Christopher Robin_The Novelization Page 7

  “Oh!” he whispered into Christopher’s ear. “May I please have a travel balloon?”

  Christopher hushed his friend. “You don’t need a balloon,” he said, speaking out of the side of his mouth in such a way that he ended up resembling a bad ventriloquist.

  “I know I don’t need one,” Pooh said. “But I would like one. Very, very much.”

  Sighing, Christopher made his way toward the balloon vendor. If he had learned anything from being a parent, it was that sometimes saying yes saved everyone a whole lot of trouble. If Pooh was anything like Madeline when she was younger, saying no at this point could very well end in a tantrum of sorts. And in this case, it could end up with Pooh no longer wanting to play “nap time.” That was something Christopher wanted to avoid very much. “One balloon, please,” he said to the vendor.

  “Color?” the man asked.

  “Red!” Pooh said before Christopher could stop him. Luckily, the vendor’s head was turned, so he didn’t see that it was the bear, not the man, who had answered. Plucking a red balloon from the bunch, he handed it over to Christopher. Quickly, Christopher paid the man and headed toward the ticket counter. On his shoulder, Pooh clutched the balloon string and was back to looking like a stuffed toy (but one that now looked like a very happy and content stuffed toy).

  Pleased that he had avoided garnering any unwanted attention, Christopher steadily made his way up to the ticket counter. “A return ticket, please,” he requested, choosing to ignore the odd look the man behind the counter gave him as he placed Pooh, and the balloon, down on the ground so he could get his wallet. The balloon floated into his face and he batted it away. “To Hartfield, Sussex,” he added. The balloon then settled back in front of his face. “Can I have some space please?” he hissed down in Pooh’s direction. The balloon drifted a few feet back. Nodding, Christopher finished paying and took his ticket. Slipping it into his wallet, he glanced at his watch. They had made it.

  “Two minutes to spare,” Christopher noted. “Good, yes?”

  There was no response.

  Christopher’s eyes shot to where Pooh should have been.

  The bear—and the red balloon—were gone.

  Pooh had been enjoying himself quite thoroughly. Doing as Christopher asked, he had given the man some space and was now wandering through the London train station, taking in the sights. The red balloon drifted lazily above him.

  Spotting a young boy sitting in a stroller, Pooh wobbled over to say hello. Unfortunately, he hadn’t anticipated how eager the boy would be to make a new friend. Or rather, take a new friend. The boy had grabbed Pooh, and the balloon, and dragged both into the stroller with him. While Pooh did enjoy getting a lift whenever possible, he was now beginning to get a bit nervous that he might not make it back to Christopher Robin.

  “Mine!” the boy shouted as a large trolley of luggage was pushed past.

  Pooh squirmed in the boy’s death grip. “Are we going to be friends?” the bear asked. Because the tightening grip on his body was beginning to make him feel like that might not be the case.

  Thankfully, just as Pooh was beginning to feel quite suffocated, Christopher rushed over. “He was mine first!” Christopher said, grabbing Pooh from the boy’s grasp.

  “That is true,” Pooh said happily.

  The boy, however, did not seem satisfied with this reasoning. Tilting back his head, he began to shriek.

  Hearing the commotion, the boy’s mother, who had been talking to a luggage porter, turned. Her eyes flitted back and forth between Christopher, who was clutching Pooh tightly to his chest, and her son, who was still screaming, arms reaching out for the bear. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” the mother said. “Did you take my son’s toy?”

  Christopher pulled Pooh closer. “You can’t just steal teddy bears from grown men!” he snapped, instantly mortified by what he had said. Luckily, just then, a train whistle echoed through the station.

  “Last call for boarding!” the conductor called out. “Last call!”

  Sidestepping the boy’s mother, who was now rather angry, as well as confused, Christopher hurtled toward the departing train’s platform. The balloon floated behind him as he raced to catch the train. “You were supposed to be playing nap time,” he muttered to Pooh as he ran.

