In which our favorite depressed donkey finds that it is better to give than to receive, Owl learns a valuable lesson in spelling, Kanga discovers something about leaping, Pooh finds that all stories are actually not about him, and many other interesting things are revealed.

None of them pretty.

• Piglet on a Blanket
• Kanga and Roo Take a Leap of Faith
• Tiggers Mostly Bounce
• Eeyore’s Cocktail Party
• The Payment

Chapter One – Piglet on a Blanket

They found Piglet’s lifeless body half buried in the snow.

It was Owl who found him while misspelling words on the fresh snowfall that an early winter storm had dropped on the forest, making it even more enchanting than usual, which is a pretty good trick for an enchanted forest.

Owl had just finished an especially satisfying bit of snow writing, when he realized that not being able feel his wingtip probably wasn’t a good thing, and was on his way to see if he could find any of the other animals to explain something to. What he was going to explain was of fairly little import, especially as he had no idea of whether or not his explanations had any merit, but as long as they sufficiently elevated the other animals’ estimation of his intelligence he was happy.

Finding Piglet knocked the wind out of him as surely as whomever had found Piglet had knocked the stuffing out of him.

He flew all the way to Christopher Robin’s tree and flew around hooting and hooting until he remembered that Christopher Robin had gone away to school and wouldn’t be back until the Christmas Holiday. Which he wasn’t exactly sure when was.

So, he flew in no less panic to Pooh, but when he got there he was so out of breath that he couldn’t get any words out and had to resort to snow spelling.

“Piglit is ded.” He wrote for the bear to read.

”I know the first word,” said Pooh, scratching his head, “it’s Piglet, who has been complaining about this cold weather all winter. Though I don’t see what’s so bad about it, except that one gets awfully sleepy…” The bear trailed off and proceeded to yawn.

Owl waved his wings frantically.

“Too bad I can’t ask Christopher Robin to help me spell it out,” Pooh mused, “but he’s off at school getting even more clever. Well, I’ll have to be just as clever.

It looks like “bed”, which I know, being the place I’d like to go back to. Maybe it sounds like it too.”

At this point, Owl had taken to enacting dramatic death throes, which left beautiful snow angels on the white powder. He stopped moving, one eye fixed expectantly on Pooh.

A horrific realization began to creep over the small bear, making his cotton fur stand on end.

Chapter  ? Kanga and Roo Take a Leap of Faith

 

“Just how high can you jump with Roo in your pouch, Kanga?” Eeyore asked innocently.

“Can you jump over that wall, for instance? Doesn’t the extra weight drag you down?”

“Wall? That’s not a wall. Why, back in Australia we kangaroos jump right out of the zoo.” Replied Kanga, smugly.

“Really?” I would have thought the extra weight was too much. I didn’t think anyone could jump over that wall.” Eeyore continued.

Kanga’s pride was wounded and she turned to Roo.

“Hop in and we’ll show this doubting donkey what a Kanga and a Roo can do!”

Roo bounded up to Kanga and dove headfirst into her pouch, which always seemed to have room for him, no matter how grown up he might feel, or how many seasons passed. He loved the warm safe pouch each time he returned to it and reluctantly poked his head back out to look at Eeyore standing there swishing his tale and looking at them speculatively, with his head cocked to one side.

“Well, goodbye then.” Said Eeyore.

“Oh, we’ll be right back.” Said Kanga. “Three, two, one….jump!”

Kanga and Roo sailed gracefully over the brick wall that the highway department had put up to keep the noise of the new bypass to Heathrow from assailing the surrounding countryside. They landed smack dab in the middle of a lane and barely had time to get their footing and look up as a massive lorry bore down upon them, tooting its horn and screeching its brakes.

Eeyore listened intently for a while, then moped off into the woods.

“I guess they won’t be right back after all.” He muttered to himself.

Tiggers Mostly Bounce

 

In which the normally dense Tigger encounters a Burmese tiger trap and gets Eeyore’s point in the end.

Coming Soon.

Eeyore’s Cocktail Party

“Tea Party? TEA Party!?” brayed Eeyore, the whites of his glass eyes showing and his cloth coat drenched in foam.

“Yes,” said Pooh. “I think it’s very nice of you to have all your friends over and offer them tea. Especially under-the-circumstances. Do you think there might be any honey as well?” Pooh continued hopefully.

“It’s not a tea party, you pathetic excuse for a bear…it’s a cocktail party!”

“Cocktail?” Asked Pooh, who was at this point a bit confused, “Does it have feathers?”

“No!” Roared Eeyore, drawing himself up to his full height, a sheen of foam gleaming off his fur coat in the moonlight.

Pooh felt as though he was taking in Eeyore for the first time, from the glazed eyes to the twin belts of machine gun bullets slung across his chest to the peculiar bottle with a rag stuffed in it clenched in his paw.

“Are those the cocktails?” Pooh inquired nervously, “What kind are they?”

“Molotov.” was the depressed donkey’s terse reply.

Chapter Last – The Payment

The window of the black Bentley reflected the holocaust that was consuming the forest. Its dark paint shone with red highlights that made it look more than slightly evil, which all in all, was the way it should look.

Eeyore looked at his own reflection in the glass, a sad toy donkey, his rage spent, sooted and singed from the backlash of the Molotov.

The window slid down, erasing his reflection and revealing only blackness within. As Eeyore watched his reflection cut off by the descent of the window, he felt a sudden sense of loss, as though he were being erased himself, and not just an image.

“It’s all done” Eeyore said sadly, “Everything you asked for. No more animals, no more forest. All gone.”

“Very Good” said the voice from in side the car. “You’re sure they’re all dead?”

“Yes,” Eeyore said in a tired, defeated voice, “all of them.”

“Well, no, not quite, I’m afraid.” The voice from the darkness spoke again, with a touch of sadness, perhaps even regret.

The “phutt” of a silenced Walther PPK made its whispery statement, then again. The bullets tore through Eeyore’s stuffed body like lead through sawdust, like an assassin’s bullet through a muffling pillow, like the period at the end of a fairytale.

Eeyore looked up at the car, a look more thoughtful than surprised on his cloth features.

“Oh. I guess I should have expected that. Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps it’s even for the best.”

The stout little donkey fell over in the dust, all animation gone from his stuffed form. He lay there insensate, a broken and discarded toy.

Christopher Robin looked out the window at the quieting conflagration. He looked down at Eeyore’s form and sighed.

Well, it was nothing that a pint of bitters couldn’t cure, he decided, so he told the driver to return to Eaton where, after all, he had classes in the morning.

Pity that his parents had died so tragically when the house at Pooh Corner burned down. Tragic, really, that the hundred acre wood was now a charred lot. Still, it was a good thing that the settlement from the first had paid for his tuition, and when the second was sold off to the hungry developers, he expected he could live comfortably on the proceeds, and as for the animals…well, everyone left their childhood behind sometime.

A fine layer of dust settled on Eeyore as the Bentley’s wheels spun in the dirt.