May 15, 2002

The TARDIS at Pooh Corner - Chapter 3

In Which Doctor Pooh helps a Stowaway and Learns Something about the Nature of the Universe...

The Captain of the ship and two of his crewmen slowed their running to a halt, huffing and puffing.

"Did you see which way he went?" the Captain huffed.

"I thought he was somewhere around here," the crewman puffed.

"Maybe he jumped overboard," gasped the other crewman, who was not actually out of breath at all but was, in fact, in very good shape, have won all sorts of foot races in his time and been considered quite formidable on the high hurdles. However, he did not want to make the Captain and the other crewman feel inferior, even if they were.

"Well, here he comes," said the Captain.

At that moment the Captain was pointing to Doctor Pooh and Jeannie Robin as they trotted briskly along the deck of the ocean liner, wondering where in the world the TARDIS had brought them to this time.

Moments before the Captain said, "Wait, here he comes," the conversation of our two travelers had gone something like this:

"This is quite nice," said the Doctor, removing his hat and letting the wind tickle his ears.

"It certainly is," said Jeannie agreeably. "Much nicer than that planet we were on before."

Doctor Pooh's nose wiggled and Pooh watched it with interest. His nose oftentimes picked up on things before he did, and he waited for his mind to sort out the smells that were coming its way to find what it was that so interested his nose.

"Jeannie Robin," he said, "we (this is to say, my nose and I) smell something."

Jeannie, leaning on the rail, gazed dreamily out to sea and said, "That's nice, Pooh." Then she sighed again. "This is such a friendly place. Perhaps we should stay here awhile."

That's when they heard a voice call out, "Wait, here he comes."

Pooh looked about in puzzlement, wonder just who "he" might be, and suddenly two rough hands picked him up by the shoulders and lifted him off the ground. He found himself eye-to-eye with a rather upset-looking man.

"Hallo," said Doctor Pooh. He looked the Captain over up and down, and then, not quite sure what to do, said "Hallo." This did not have any better effect the second time than it did the first. The man still glared at him. "Have we been introduced?" asked Doctor Pooh.

Jeannie Robin, for her part, was quite sure what to do, since she was quite miffed with such treatment. "Now see here," she said with an impatient stomp of her foot. "This is not at all polite."

"Captain," said one of the crewmen. "That's not him."

"Pardon?"

"That's not the bear we're looking for."

The Captain's eyebrows came together and made one long eyebrow across his face. "What? Are you quite sure?"

"Quite sure."

The Captain frowned again. "Quite Quite sure?"

"Quite Quite sure, sir."

"Yes," agreed the other crewman. "That other young bear fellow was brown and a bit taller, and this chap is short and yellow. And besides, this young lady seems to be with him."

"Are you with him, young lady?" demanded the Captain, just to make sure.

"Yes, I am."

"And are you with her, bear?" demanded the Captain, just to make doubly sure. Clearly the Captain was the sort who left nothing to chance.

"Yes," said Pooh. "We are together." The Doctor rotated his feet a bit in opposite directions, just so he wouldn't lose the feeling in them. "I believe," he said, "that I'm ready to be put down now."

"Yeah, put him down," squeaked a small voice from the general vicinity of Jeannie Robin's jacket. The voice was actually too small to be heard, which was more or less the way the voice's owner would have preferred it, that owner not being so strong or brave as his Idol, Doctor Pooh.

The Captain placed the Idol-of-One on his feet, and after making some "um" and "ah" and "errhum" sounds, said, "So sorry. Didn't mean to be rude. If there is anything I can do to be of service--"

"Do you have any honey on you?" asked the Doctor.

The Captain's mouth twitched in annoyance, because he did indeed have some honey on him--little packets he had quietly put in his pocket from that afternoon's tea which he had planned to spread on a bun the next morning. But now he was honor-bound to give them to the Doctor, which he proffered reluctantly and which Pooh took eagerly. And then he saluted and said, "We are looking for a stowaway bear--you heard the description. If you hear any report of a stowaway bear, or see a stowaway bear, you should report said stowaway bear immediately so we can heave him off the ship." His eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't be a stowaway bear, would you?"

Now Doctor Pooh did not have the foggiest notion what a "stowaway" bear was. I may, he thought, very well be a stowaway bear, since I don't know what one is, and therefore I cannot say absolutely that I am not. But, he thought, if I say that I am, or that I might be, or that I am not sure that I might or mightn't be, then this strange man might throw me over the side just to be sure which, he thought, would be cold and wet and might even soak through to the honey packets, he thought, and with that last thought he needed to think no further.