  “It was one of my smaller naps,” Pooh answered. He was dangling upside down from Christopher’s hand. His eyes widened, however, as he spotted a candy stand. Even upside down, the tasty treats looked delicious. As if sensing the bear’s thoughts, Christopher’s grip on Pooh’s leg tightened and he sped up.

  A moment later, Christopher threw himself into a train’s carriage car. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath. Behind him, the train doors closed with a bang. Christopher let out a sigh of relief. They had made it! Now he just needed to find a club car and keep Pooh hidden until they got out into the countryside.

  But when Christopher tried to move forward, he couldn’t. Upon looking over his shoulder, he let out a groan. The blasted balloon was outside of the train door—blowing around uncontrollably!

  Noticing the problem at the same time, Pooh let out a shout. “Christopher Robin!” he said, pointing. In response, Christopher reached down and slipped the string off Pooh’s paw. “But my balloon!” Pooh protested, watching it flutter wildly as the train picked up speed.

  “It’s gone now,” Christopher said. “You don’t need it.”

  Pooh frowned. “But it did make me very happy,” he said softly. “Didn’t it make you happy?”

  Christopher began to walk down the narrow train aisle. “Not really,” he said, too tired to pretend to be the boy he had once been. The man he was now was exhausted. Exhausted and exasperated! He just wanted to get to the country and get Pooh home.

  Then his life could go back to normal.

  Christopher stared down at the pile of papers on the table in front of him. He had been working on them since the train pulled out of Victoria station nearly two hours ago, and he was no closer to coming up with a solution than he had been before. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, his hair was disheveled, and he was pained by numerous paper cuts from the small pieces of colored paper he had ripped up and taped sporadically across the equations as he agonized over finding numbers that would keep his staff intact.

  Sighing, Christopher flipped over another piece of paper. This one had a list of employee’s names typed on it. Looking over the list, he crossed off two names. In the margins, he wrote 17% and circled the number. His pen dug into the paper as he continued to circle the number over and over—and still over yet again. They weren’t just names to him: he knew the two people he had just so callously crossed off. He knew their families, where they were from, what they liked to do for fun. He sighed again.

  “Do you always have a case with you?”

  Pooh’s question jolted Christopher and forced him to refocus. He looked across the table at the bear. He had been sitting quietly—much to Christopher’s surprise—since they had left London. He had spent most of the time staring out the window at the passing scenery.

  “My briefcase?” Christopher clarified, pointing to the leather satchel propped open on the table. He nodded. “Most of the time, yes.”

  “Is it more important than a balloon?” Pooh asked.

  “It’s more important than a balloon, yes,” Christopher answered. Apparently, the bear hadn’t just been aimlessly staring out the window.

  Pooh nodded. “I see,” he said. “So, more like a blanket?”

  Christopher bit back a groan. Once again, he found himself drawing a comparison between Pooh and Madeline as a younger child. The incessant questioning started off cute, but he knew it would quickly become a bit, well, monotonous. “Sure,” he finally said after pondering Pooh’s query. “More like a blanket.” He hoped that in agreeing he might put an end to the conversation. He was wrong.

  “What does it do?” Pooh asked, taking a closer look at the case.

  “It h
olds very important things,” Christopher said, shutting it with a thwack before Pooh’s prying paws found their way inside. “Do you mind amusing yourself for a minute? I have work to do.” Turning his attention back to his papers, he was surprised to find that Pooh seemingly had listened to him. For a moment, the train compartment was quiet.

  And then it wasn’t.

  “House. Clouds. House. Grass,” Pooh’s voice broke the silence. “Dog. More grass.”

  Christopher sighed. “What are you doing?” he said, looking back up at the bear. Pooh was staring out the window again.

  “I’m playing a game,” Pooh responded, not shifting his gaze. “It’s called Say What You See.”

  “Well, can you play it a little quieter, please?” Christopher asked. Once again, he was surprised that Pooh seemed to listen and that it grew quiet. But once again, the peace and quiet didn’t last.

