Badger tries to plan an outing

It was a quiet Saturday morning and only the slightest breeze whispered through the new green leaves of the willows along the river bank.  They had finished breakfast and Badger was reading the paper, Ratty was occupied on his netbook and Mole was ruminating.

‘Have you read this about the sports day?’ Badger asked them.

‘No, what?’   They both looked up.

 ‘You can buy tickets now, on the website’ said Badger. ‘I’d like to go.  Let’s all go!’

‘Give me the address,’ said Ratty.  Badger called it out and Ratty tap tapped on his netbook and the site came up.

Parp!  Parp!  A car hooter sounded outside the front door of Badger’s tree trunk, and there was the low rumble of an idling motor.  Badger opened the door.  Mr. Toad waved at him from the driver’s seat.

‘I say Badger I thought I’d call round to see if you’d like to go for a spin.’

‘Perhaps later, Toad.  We’re busy buying tickets for The River Bank Sports Day.  Would you like to join us?’  Toad went inside and they all gathered around Ratty’s netbook.  Toad was enthusiastic. 

‘Gosh, what a huge number of sporting events!  What do we want to see?’

‘We can’t do that yet’, said Ratty, taking charge, ‘we have to create an account first.’  He was twitchy and impatient.  ‘There’s a link here’.  He clicked on it and his brown whiskers dropped in dismay.  ‘Oh!  Look at all these questions. Who’s going hold the account?’  They decided Badger should do it, and by coffee time they had created it.  After refreshments, Badger asked,

‘What events would we like to see?  There’s a whole list of them here at different locations.’  They all went quiet while Ratty explained the instructions to them.

‘We have to choose what we’d like to see and they let us know if we can see them or not...’  Ratty was scrolling through pages and pages of instructions, ‘...and we have to pay’ he scrolled a bit more,’...and we can only pay with a River Bank Card and we have to give our card details now.’

‘Oh no!  Has any of us got a River Bank card?’ asked Mole.

‘Not me,’ said Badger, ‘Never run up credit.’

‘Nor me’, added Ratty, ‘all my assets are in my hedge funds.’

  A sense of disappointment filled the room but Toad was searching his wallet.

‘I’ve got one!’ he announced triumphantly, flashing the necessary plastic.

'Phew’ said Mole, ‘that was close.  I thought none of us would be able to go.’

            ‘Let’s get on and choose our events,’ suggested Badger.  There followed a lively discussion for half an hour until they came to some agreement about what to book.

‘What do we do now, Ratty?’ asked Mole.

‘Well,’ said Ratty squinting at the screen, whiskers quivering, ‘It says here...’ he paused as he read it all,’ it says here we have to register our choices and they’ll tell us what we can see and then they make the charge on the card, but if we don’t get the tickets then they don’t charge us but if we do get the tickets and our card expires before the designated date, then we can’t...’

‘Enough!’ shouted Mole who was not normally short-tempered, ‘it’s too complicated.  Besides, it’s lunchtime and I’m hungry.’

‘Let’s stop for lunch,’ suggested Badger, ‘and after we’ve registered our choices we should work out our travel arrangements.’

‘But if we don’t know what events we’re going to see, we don’t know which locations we’ll have to travel to,’ protested Mole with perfect logic.

‘We could go in my car; that would be jolly’ offered the Toad, not because he was kind but he saw an opportunity to show off his motor.

‘I fear that would be worse,’ said Ratty, ‘if we all end up with tickets for different stadia and you have to drop us all off at different places...’ he was studying the screen again, ‘and if you have to stop halfway on a Park and Ride scheme and then we all have to...’

‘Stop!’ shouted Mole and the friends stared at their normally placid friend in astonishment. ‘It’s all too complicated.  Can’t we just go on a picnic instead?’ and he disappeared off to the kitchen to find some food.

Pooh and Piglet go shopping on line

 ‘Move over Piglet.  You’re taking up the whole bed.’

‘No I’m not.  It’s you, you’re too fat.  I don’t take up any room at all.’

‘You do.  You’re a waste of space.’

Piglet wriggled up on top of the pillow, occupying less than a quarter of it.  He clutched one of the bars on the metal bed head so he wouldn’t roll off.  It was uncomfortable to say the least.

‘Is that better?’

‘S’pose so’ grumbled Pooh, ‘but my tummy’s rumbling.  We need some food.  We need some cash.  Where is Christopher Robin anyway?’

‘I don’t think he’s back from his ski-ing holiday yet.’

‘Well he jolly well should be.  He’s in charge of our welfare and somebody needs to do some shopping round here.’

‘We’d better get up then, if we want some breakfast.’

They got off Christopher Robin’s bed, dropped onto the floor and went down to the kitchen.  Pooh was tall enough to open the door of the fridge.  He stuck his head in it.

‘It’s still empty, Piglet,’ he complained, but Piglet wasn’t there.  Piglet had scrambled up one of the chairs onto the wooden kitchen table.

‘Hey look at this, Pooh’, he called excitedly.  On the table was an open netbook computer and it was switched on.  The screen glowed blue and a colourful soft-edged symbol shimmered gently in the centre of it, inviting them in.

‘Have you ever done on-line shopping, Pooh?’

‘Yes.  I always sit with Christopher Robin and he sits on Mr. C.R. Senior’s lap, when he’s doing it.  Christopher Robin helps him choose things.’