"Certainly not," he said.

The Captain and his crew left, leaving Jeannie Robin and Doctor Pooh (and Piglet, lest we forget) by themselves.

"Jeannie Robin," said the Doctor after a moment or three, "I smell honey."

"Why, it's just the honey you have that the Captain gave you, Silly Old Time Lord."

Pooh sniffed the packets but smelled only plastic. "No. It's honey. And it's coming from over there." He pointed with one paw to the lifeboat which hung from the side of the ship.

Pooh stumped over to the lifeboat, climbed up on a railing so that he was eye-level with the edge, and lifted up the edge of the canvas to peek inside. He was more than a little surprised to find a pair of eyes peering back at him.

The Doctor closed one eye slowly, and then the other slowly, and then both quickly, but no matter what happened, when he opened them, those other two eyes were still there.

"What is it, Doctor?" said Jeannie from next to him.

"It's a pair of eyes." The eyes blinked. "A pair of blinking eyes," he amended.

He pulled aside the canvas and was surprised to see a bear sitting comfortably in the lifeboat. He was a brown, odd-looking sort of bear, and he wore an unusual floppy hat. He blinked at the bright sun several times and then said "Hello there," and he raised his hat politely, revealing a pair of small black ears.

"Hallo," said Pooh. A thought suddenly came to him--a rare enough occurrence, certainly. "Are you... the Stowaway Bear?"

The Stowaway Bear nodded. "Yes. I'm emigrating."

"You are?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes."

"Right now? I mean, are you doing it this moment?"

"I suppose so," said the Bear. "It's not the kind of thing that one starts doing and then stops and then starts again. You emigrate until you stop emigrating," and he sat there as if this explained the entire matter, which it certainly did for him if not for the Doctor.

But then he added helpfully, "I'm emigrating to London. My Aunt Lucy told me to."

"Ah," said Doctor Pooh, and for good measure tossed in a thoughtful "I see. Your Aunt Lucy is not emigrating, then."

"No. She went to a home for retired bears back where I am emigrating from."

"And where would that be?" put in Jeannie Robin, who had no desire to appear less knowledgeable in matters of emigration than Doctor Pooh.

"Darkest Peru," said the Bear.

"Ooooh," said a squeaky little voice, for the name of Darkest Peru sounded like someplace that a certain squeaky-voiced creature would want no part of.

"But now," said the Bear sadly, "I don't think I shall be able to emigrate to London, because they will eventually find me and put me off the ship somewhere, and I certainly don't have enough money to buy passage on this oceanliner. And I've just finished off the last of my honey, too." And he smacked his lips. "I still have my marmalade sandwiches. Honey is very expensive in Darkest Peru--that's why I wasn't able to have much with me."

Now this struck Doctor Pooh as a very sad state of affairs indeed, and his sympathy went out to this strange Emigrate Stowaway Bear. "Do you think," he said to Jeannie Robin, "there is something we could do? Anything at all?"

Jeannie Robin thought for a moment and then said brightly, "I know! We'll give him a lift in our TARDIS. We can bring him there straightaway."

"What is a TARDIS?" asked the Bear.

"It's a time machine."

"Oh. Well, fortunately, I have plenty of time." And so saying he climbed out of the lifeboat, clutching his suitcase which had a sticker on the side that said WANTED ON VOYAGE.

"By the way," said Doctor Pooh, "I am Doctor Pooh, and this is Jeannie Robin, and that," and he pointed to Jeannie's pocket, "is Piglet."

The Bear thought this rather an odd name for a pocket, and indeed rather odd that anyone would name a pocket anything at all, but he decided not to say anything about it for fear of being impolite.

They went down a flight of metal steps and started down a corridor, at the end of which was n empty supply room. "That's where we landed this time," said the Doctor helpfully.

Suddenly there was a shout behind them, and they turned. The Captain had appeared almost from nowhere behind them, and was shouting something and waving his fists. The travelers didn't stop to see precisely what he was shouting and waving about, although they did have a fairly good notion, and they quickly ran into the storage room, closed the door behind them, and dashed into the safety of the TARDIS.

The Bear was quite surprised at the large interior of the TARDIS, and began to look around inquisitively, munching on a marmalade sandwich he had pulled from under his hat. "This is very nice," he said.

"Thank you," said the Doctor. "By-the-by... what is your name?"

"I don't really have one. Only a Peruvian one which you couldn't pronounce.

"Really?" said the Doctor. "You know, maybe I would be able to. After all, I live under a name no one can pronounce."

