Pooh's Intervention

One morning, Piglet woke up feeling very, very tired. Piglet had always had trouble sleeping through the night, for he could be frightened awake by the smallest of sounds. Normally, after one of these awakenings, the trick he would use to fall back asleep was to think of his dearest friend Winnie the Pooh and imagine him saying something like, ‘It’s ok, Piglet.’ Then, he would say something like, ‘It’s just the wind,’ or ‘It’s just my tummy rumbling,’ and Piglet would drift off.

But it had been months since this strategy had worked, and that was because the thing that scared Piglet was Pooh himself. Lately, Pooh hadn’t been the silly old bear he once was. Over the past year, his love of honey had become an obsession, and then, when no one was watching too closely, it became an addiction. And it had made Pooh a different sort of Pooh, a distant and cold sort of Pooh, and, at times, a scary sort of Pooh who had angry outbursts.

Like, this one time, when Christopher Robin told him that he’d had enough honey and cut him off, Pooh said, “Why don’t I give you a small smackerel of something?” And then he struck him, right across the face. And even though he is stuffed and didn’t cause the boy any physical harm, the emotional pain was abundantly clear in his eyes. In fact, Christopher Robin had had to go to see a sort of doctor called a Canceller to deal with the trauma of it.

Still, Piglet tried to think of the old Pooh, his calming voice, his warm smile, hoping it wasn’t too late to catch another hour or two of sleep. But just as Piglet’s eyes were getting heavy, someone started banging on his front door.

‘Oh, God, that’s probably Pooh,’ Piglet groaned as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. As he got out of bed and walked to his door to answer it, he wondered which version of Pooh would be on the other side today. Would it be the quiet, distant Pooh or the angry, violent Pooh?

But when he opened the door, it wasn’t Pooh standing there at all. It was Rabbit, tapping his foot impatiently.

“Oh, hello, Rabbit. Would you like to come in for some tea and haycorns?” asked Piglet, hiding his tiredness with cheer. Lately, Piglet had been making a point of being extra-cheerful with all his other friends and always offering them haycorns. He couldn’t risk losing any more friends, for being such a small animal, he couldn’t fend for himself when life got scary, which it was at the moment, with everything going on with Pooh.

“I haven’t time for tea and haycorns,” said Rabbit. “I have something serious to discuss with you.”

“What is it, Rabbit?” asked Piglet, thinking it must be very serious indeed if haycorns were being refused.

“It’s Pooh,” said Rabbit, heaving out a sigh. “It’s always Pooh.”

“What’s happened?” asked Piglet, dropping the false cheer.

“I just happened to see him when I was out for my morning walk, and do you know what he was doing?”

“Eating honey?” guessed Piglet.

“No. He was rolling around in the mud, covering himself with it. And when I asked him what on earth he was doing that for, he said it would make him look like a raincloud, so he could get his hands on some honey without making the bees suspicious.”

Piglet shook his head solemnly. “Oh, dear.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Rabbit. “He’s sick. Like, that’s not normal behaviour.” For a time, Rabit said nothing. Then, he said, “I thought he would have learned his lesson after getting stuck in my front door last week. I thought his being forced to detox for three days would have fixed him, but apparently, it’s only made his addiction worse. He needs help.”

“If you think he can be helped, I’ll help however I can,” said Piglet. “But what can we do?”

“We’ll arrange an intervention,” said Rabbit, pounding his fist into his palm. “We’ll hold it this evening at my house.”

“What’s an intervention?” asked Piglet.

Rabbit explained that an intervention is like a surprise party you throw for a friend who is suffering from an addiction. But instead of giving him presents and cake, you make him sit there while you read him speeches you’ve written about how he’s destroying the lives of everyone he cares about.

“The main thing to it,” explained Rabbit, “is that our speeches must make Pooh see how terrible he has been to all of us. If we can do that, then he will become a humble, sorry Pooh, and he’ll never want another dollop of honey.”

Piglet didn’t quite understand how making Pooh feel terrible would make him give up honey, but of the two of them, Rabbit was the one with brains, so he didn’t question him. Also, if he questioned too many of Rabbit’s ideas, he might lose another friend.