‘Let’s order some food,’ Piglet was standing knee-high to the screen jiggling his little arms excitedly.  Pooh sat down and started prodding the keyboard.

Nothing happened.

‘My paws are too fat, Piglet.  You’ll have to do it.’

‘What do I do?’

‘I’ll call out the letters and you hit the keys.’  They set to work.  Piglet tapped away with the tips of his trotters.  A few seconds later they were on the grocery page of Mr. C.R. Senior’s shopping account.  They selected their delivery slot and then arrived at the colourful and tempting virtual grocery store.  Piglet waved a trotter over the key pad.

‘What shall we order, Pooh?’

‘Everything’

‘No we can’t.  We’ll be here all night.’

‘Okay.  Start with honey...that one.  Get two of those and we’d better have a few spares as well.  We need bread to put it on and...some of those honey biscuits...honey waffles and the honey ice-cream...and-’ Piglet interrupted,

‘I’d like some apples.’  He went tap, tap, tap on the keys, bristling with concentration.  Eventually he said, ‘we’ve got quite a long list now, Pooh.’

‘Alright, finish the order.  Click on that green arrow.’ 

Piglet clicked and the screen changed.

‘Finish and pay!’ he read excitedly.  ‘Oh, pay!  We can’t pay.  How do we pay?’ He was immediately crestfallen. 

‘Don’t worry, I know the numbers.’

‘What numbers?’

‘The ones they use to pay with - from the little plastic card.  I’ll call them out.  Listen carefully and tap them in.’ When they’d done it, Pooh said,

‘Click on ‘confirm order’.’

‘Oooooooh!’ the little pig exclaimed.  He was SO hungry.  They held their breath while the machine did its thing.  An official and important-looking message came up on the screen.  It said,

‘This is a message from your bank.

Your payment is refused.

You’ve maxed out your credit card, moron.  You do not have permission to borrow any more money. The only thing that interests us about you is the interest on your debt.  Ha! Ha!

 In fact, while we’ve got your attention, could we ask you to flog off a couple of family heirlooms and send us a few bob too?  We’ve got bonuses to pay.

Excuse us now, but our dinner’s ready.’

Pooh slammed down the lid of the machine in disgust.

‘What does it mean, Pooh?’  Piglet was stricken. 

‘It means Christopher Robin and his ilk have been hiding the true facts from us, Piglet, my diminutive, pathetic side-kick.  We're broker than we thought and if we are ever going to eat again, we'll jolly well have to DO something.’

In Desperate Measures

Pooh and Piglet were sitting on a green painted curlicue bench in Christopher Robin’s garden, dangling their little plush legs which were too short to reach the ground. They were chewing on stale crusts, which in happier times they would have taken to the duck pond. Pooh thrust his paw into the tired brown paper bag which Piglet was holding, and pulled it out again.

‘Hey!  You’ve eaten the last one, you greedy pig.’

‘The word ‘greedy’ I resent’ said Piglet drawing up his shoulders with hurt pride and crumpling up the bag, ‘I’ve only eaten one.  You had the rest.’

‘Whatever.  There’s not enough food in this place to keep a gnat alive.  My tummy’s rumbling.’

‘I know.  We’re stony broke.  If Christopher Robin and his lot hadn’t been whooping it up on the credit cards for the last thirteen years, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘Retrospection is all very well, you pocket-sized politician, but it doesn’t put food on the table.  We need a plan.’  Pooh slumped mournfully.

‘I know!’  Piglet threw the balled paper bag up in the air and caught it again.  ‘Let’s have a Royal Wedding.  We’ll make loads of dosh.’

‘Well I don’t know.  I don’t think selling a few tatty commemoration ceramics and setting up a ginger beer stall is going to solve our problem.’

‘But it’s a start, Pooh.  It'll bring in the crowds.’

‘Two difficulties:  We need a prince and we need a bride for him to marry.’  Pooh was scornful.  ‘There aren’t any of those round here.’

‘Christopher Robin is posh, he’ll be perfect,’ declared Piglet.

‘But he’s only nine.  I don’t think you’re allowed to marry at nine in this country.’ 
Piglet was not dismayed.

‘How about Eeyore?  He’s single.  Getting married might cheer him up.’

‘Cheering him up isn’t the point.  He’s not photogenic.  Imagine the wedding portraits.’

‘What about that Mr Toad, from the other book?  He’s got gold taps in his bathroom.’

‘Who’d marry an ugly mug like him?  Nobody.’

‘I’m not so sure, Pooh.  I’ve read stories where princesses marry amphibians all the time.’

‘I suppose so, but where do we find the bride?  All our friends in the Hundred Acre Wood are boys.  There’s a distinct shortage of women round here.’

‘There’s Kanga.  She’s quite pretty - for a marsupial.  Put her in a white dress and a veil.  She’d make a smashing bride - oh, and a long train to cover the tail.  No-one’d ever guess.

‘No can do.’

‘Why ever  not?’

‘Roo,  in a word.  Sad little bastard.’

‘Roo?’

‘Yes.  You never hear any talk of a Mr Kanga do you?  I think Kanga’s got a murky past.  Our bride has got to be whiter than white.’

‘I can’t think of anyone else, Pooh.’  Piglet was unhappy that they hadn’t solved their cash crisis.  ‘No wedding then.  I guess we’re back to square one.’

Pooh gave a huge sigh.  They'd have to think of another way of raising money.