"Is that a fact? Well then... perhaps we could pronounce each other's names."

They told each other.

"I think," said the Bear, "that I'll just call you 'Doctor'."

"And I think," said the Doctor, "that I'll call you 'Stowaway', if that's all right."

"Certainly," said Stowaway.

There was a pounding on the door of the TARDIS. "Come out here," said the Captain's voice.

"That is the Captain's voice," said Stowaway.

"Which means," said Pooh, "that the Captain is very likely nearby."

"Don't worry," said Jeannie from the control console in the middle of the room. "Here we go."

The TARDIS gave a shudder and a shiver and a groan that made Piglet shake in Jeannie's pocket, and Stowaway looked around in puzzlement. "What's happening?"

"We're on our way," said Jeannie Robin cheerfully. She had had time to study the TARDIS and was quite pleased with herself that she was able to run it. Until she had figured it out, Pooh had had to roll himself into a ball and thump against the control console every time they wanted to start it, and the Doctor had been getting quite tired of it.

"Are you sure?" asked the Stowaway in surprise.

"Yes."

Stowaway walked over to the door and put his ear against it, still finding it difficult to believe. Actually, he was sure that very shortly the Captain would return with some more men, that they would pry the door open, and then throw all of them into the ocean.

"I think," he said cautiously, "I'll just take a look to make sure no one is around." And with that, he pushed open the door and peeked out.

He was astounded.

He was dumbfounded.

He was, to put it mildly, surprised.

There was Nothing out there. At least, there was no ship, or Captain, or storage room, abandoned or otherwise. There was just Nothing, and lots of it. It was Very Very Dark, and there were some stars here and there, and way way below them he thought he could make out--

"He has the door open!" came a squeal.

Piglet had hopped out of Jeannie's pocket and was now dancing excitedly across the floor. "He has the door open! He has the door open!"

"Close it right now!" said Jeannie.

Stowaway moved immediately to swing the door shut, and at the same time he tried to turn around to see who the person with the funny voice was, and in trying to do everything at once he succeeded in doing nothing that he set out to do. The door swung out of his grasp and he reached for it. He grabbed onto the knob, but the door opened out completely and swept him off his feet, causing him to drop his sandwich on the floor. And there he hung, clinging desperately onto the open door, with Nothing above him and a Very Long Drop below him.

"Eh, excuse me," he said politely. "I'm having a spot of trouble here." He extended his right foot tentatively towards the interior of the TARDIS, but it was too far away.

"Bother!" exclaimed the Doctor, and he dashed over to the very edge of the doorframe. "Hold on, Stowaway," he called and quickly unwinding his scarf and then wrapping it around the knob of the door that was still closed for extra support, he tossed the free end to Stowaway. The Bear grabbed onto it with both hands and swung free of the door, until he was dangling under the TARDIS and holding onto the scarf. He glanced down once more nervously at the Very Long Drop and then started to climb, hand over hand.

Within moments he was back in the TARDIS.

"Thank you, Doctor," he said graciously, raising his hat politely.

"It was no problem," said Pooh, putting his scarf back on. He then turned to close the door, slipped on the marmalade sandwich that Stowaway had dropped and, his arms flailing, plunged headlong into space.

He fell
  And he fell
   And he fell
    And he fell
     And he fell
      And he fell

And he fell until he felt as if he had been falling forever. There was no sign of the TARDIS, and everything was very very Quiet.

"Bother," said the Doctor, and then it was quiet again. And as he fell, he started to hum a special hum, just to have some noise to accompany him, since his fall was not accompanied by any whistling of air.

  Fall
  Fall
  Here as I fall
  Falling is all
  I seem to recall
  If falling is all
  I seem to recall
  Then here is a fall
  That's taller than tall
  If I were a ball
  I'd bounce when I fall
  No, not when I fall
  When I land is all
  When I land that's all
  To the fall
  But will I land
  At all?

And then he began to see things. Other things. Strange Other things.

Off to his left, he saw passing him as he fell a very very small planet, and on that very very small planet stood a very very small boy, with blond hair. And next to the boy stood a flower. The boy waved to him and called to the Doctor in a language that the Doctor did not understand, no matter how much he thought on it. It sounded as if the boy had said "Bawn jewer" which the Doctor could only take to mean, "Now how did it come that a Time Lord of Very Little Brain came to be falling past my very very small planet?" but before the Doctor could give an explanation, or at least what he thought might constitute an explanation, he had fallen past, and the boy, the planet and the flower dwindled from sight.