Piglet would do anything for Pooh, and if Rabbit thought an intervention was the best way to save him, then Piglet was all for the idea. “I think that sounds like a very grand plan,” he said. “But I’m afraid I’ve never written a speech before. Or tried to make anyone feel terrible? Will you teach me how?”

“I don’t have time for that!” replied Rabbit brusquely. “I have to go tell the others. Why don’t you go ask Owl?”

This was another good idea. Owl was the best speller in the Hundred Acre Wood. He knew how to spell all kinds of long words, like ‘Tuesday.’

So, not long after Rabbit had gone, Piglet walked to Owl’s house. By the time he arrived, not only was Owl aware of the intervention, but being such a skilled writer, he had already penned his speech. He said he would be more than happy to take Piglet under his wing, as it were, and share his deep knowledge of the craft of speechwriting.

Piglet sat at Owl’s writing desk, took up his pencil, and got to work on his speech. Pooh, Piglet wrote, feeling that his speech was off to a fine start. You are my deerest frend, and I luv you, but lately, sum of yor ackshuns have been scarey.

Owl, who was watching over Piglet’s shoulder, cleared his throat disapprovingly.

Piglet stopped writing and looked up at Owl. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Yes,” said Owl, very officially. “You’ve violated one of the fundamental principles of speechwriting.”

Piglet scanned his page for the error but couldn’t see what the problem was. “I have?”

“Indeed,” confirmed Owl. “A speech should always begin with a bold statement, an interesting question, or a shocking statistic that grabs the listener’s attention.”

“Oh,” said Piglet, erasing his words. He worried that he might lose another friend. He couldn’t see how such an intellectual creature as Owl would want to be friends with someone who couldn’t even get the first sentence of a speech right. Still, he was determined to show Owl that he wanted to be a good student. “What should I say?”

“In the case of a bear who has become addicted to honey, I believe a statistic would be optimal.”

“So do I,” said Piglet, even though he didn’t really know. “In that, it seems we’re on the same page.” To emphasize his pun, he held up his piece of paper and waved it. But Owl did not laugh, which made Piglet feel a little awkward. So, he got back to business, asking, “Which statistic should we use?”

Owl thought for a minute, then said, “How about this: Recent data suggest that the average bear eats seventy-seven kilograms of honey per year; Pooh, you ate that amount alone this past Tuesday.”

Piglet wrote this statistic down quickly, but he stopped when he got to the last word. “I don’t mean to doubt your memory, Owl,” he said timidly. “But I’m certain Pooh ate all that honey on Wednesday.”

“He did,” replied Owl, “but I don’t know how to spell Wednesday.”

“Oh,” said Piglet, who wrote down ‘Tuesday,’ and continued with his speech, guided by the wise Owl.

By lunch time, they had come up with a promising first draft. But as Piglet read it over during their meal, he felt it was missing something, and by the time he swallowed the last mouthful of his butternut squash soup, he saw what that something was.

“Owl,” he said. “I just noticed that my speech doesn’t mention that I love Pooh and care about him dearly. Do you think we should add that to the speech when we revise it?”

Owl frowned. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Piglet. Emotions are meant to be shared in private, intimate conversations. They should not be used in written speeches. They weaken the logic of the argument.”

“Oh,” said Piglet. He thought to question Owl, because something inside him was telling him it was very important that Pooh knew how his friends feel about him. But he decided that questioning his mentor could upset him and perhaps cause him to end their friendship, which Piglet couldn’t afford.

So, Piglet didn’t make any more suggestions as they spent the rest of the afternoon refining his speech. And as the day went on, Piglet was confident that his decision had been a good one, for as the hours passed, he found himself more and more impressed by his words. He could hardly wait to see the others’ faces when they heard such a small animal use such grand expressions as ‘heartrending disturbances.’

With Owl’s help, Piglet continued to write and re-write and revise and cut and tighten his composition. In the end, he was very satisfied with what he had produced, feeling it was just the kind of speech that would convince Pooh to stop eating honey. And when he read the final draft aloud, Owl earnestly said that he did not feel inspired to eat any honey whatsoever.

This was a very good sign, and it made Piglet feel hopeful as he and Owl set off for Rabbit’s house. If the other animals of the Hundred Acre Wood had put as much time and effort into their speeches as Piglet had, he was sure they would save Pooh.

