then there was the question of how to attach the cart to the chassis, and the chassis to the axle, and the axle to the wheels. Working all this out involved a lot of sitting around scratching his head and turning bits of wood over in his hands,but eventually the cart was finished. It was rather bumpy and hard to pull along, but a cart it certainly was.
Christopher Robin parked it in front of his house with a sign which read:
FOR PRODUSE. PUT IN HERE PLEEZ.
Once the animals had gathered around to admire the cart, everyone started to make suggestions for what else they could do to celebrate Harvest Festival. Kanga suggested baking cakes—always popular—and Rabbit suggested card games, like Snap, Old Maid, and Racing Demon—not so popular, as Rabbit generally boasted when he won and sulked when he lost—but it was Christopher Robin who came up with a clever suggestion that would allow them to do all these things and more.
“It’s a bit late in the summer,” he said, “but why don’t we have a fête? We could have blackberries and cream, instead of strawberries, and play games like Ring Toss and Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”
All the animals cheered—with the exception of Tigger, who thought he wouldn’t eat any more blackberries; and Eeyore, who said, “Excuse me,” with great dignity. Then he said it twice more until everyone else was quiet.
“I believe, Christopher Robin,” he continued, “you will find that I already have a tail. True, it is attached by a nail, but you will understand my reluctance to have just anyone bashing away at it.”
“Oh, Eeyore,” said Christopher Robin. “I didn’t mean you should...”
But the old donkey held up a hoof for silence. “I shall give rides to the little ones instead,” he announced.
The morning of the Harvest Festival dawned bright and clear. Everyone had been planning and working for days, and by lunchtime the fête was set up. There were stalls selling the bric-a-brac that had turned up when Rabbit helped everyone clear out their houses and a Ring Toss game made from sticks and rings, and Owl’s platform where he would stand to recite poetry and a mysterious booth made out of blankets hung over tree branches. HAVE YOUR PAW READ BY MADAME PETULENGRA said a sign that was pinned to the outside.
In the middle of it all sat the cart, full of produce that gleamed in the September sunshine. There were haycorns from Piglet, a small pot of honey from Pooh, Strengthening Medicine from Tigger, homemade crab-apple jam from Rabbit, a whole tray of fairy cakes from Kanga, and much, much more. It had all been decorated with heather and yellow gorse.
“Perfect,” said Christopher Robin, looking around the glade when preparations were complete. “And now it’s time for our picnic,” he added as one of the fairy cakes was grabbed from the cart by a baby rabbit.
The lunch was a fine one, with enough honeycomb and haycorns to suggest that perhaps not all the best produce had been set aside for the Less Fortunate.Then, as the sun started its journey down the other side of the sky, the animals opened their fête.
From the start, Piglet’s Ring Toss stand was popular. It became especially busy when some of Rabbit’s Friends and Relations decided to throw the rings over Piglet instead of over the pegs. Things only calmed down again when Tigger got a ring wedged around his head and Christopher Robin had to remove it with soapy water.
The mysterious blanket booth turned out to contain Lottie, seated in a rocking chair and wearing a mauve turban. If you paid her a small coin and offered her your paw to examine, she would tell you either that you would cross the water or that you would meet with a handsome stranger. If you paid her a large coin, you found out you were going to do both at the same time.
Meanwhile, Eeyore tramped slowly around the glade, with a crowd of little rabbits clinging to his back, shrieking with laughter.
Then, when you tired of these wonderful things, you could go to Rabbit’s card booth and find yourself obliged to lose at various different games. Or you could
listen to Owl reciting Uncle Robert’s favourite poem, but it was a very long poem and when it came to the hard-to-remember bits, Owl flapped his wings a few times and said “etcetera,” “and so forth,” “and so on” in such a grand way that it was really just as good as the poem. Or you could do as Pooh did, and wander around from stall to stall, marveling at everything, trying all the games, and not doing terribly well at anything, except at rolling the penny.
And so the celebrations went on all afternoon, until Kanga announced that, Harvest Festival or not, it was time for Roo to go home to bed.
“But it won’t be dark for hours,” protested Roo.
“Now, I’ve told you—” started Kanga.
But Pooh wasn’t listening to this. He was looking around the glade, for something that wasn’t there.
“Where is Christopher Robin?” he asked.
Everybody stopped what they were doing.
Rabbit looked from side to side, and said, “He isn’t here.”
“I know where he isn’t,” said Pooh, “but there’s still a lot of other places he might be.”
“We must Organdise a Search Party!” squeaked Roo excitedly.
“No, dear,” sa
id Kanga, “because then we might all get lost instead of just Christopher Robin.”
“He isn’t lost,” said Piglet, sounding as if he wasn’t quite sure. “We don’t know where he is, but that isn’t the same thing at all. Christopher Robin is just on his own somewhere. I wonder if that means he wants to be on his own...Oh dear.”
It was then that Owl, whose eyesight was the best, flew up above the tallest of the tall oaks. But even with his sharp eyes there was no Christopher Robin to be seen.
Eeyore looked around the remains of the fête and sniffed. “Well then,” he said, “if that’s the end of that, I’d better be going.” But he did not leave.
“Roo, dear, it really is time for bed!” said Kanga, her voice becoming quite sharp.
But nobody moved.
Pooh kept looking at the cart and the pot of honey. He was sure he had seen Tigger helping himself to a gulp or two of the Strengthening Medicine, and Piglet retrieving one or five of the finest haycorns. So he thought to himself that there was no harm in having just a little taste of the honey.
By the time he was on to his ninth or tenth taste, he could hear a faint clunking and clattering sound. He looked around at the others, and they were all listening too.
“That sounds like a bicycle,” he said.
“And if it’s a bicycle,” said Piglet, “there must be somebody on it to do the pedaling, and the only one who isn’t here is Christopher Robin, and he’s the only one with a bicycle.”
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