  “House. Tree. Grass.” Pooh continued to list anything he saw through the train compartment’s windows. He did, in his defense, do it a bit more quietly. “Tree. Pond. Tree. I don’t know what that is. Bush. A man. House…”

  A part of Christopher, the part that felt the beginnings of a serious headache forming, wanted to snap at Pooh and tell him to just not speak. But another part of him knew it wasn’t worth it. The bear was just being who he was. And he had told Pooh that he should be himself, so it didn’t seem right to fight it. With a sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He was just going to have to hope that the bear grew tired of his game sooner rather than later.

  Returning his attention to the papers in front of him, Christopher continued to run his calculations. He had at least another hour before they would reach Hartfield in Sussex. If he worked hard enough, he could make some headway…he hoped.

  Fortunately, at least from Christopher’s perspective, Pooh’s game quickly tired the bear out and he fell asleep, leaving Christopher time to work uninterrupted. He sat, hunched over his papers, furiously scribbling and calculating. He ran and reran numbers and scenarios. He analyzed the data this way and that until he was sure his eyes were crossing. But by the time the train pulled into the station in Hartfield, there was a big red number twenty at the top of his papers.

  He had done it. It was at a terrible cost to some, but he had done what his boss had asked. Now he just had to get back to London and deliver the news. But first he needed to get Pooh back to the Hundred-Acre Wood.

  As the train let out a loud whistle and steam hissed from the engine car, Christopher picked up Pooh and put him over his shoulder. Grabbing the briefcase in his other hand, Christopher weaved his way back down the train car toward the door. To his surprise and Pooh’s delight, the red balloon was still where it had been left, its string wedged between the door and the train car’s side. Grabbing the string, Pooh let out a happy shout. Christopher barely registered it.

  The drive from the station had always felt like forever to Christopher when he was younger. The anticipation of getting to the house and out into the woods had made the minutes pass as slowly as hours. Back then, he had barely registered the passing countryside or the lovely homes that lined the way. There was only one house he wanted to see, only one wood he wanted to register.

  Oddly enough, he found now, as the taxi meandered down the country roads, that he felt nearly the same way. His foot tapped against the floor and his knee bounced up and down. It had been years since he had visited the family country house. He couldn’t help wondering what it would look like. Would it feel as big? Would the trees seem smaller? Had it aged the same way he had… ?

  The taxi turned down the drive, and Christopher’s heart began to beat faster. The trees on either side had grown tall and thick in his absence and now reached over the drive, making it feel as though they were passing through a tunnel. Then, up ahead, Christopher saw a burst of light and the house came into view.

  Christopher’s breath caught. The house hadn’t changed. It was still stately and comfortable at the same time. The grounds were still manicured and the paint seemed fresh. If Christopher hadn’t known better, he would have sworn that not a day had passed since he and his mother had visited the home after his father’s death all those years ago.

  For a long moment he sat motionless in the back of the taxi. He knew he needed to get out, but a part of him didn’t want to step outside and possibly ruin the illusion. He knew that things up close tended to look different than when viewed from afar. The house could be falling apart inside, or small cracks in the paint might be visible for all he knew. In the back of the cab, he could fool himself for a little while longer. But finally, with a sigh, he grabbed Pooh and the briefcase, paid the driver, and stepped out into the country air.

  Looking up at the far-right window, he saw that the curtain had been pulled shut. Evelyn must have been using his parents’ old room while she was there. Hoping that the sound of the departing taxi wouldn’t alert her, Christopher quickly ducked around the side of the house.

  “Are we going in?” Pooh asked, pointing at the house as they made their way toward the backyard.

  Christopher put a finger to his lips and shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “No, we must keep very quiet. Not let them see us.” Passing under a window, Christopher ducked down. He motioned for Pooh to do the same. “Stay low,” he added.

  Despite the warning, Pooh continued to walk normally. Unlike Christopher, the bear was small enough to pass right under the window unseen. But just because someone looking out couldn’t see him, that didn’t mean he didn’t want to see in. Stopping at the next window, Pooh lifted himself up onto the tips of his paws and peered through the glass. “Who’s that?” he asked.

  Whipping around, Christopher bit back a shout. “Pooh!” he hissed.