When they got to Rabbit’s, seven chairs were arranged in a circle in the sitting room. Tigger, Kanga, Roo, Eeyore, and Rabbit had already taken their places in the circle. Piglet and Owl joined them, so that the only empty chair left was the one waiting in the centre of the circle for Pooh.

As everyone waited, Rabbit assured them that Pooh would show, for he had given him a false promise of all the honey he could eat. As the others talked amongst themselves, Piglet read over his speech. As he did this, he was happy he had brought his pencil with him, for he overheard Owl say the word ‘reprehensible’ to Tigger, and thought the word had a very convincing sound to it. He found a place to put it in his speech, erasing the word ‘sticky’ and replacing it with the new, better word.

There was a single, hollow thud on the door, which Rabbit went to answer. As Pooh stumbled into Rabbit’s sitting room with his honey-crusted snout, he asked what everyone was doing there. When he was told this was an intervention, he began to smack his lips with anticipation and asked if an intervention was a buffet of some sort. And when it was explained to him that, no, it was not a buffet but rather they were confronting him about his honey addiction and the damage it was causing, he lowered his head and said, “Oh, bother.” Then he went very quiet as he dumped himself into his chair, where he breathed heavily.

Now that Pooh was present, Rabbit said it was time for the speeches and that he would go first. “Pooh, I think I speak for everyone when I say your honey-eating has gotten completely out of control,” said Rabbit, rather harshly, thought Piglet. “I don’t think you realize how your actions are affecting others. Like, do you remember when you uprooted my entire rutabaga patch, and when I asked you why you’d done it, you said you thought maybe I’d planted some honeycomb and maybe it had grown into a beehive?”

As Rabbit went on, his voice grew louder and angrier. “Those rutabagas weren’t just for me, Pooh! My friends and relations were counting on me to supply the rutabagas this year! You’ve ruined my reputation!”

Rabbit then shamed Pooh for some time, telling him how fat and stupid he was. And the longer it went, the more concerned Piglet became. In his own way, Rabbit was sticking to the facts and figures, just as one was supposed to do while giving a speech, but his words didn’t seem to reach Pooh. As Rabbit spoke, Pooh’s eyes remained half-closed, and he barely moved, to the point that Piglet couldn’t tell if Rabbit’s words were even registering. It was like that time they had planned to get Tigger lost in the woods, but Pooh hadn’t heard a thing because he had had that small piece of fluff in his ear.

But this time, Piglet didn’t think a piece of fluff in the ear was the problem. He suspected it was that Rabbit’s frustration was muddling the facts, as Owl had said emotions do. So, when Rabbit finished at last, Piglet was interested to see how Pooh would respond to Eeyore, who never spoke with any emotion whatsoever.

Though Eeyore spoke as slowly as ever and, like Rabbit, stuck to cold, hard facts, Pooh didn’t seem to hear Eeyore’s speech, either. Halfway through it, he started humming, but this wasn’t like his usual humming. He used to hum such happy, upbeat hums, but this tune was slow and unmusical.

Piglet suspected that Pooh wasn’t listening because Eeyore kept relating Pooh’s addiction to his own perils, saying things like, “I understand how you feel, how you can get so desperate to feel something that you’d do almost anything. I go through that all the time.” And then he’d talk about himself for a while. As he went on, he gradually phased the Pooh element out of his speech altogether, which Piglet felt was the most important part, and it became more of a long, drawn-out guilt trip than anything.

Pooh hadn’t stopped humming when Eeyore was finished, and he didn’t stop humming while the others took their turn. Owl’s speech was the most professional and factual yet, but it was crammed with so many difficult words and clinical terms that Piglet couldn’t understand half of what he said, and he suspected Pooh understood even less. Meanwhile, Tigger and Kanga seemed less interested in helping Pooh than in getting their speeches over with as quickly as possible so they could get back to their little game of grab-ass. And Rabbit, even though he’d already had his go, kept cutting into the others’ speeches, as he kept remembering various ways in which Pooh had inconvenienced him.

All the while, a nearly lifeless Pooh remained slumped in his chair. He spoke once, but this was only to ask if this intervention would have an intermission so that he might have a small smackerel of something. And when he was told no, his stare became even more distant, and his humming became even more melancholy, which made Piglet even more worried that the Pooh he once knew was slipping away from him before his eyes.