Then the Doctor looked off to his right and to his surprise saw some other falling people. But no--they were not falling at all--even from a distance Pooh could see that they were flying. There was a boy dressed in green in the lead, and for a moment Pooh wondered if it were the same boy as on the planet, but then he decided not. And behind the boy flew a little girl, and two other boys, one of whom clutched a small stuffed bear, and Pooh was certain that whatever those children were up to, it was certainly not the bear's idea. And with them went a spot of light, like a small star, but it followed them. The group paused at the second star on the right, and then went straight on until they were out of sight.

Only then did Pooh think to call out "Excuse me! Help!" but by then they were gone.

He passed other things now as he fell, more and more. Here was a woman who also flew, holding onto the odd handle of an umbrella, and there was a little blonde girl who was falling, much like Pooh, only faster, and she waved to him and said something about a white rabbit, and way over there was a little boy riding happily on the tail of a soaring dragon, offering him some string. And there was a tremendous tornado, with a house perched atop it, and for a moment Pooh was concerned that he would be pulled into it, but none of the things he passed came near him, as if each existed in its own world and a simple bear could not cross the unseen barriers by himself.

And then he passed someplace which he felt that he should know, a place that made him feel very sad when he saw it for some reason that he could not understand. It was an Enchanted Place where a little boy and his bear would always be playing. It looked very nice, and Pooh reached for it, straining as much as he could, determined not to let this Place pass him by as well. He didn't take his eyes from it...

"Doctor!"

He turned. The TARDIS was there, and Jeannie Robin was leaning out, extending her hand. "Here, Doctor! We've caught up with him, Piglet. Oh, here, Doctor! Reach for my hand!"

The Doctor looked back, but the Enchanted Place had disappeared like a child's wish. The Doctor gave a little sigh, reached out his hand, flapping his other paw about to get over to the TARDIS, and within moments Jeannie Robin had pulled him safely inside.

"We've arrived," said Jeannie to the Stowaway, who was feeling rather glum after having caused so much trouble.

He lifted his eyes. "Where?"

"Where you wanted to be, I should think."

"London?" he asked hopefully.

"See for yourself."

He went over to the door but paused. "Is it safe?"

"Certainly."

He pushed it open and peeked out. There were suitcases and things strewn about--it was some sort of baggage room. He checked some of the tags on the suitcases and they all said that they were to arrive at Paddington Station, so he quite rightly assumed that that was where he was.

"Paddington Railway Station," said the Bear. "That is London, all right. Thank you so very much. What is that?" he asked as Jeannie finished carefully writing some words on a tag.

"I thought this might be of some help, so I wrote it up for you," she said carelessly. In point of fact, she had asked the TARDIS computer how to write a certain phrase and it had shown her, and she had simply copied the letters.

She made a hole in the tag, tied some string through it to make a loop, and hung it around Stowaway's neck. He looked down at it proudly and read the message--"PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR. THANK YOU."

"Thank you," he said. "You've been much too kind. And Doctor--"

But Doctor Pooh sat quietly in a corner of the TARDIS and said not a word. Stowaway gave him a Hard Stare, but the Doctor still said nothing and so with a little shrug Stowaway took his suitcase and started for the door. At the door he turned and said, "By the by--would you be too upset if I didn't mention this little adventure to anyone? I mean--people might consider me a bit eccentric, and all I really want to do is fit in."

"No problem at all," said Jeannie Robin.

And with a little tip of his hat, Stowaway was gone.

Jeannie set the controls to take them back to Gallifluff--the one order the TARDIS never seemed interested in fulfilling--and then activated the machine, wondering where it would bring them next. And then she plopped down next to the Doctor. She looked at him in surprise.

"Why Doctor, you look so sad. And... is your right eye a little damp?"

Pooh touched his eye with his paw and felt a little wetness on its tip. "Oh bother," he said softly. "I was just thinking about a place I saw. It looked very nice."

"Maybe we could go back there," she said helpfully.

"No," said the Doctor. "I don't think so. But I think... that I would like to think about the place for a while. Just think about it. It seemed a very happy place, and anyone who can go there is... very lucky."

And so he sat and thought about it a while, until he had forgotten what it was he wanted to think about, and then they went on to a new adventure.

Posted by Peter David at May 15, 2002 12:27 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: Elayne Riggs at May 24, 2002 09:27 AM

Ah, Pooh meets Paddington, lovely. Hope to see Rupert somewhere in there so we have a trifecta. :) Enjoying this muchly.