  “She can’t be Pooh,” the bear said, confusing the warning with an answer. “I’m Pooh.”

  Making his way back to the window, Christopher carefully peeked over the windowsill and into the room beyond. Evelyn was in the family room, arranging a bouquet of bright flowers in a vase. “That’s Evelyn. My wife,” he said softly. While he had just seen her a day ago, she somehow looked different. Happier, maybe? Or more content?

  “She looks very kind,” Pooh observed.

  “She is,” Christopher said, his gaze lingering on Evelyn as Pooh wandered to the next window.

  “And who is she?” Pooh asked.

  Christopher snapped to attention. Pooh had managed to pull himself up so that nearly half his body was above the windowsill, clearly visible to whomever was inside. Ducking back down, Christopher awkwardly hunched his way over and pulled the bear back down. But as he did so, he caught sight of his daughter, sitting in a chair far too large for her, surrounded by textbooks. Her expression was serious, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she tried to make sense of the book on her lap. “That’s Madeline,” he told Pooh. “My daughter.”

  Pooh’s expression brightened. “Can she come play with us?” he asked innocently.

  Shaking his head, Christopher moved away from the window so he could stand up straight. “No,” he answered. “She can’t come.” They weren’t, he wanted to point out, “playing.” But arguing semantics with Pooh seemed a colossal waste of time, so instead he kept walking toward the back of the house. Pooh followed.

  “Do you not like playing with her?” Pooh asked as they walked.

  “No,” Christopher said. “But she’s very busy working right now.”

  Pooh nodded. Then he stopped. He looked down at the case Christopher still had clutched in his hand, then back at the house. “Does she have a briefcase like you?”

  “No!” Christopher snapped, the response laced with more venom then he intended. Yes, his daughter was studious. No, they didn’t play all the time. But did that mean she wasn’t a normal kid? No! It most certainly did not. Taking a breath, Christopher quieted his inner rant. He knew he was being sensitive, but what did Pooh know about the real world anyway?

  As if to prove his point, Pooh held out
his balloon. “Do you think she’d like my red balloon?” he asked. “It might make her happy.”

  Once more, Christopher’s temper flared. This time, he didn’t hold his thoughts inside. “What is it with you and the balloon?” he snapped angrily. “Happiness isn’t just in balloons. Madeline is happy. And I’m happy she’s happy. Now come on, Pooh.” But even as he spoke the words, Christopher knew it wasn’t Pooh he was trying to convince. It was himself.

  Luckily, Christopher was saved from conducting further introspection by their arrival at the edge of the woods. The trees created a natural fence of sorts for the Robins’ country house, their thick branches reaching out over the manicured lawn. In the summer, those branches provided shade for picnics, and in the fall they blanketed the ground in brightly colored leaves. Christopher used to think of the area between the house and woods as magical—the place where anything became possible. Disappearing into the woods as a child, Christopher could leave behind his worries and his fears and become the adventurous friend and hero he always wanted to be.

  Staring into the woods now, he was overcome with the same feeling of anticipation that he would get when he was a boy, just before he let the trees engulf him. Only now there was a nervous and anxious energy to the anticipation he was feeling. Taking a deep breath, he plunged his way into the woods. Pooh followed. The path he had used to take was overgrown now, but he could still make it out under the decades’ worth of decayed leaves. He smiled sadly. Even this place couldn’t be saved from the effects of time.

  Neither bear nor man spoke much as they made their way deeper into the woods. Lost in their own thoughts, they watched as the sun filtered through the branches overhead, dappling the forest floor with light. Birds sang out and animals rustled among the leaves. It was peaceful—and for just a moment, Christopher felt some of the weight on his shoulders lift.

  And then they arrived at the old tree with the hollowed-out trunk. While everything else seemed bigger and older—and more weatherworn, to Christopher—the tree appeared unchanged. The bark was still the same rough grey, and his initials, carved into the tree’s side so many years ago, were still there. The C and R sported a blocky and childish appearance. Reaching out, Christopher ran his hand over the bark fondly. Then he sighed. “Well, Pooh,” he said, turning to his friend, “I got you home.”