Roo, whose turn it was to speak next, cleared his throat importantly and then gave a speech containing nothing but generic criticisms that could apply to anyone. Things like, “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed,” and “Your behaviour is unacceptable, mister.”

Piglet was quite irritated with Roo, who hadn’t seemed to put much care into his speech at all. Piglet suspected he was merely repeating things his mother had said to him when he misbehaved. He wasn’t taking this intervention seriously at all.

As Roo expelled more platitudes, Pooh’s humming became sadder and sadder, his eyes growing dimmer and dimmer. Meanwhile, Piglet’s irritation flared up and became a rather fierce frustration, which peaked when Roo said, “Eat your vegetables, or you’re not getting any dessert!” It wasn’t the comment that bothered Piglet so much as the fact that the others nodded along. They were actually nodding! Like they actually thought Roo was making good points!

Piglet wanted to say something. He wanted to call Roo out for not taking this seriously. He wanted to chastise Owl for using this intervention as a platform to show off his vocabulary. He wanted to tell Rabbit off for interrupting everyone.

But, on second thought, he supposed this wouldn’t be a very good idea. He couldn’t afford to upset his friends by telling them how he really felt about them right now. What if they saw him as a troublemaker? What if they cast him away? He couldn’t face the world alone.

Piglet’s train of thought was broken when Rabbit, who had interrupted Roo’s speech, stomped his feet. “You were stuck in my front door for days!” he was shouting. “For days, Pooh! To the point where I had to paint a face on your ass! Do you hear that sentence, Pooh? I had to paint a face on your ass! That’s not a sentence anyone should ever say! You’re out of control!”

But Pooh only stared blankly at Rabbit, who sat back down, grumbling something to himself about carrots or... onions, or something. Honestly, Piglet didn’t care what Rabbit had to say at this point. All he wanted was for someone to act like Pooh was the most important thing here. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that.

But Piglet hadn’t forgotten, and now he was the only one who hadn’t given his speech. He still believed his carefully crafted words would free Pooh from the sticky clutches of his addiction.

He stood on his chair with confidence and began with his opening line about the seventy-seven kilograms of honey. “And that,” he said next, “is but one of a plethora of your thoughtless actions that have caused inconceivable anguish and distress. I, for one, am growing increasingly concerned that, should your behaviour persist. . .”

Piglet trailed off, seeing that his speech wasn’t reaching Pooh, whose humming was lower and slower than ever, his eyes as black and lifeless as two lumps of coal. Piglet examined the paper in his hands. The words looked great on the page, but somehow, they didn’t sound quite right when they came out of his mouth. He couldn’t understand it. These were the best words he could think of. He had spent hours on them. But they still weren’t enough. He had lost Pooh.

An upswell of fear, frustration, and grief expanded inside him like a balloon that threatened to pop at any moment.

Just then, seeing an opportunity, Rabbit cut in once again. “And another thing, Pooh! Last year, for my birthday, you gave me a pot of honey and then ate it yourself when I told you rabbits don’t eat honey. A fact I suspect you knew all along! I just remembered that!”

That’s when the balloon inside Piglet burst. “That’s enough, Rabbit!” he heard himself holler, before he knew what he was doing. “I’m getting real sick of your shit!”

There was a collective gasp, followed by a moment’s silence. Piglet had never raised his voice like that before, and when such a small, timid creature raises his voice, it has a way of shocking one’s bones, even if one has no bones, which these stuffed animals didn’t.

Even Pooh stopped humming and turned his gaze in Piglet’s direction. Though his eyes still had that distant look to them, they reminded Piglet of all the time they had spent together going on adventures in which they would do nothing in particular. Not once during those adventures had Piglet said any words like ‘inconceivable’ or ‘plethora.’ Those weren’t Pooh-and-Piglet words. But that little outburst that had turned Pooh’s head? While it may have been unexpected, those words were pure Piglet.

