The Hundred Acre Wood

Disclaimer & Warnings: See chapter 1

Timeline: Wednesday, July 31st, 1991, still morning

Chapter 2 – A First Birthday Party

"Hallo Tigger!" Christopher Robin smiled and waved to his bouncy friend. "I'm glad to see you again."

Boy loved it when he fell asleep and woke up in The Hundred Acre Wood. It was the only place he felt welcome and loved, and the only place where he didn't have to stay hidden. Of course he looked just like the little brown haired boy in his storybook to his woodland friends, rather than his own hideous self – so in a way, he supposed he was still hiding.

"Halloo-o-o-o Christopher Robin!" Tigger popped his head out from behind a tree and waved in return.

"Tigger, have you seen Pooh? I've been looking everywhere in The Hundred Acre Wood for him."

"Hey! Hey! Hey! Does everywhere included Owl's house? If not, it should."

"Why's that Tigger?"

"Because then you would find Pooh!"

"Oh! I get it! Pooh is at Owls!"

"They're planning a party. Tigger hopes it's for him! Tigger likes parties! Tigger likes cakes! Tigger likes pasties! Hey! Hey! Tigger likes lots of things, but you most of all!" Tigger bounced in circles around Christopher Robin on his springy tail. Each bounce, bouncing higher than the one before.

"I like you too Tigger. Why don't you come with me to Owl's house? Maybe we can help with the party. It'll be fun!" Christopher Robin set off slowly down the path towards Owl's tree.

"Hey? Hey? What's wrong?" Tigger stopped bouncing and watched curiously after the young boy. Christopher Robin seemed to be limping. That made Tigger worried. "Is Christopher Robin alright? You've been gone a long time. You didn't fall into the dark hole again… did you?"

"Yes, I did Tigger," Christopher Robin admitted softly, glancing back over his shoulder at the gaping black abyss visible just beyond the end of the path. He shuddered and turned his back resolutely against the pull he could feel emanating from it. He sighed sadly, then seeing the worried look on his friend's furry face, gave him as reassuring a grin as he could.

Seeing that Christopher Robin's grin was only on his lips and not in his eyes, Tigger hung upside-down from a limb of a nearby tree by his springy tail, so that his worried frown would turn into a grin too. Watching Tigger's antics made Christopher Robin's grin spread all over his face. Happy that he cheered up his friend, Tigger made his springy tail bounce him up and down from the limb until he bounced so low his head hit the ground.

BONK!

"Ha-ha! You silly tiger! I'm okay, really I am. I am whenever I'm here in The Hundred Acre Wood with you and Pooh and Piglet and Roo and Eeyore and Owl. I wish I could live here all the time instead of in the dark hole. I don't like it there. Pooh and Eeyore said they'd help me build a house to live in so I can stay, but I don't know how to stay here long enough to do it."

"Tigger has an idea! Let's ask Owl! I bet he knows how you can stay forever and always! Owl is smart. Owl says he knows everything." With that, Tigger bounced off the limb and down the path on his springy tail as fast as he could, leaving Christopher Robin trailing slowly behind thinking to himself.

'Tigger must know what ideas are, after all he said he had one. Maybe Tigger could show it to me. If I knew what they looked like, I could avoid them. Then maybe Ma'am wouldn't always be so angry with me.'

With that happy plan in mind, Christopher Robin followed his friend down the path to Owl's house.

"Halloo-o-o-o Pooh! It's a bounce-a-licious day, if I say so myself! Christopher Robin is back!" Tigger bounced into Owl's house. Grabbing Pooh by his chubby paws, he started swinging him around and around and around.

"I would agree. It is a very pooh-a-licious day Tigger, and I do say so myself," replied the plump little bear with a chuckle.

Tigger let go of a now very dizzy Pooh, who spun and spun and spun on first one foot, then the other, until he plopped down next to Owl's hunny pots and eyed them hopefully.

'Just the cure for a dizzy bear,' Pooh thought smacking his lips.

"Halloo! If it isn't Owl too!" bounced Tigger, and exuberantly greeted Owl, much to an anxious Owl's dismay.

"Not so surprising Tigger since this IS my house," hooted the ever-pompous Owl flying to the top of his bookshelf and out of Tigger's reach. "Did you say Christopher Robin was back in The Hundred Acre Wood?"

"Yes, and he wants to know if you can figure out a way he can stay in The Hundred Acre Wood forever and always," Tigger announced bouncing so high he hit his head on Owl's ceiling. Then, with an uncharacteristic unbouncy feeling, he stopped bouncing and whispered to Pooh and Owl, "Christopher Robin fell into the dark hole again and got hurt real bad this time."

"Oh dear! Oh my!" Owl cried, "But Pooh and I are leaving The Hundred Acre Wood."