He now saw why his speech wasn’t reaching Pooh. It was because the words he held in his hands weren’t really his. In trying to perfect them, he had edited the Piglet right out of them. He felt that the kinds of words he had written are fine when you’re trying to decide where to have a picnic or for other official business like that. But when something really matters, like when you’re scared you’re going to lose your best friend, the best words are the kind he had shouted at Rabbit. The best words are the kind that come out of you before you have time to think of them.

Of course, these are also the kind of words that could alienate Piglet from his friends, and there was no guarantee that such words would save Pooh. But if there was even the smallest chance, Piglet would take it. He would say what was in his heart, without thinking.

But before he had time to not think of what to say, Rabbit broke the silence by saying, “Piglet! We don’t use words like that in the Hundred Acre Wood!”

“Put a dick in it, Rabbit!” came Piglet’s sharp reply. “You can be a bigger pain in the crotch than Pooh sometimes, you know that? Take the carrot out of your ass once in a while, and chill the fuck out!”

He then turned his attention to Owl, who just so happened to be perched on the chair next to Rabbit’s. “And you’re not as smart as you think you are! For one thing, W-O-L doesn’t spell Owl. It spells wol! We just didn’t have the heart to tell you. But, yeah, you’re not a genius. You can’t even spell your own name! And since you like vocabulary so much, here are some words for you: Arrogant. Pretentious. Pedantic. Insufferable. As far as I’m concerned, you can take all your long words and shove them straight up your ass!”

After that, no one said anything for a time while Piglet vibrated angrily and hyperventilated, until at last Kanga said, “Oh, dear.”

“Oh, you wanna go next? All right,” said Piglet with some attitude. “Kanga, Tigger, just drop the act! Every creature in the Hundred Acre Wood knows you guys are fucking. And you guys acting like it’s still a secret is making everyone uncomfortable. Like, at Eeyore’s birthday party, everyone knew what you were doing, Kanga, when you conveniently dropped your napkin under the table and then spent five minutes looking for it. You weren’t fooling anybody. We just didn't say anything because it was so awkward that we didn’t know what to say, so we all just took turns coughing and clearing our throats anxiously. But it was super uncomfortable, and it ruined Eeyore’s birthday—and you didn’t even seem to care! What you did was selfish and disgusting. Shame on you!”

“Mama, I don’t like this game anymore!” whined Roo.

“And you!” Piglet shouted at Roo so loudly that it made the young lad cry, which made Piglet feel pretty big. Nothing more needed to be said to the little runt. Piglet had made his point.

There was a brief silence before Eeyore said, “You’ve forgotten to shout at me, Piglet. Not that I mind. I’m used to being ignored.”

“Would you stop it with that!?” Piglet snapped at Eeyore. “It’s not your fault that you're depressed, but the way you’re always trying to guilt-trip us is bullshit, and it needs to stop. Either get some help, or cheer the fuck up!”

Then, to everyone, Piglet yelled, “You’re all being selfish! You’ve all made this intervention about yourselves, when it's supposed to be about our dear friend, Pooh! This whole thing is bullshit!”

Piglet tore up his speech into small pieces and threw them up into the air. The bits of paper drifted down around him like confetti, and because he had worked up such a sweat from all his yelling, some of them stuck to his face, giving him a demented sort of look, helped along by the wild gleam in his eyes.

“Pooh Bear is sick!” he bellowed, flailing his arms. “We're going to lose him if we don't help him! Am I the only one who sees that!? Am I the only one who gives a shit!?”

No one said anything in response. They only glanced down at their feet or shifted uneasily in their chairs. Even Rabbit was looking sheepish. His expression reminded Piglet of that time when Rabbit had made Tigger stop bouncing, but then everyone told him what a douchebag he was being, so he had to take it back.

As the moments passed, Piglet calmed down somewhat. But he still had more feelings inside him, demanding to be released. More words that needed to come out without being thought of first. There was still one animal he needed to confront.

He leapt off his chair, walked over to Pooh, and looked him in the eye. There was a touch more of his best friend in those eyes than there had been a few minutes ago.

“You matter to me, Pooh,” said Piglet solemnly. “You’re the calm voice of reason when life gets to be too much. Like, when I get frightened by a noise in the middle of the night, I imagine you’re there with me, and you say something like, ‘Don’t be afraid, Piglet. That’s just a rumbly in my tumbly.’ And then I’m not so scared, and I can get back to sleep.”