"You are?" Tigger looked around, puzzled. "You look like you're here to Tigger."

Tigger gave Pooh a big pinch to see if he was real.

"Ouch!" Pooh yelped, pulling his head out of the first pot of hunny. The only good thing about being pinched by a Tigger was that the remedy was a liberal dose from a hunny pot! Luckily, Owl had two.

"That's what the party is for Tigger," Owl replied, not-so-patiently and far enough away not to be pinched as well. "It's a going away party. We're going to join you and Piglet this year at Hogwarts."

"What about Eeyore?"

Owl nodded that he was also coming.

"And Roo?" Tigger asked, starting to worry again as he twisted his bouncy tail into a knot.

"Roo, too, soon," Pooh's voice echoed as his head was now up-side-down inside the almost empty second hunny pot.

"We'll all be gone by next year," Owl nodded in agreement. "Then there'll be no one left in The Hundred Acre Woods…" Owl stopped talking when he saw Christopher Robin standing in the doorway with a look of resignation on his tired face.

"Hallo Owl. Hallo Pooh," Christopher Robin said softly, looking from one distraught friend's face to the other. "I heard, and it's okay. Really, it is Owl. I understand. I knew someday you'd be leaving me too. I've been alone before. It's okay if I am again. Really, it will."

"Hey! Hey! Tigger has an even better-ish idea! What if Christopher Robin comes to Hogwarts with us?" Tigger bounced happy again at the thought of not leaving his friend behind. "It really isn't hard to find. It's just on the far side of The Hundred Acre Woods."

"That's a grand idea!" Pooh agreed, pulling his head out of the now empty second hunny pot. He looked at Christopher Robin down-side-back-up with a calculating eye, "But how do we get him to Hogwarts? Do you know a way Owl?"

"I know everything there is to know about Hogwarts. It's all in the book I've been reading, 'Hogwarts: A History'. Christopher Robin should be able to get there the same way he gets here," Owl hooted with absolute authority. "We only need to know how he does that, and then do the same only opposite and sideways."

"I'm not really sure I know how I do it, because it doesn't always work," Christopher Robin shrugged as he sat down on Owl's overstuffed couch, "but usually what I do is wish real hard."

"You wish? Like when you blow out birthday candles?" Pooh asked, tilting his head so the last smidgen of honey dripped off his button nose onto his pink tongue.

"I've never blown out birthday candles, so I don't know if it's exactly the same, but it could be," Christopher Robin replied.

"Christopher Robin's never blown out birthday candles?" Tigger asked with a gasp as he stopped bouncing again. "But everyone has a birthday cake with birthday candles to make a birthday wish on their birthday! It's the birthday-ish thing to do!"

"Not me," the boy shook his head sadly. "The Family says that birthday parties are only for good little boys, and that I'm as bad as they come. I've never had a birthday cake, or birthday candles. I don't think I've even had a birthday."

"You've never had a birthday!" Pooh gasped in shock. "We can take care of that! Rabbit baked a cake for the party. Instead of a Pooh-and-Eeyore-and-Owl-Going-to-Hogwarts party, we'll have a Christopher-Robin's-First-Birthday-Ever party! Where are the candles?" Pooh asked Owl as he started to rummage in the pantry.

"Next to where my hunny pots should be," Owl replied, eyeing the empty pots and sighing. "How many do you want Pooh?"

"Since it is Christopher-Robin's-First-Birthday-Ever there should be one," Pooh said decisively pulling out a fat red candle from the box Owl produced and pushing it into the centre of the cake.

"There we go. All ready." Pooh looked at the cake smugly satisfied whilst licking icing off his chubby paws. "Now all you have to do Christopher Robin is to make a wish and blow out the candle, and you'll be one year old!"

"Really? You'd all let me have the party and… and the cake too?" Christopher Robin looked around at his friends with wide unbelieving eyes. All their furry and feathered heads nodded yes enthusiastically, causing a lump to grow in this throat making it hard to talk.

"Thank you everyone. You're the bestest friends I could ever have. In fact, you're the only friends I've ever had."

"Make a wish! Make a wish!" they all chorused, clapping and cheering.

Christopher Robin closed his eyes and whispered, "I wish… I wish… I wish that I could go to Hogwarts with all of you." The heartfelt wish made, they all helped him blow out the candle so his wish would come true. As the flame sputtered out Christopher Robin gasped and paled as he felt an overwhelming pull from the dark abyss.

"I'm… I'm sorry. I guess you wasted your cake on me. It looks as though The Family was right and bad boys don't get to have birthdays. I've got to go now, and I never got to ask Tigger what an idea looks like…"

As his forest friends looked on with horror, Christopher Robin started to become transparent, then in a pale blue shimmer of light he abruptly disappeared.