Pooh didn’t say anything, but he did shift slightly in his chair and tilt his head to the side, as if wanting to hear more.

“But lately, that hasn’t been working,” said Piglet. “And the reason it hasn’t been working is because. . . well. . . the thing is, Pooh. . . you’re the thing that scares me. I’m scared I’m going to lose you. I’m scared I’ve already lost you.”

Something about saying his greatest fear out loud was like turning up the heat when you’re making soup, and it caused his anger to bubble back up. “It’s not fair for you to scare your friends like this!” said Piglet, not quite shouting, but almost. “It’s not fair for you to choose honey over your friends who love you and need you! What you’re doing is hurting us, Pooh.”

Piglet wasn’t sure when he had begun crying, but that’s indeed what he was doing. “I know you’re a better bear than this. I know my best friend is still in there somewhere, but if the honey-eating doesn’t stop. . . I don’t think I can be your friend anymore. As much as it hurts to say that, it hurts even more to see what you’re turning into.” Then, Piglet hugged Pooh’s leg, cried into his fur, and through his tears, he managed to say, “I miss my Pooh Bear.”

For a while, Pooh didn’t move or speak, which made Piglet worry he had gone back into that not-all-there state. But just as he expected that Pooh would start humming again, he felt Pooh’s paw land gently on his head and stroke it. “Piglet. . .” said Pooh. “I had no idea I was making you so very afraid.”

Piglet let go of Pooh’s leg, wiped his tears, and looked up at the bear.

“That was a very brave thing you did, Piglet,” said Pooh, sounding more like the old Pooh than he had sounded in a long time. “It takes a very big animal to put his feelings out there like that. And it takes an extra-very big animal to stand up to his friends, including his best friend, the way you did.”

“It does?” asked Piglet, sniveling.

“Yes, it does,” said Pooh. “And if you can be big enough to do what you just did, then I suppose I can be big enough to get help.”

Piglet lit up. “You really mean it, Pooh?”

“Yes, I promise,” said Pooh. “I will go to see a Canceller, and they will help me cancel my addiction.”

“But Pooh,” said Piglet, “that would mean you could never eat honey again.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” replied Pooh. “I would much rather give up honey than lose you as a friend.

“Are you sure, Pooh?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I think I’ve had enough honey for one lifetime,” answered Pooh. “And besides, your friendship is much sweeter.”

Piglet’s eyes filled with tears once more, but these weren’t sad, desperate tears. These were happy, hopeful tears. These were maybe-I’ll-get-my-Pooh-Bear-back tears.

Pooh patted Piglet on the head, rose to his feet, and looked at his friends. “I’m very sorry for hurting you all. I don’t suppose I’ve been a very easy bear to be around.”

In return, everyone said things like, “That’s all right, Pooh,” and “We’re just glad you’re going to get help, Pooh,” and “We’re here for you, Pooh.” Even Rabbit admitted that he could always plant more rutabagas, but he couldn’t plant another Pooh.

And, to Piglet’s surprise, no one seemed to be upset with him for the nasty things he had said. In fact, if anything, they shared Pooh’s opinion that Piglet had been brave. They also said it felt strangely relieving to have everyone’s issues out in the open. “Maybe everyone needs a little cancelling, now and then,” Eeyore had commented at the end of things, and everyone agreed it was the smartest thing he had ever said.

When everyone left Rabbit’s house, Pooh insisted on walking Piglet home. As they walked, Piglet thought about the long road to recovery ahead of Pooh. He had only taken the first step, and he was going to have withdrawal symptoms, which Owl had tried to explain to Piglet earlier that day, but which Piglet hadn’t fully understood. But he understood enough to know it wouldn’t be pleasant. Pooh was about to go through hell. But he wouldn’t be alone, for Piglet would take every step through that hell with him, because it’s a little easier to face things when you know you always have someone in your corner, no matter what.

After they had reached Piglet’s house and said goodnight, Pooh lifted Piglet up and hugged him. It was the warm, fuzzy kind of hug that only your very, very best friend in the whole world can give you. And that warm, fuzzy feeling remained with Piglet, even after Pooh had left. It followed him inside, and it remained with him as he climbed into his bed, where he got the best sleep he’d had in ages.