sketch.
“I don’t think so, Rabbit. If I begin to read a book that has a hundred pages, I begin on page one but it isn’t half done until I get to page fifty, agreed?”
But Rabbit was not really listening.
“Name?” he asked.
“You know my name,Rabbit,” said Christopher Robin.
“Spell it.”
“I-T,”said Christopher Robin. Then he looked back at his sketch and added a bit of shadow where a shadow ought to be: “Oh, Rabbit, I have better things to do.”
Rabbit went away muttering. It might have been something about No Sense of Social Responsibility, but then again it might not.
At Kanga’s house, Roo and Tigger were playing a game called Licking the Mixing Bowl Clean. It was a game without rules except that the winner was the one who finished last.
“Tigger,” said Rabbit, “let’s begin with you.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Tigger, bouncing a little, even though he had no idea what was to be begun. He liked to be asked to do things, and he liked to be asked to do them first, and he always said “yes” because it is much more interesting when you do.
“Name?”
“Tigger.”
“Spell it.”
“T-I-GRRRRRRRRR . . .” And Tigger emitted a ferocious growl.
“Put your handkerchief in front of your mouth when you do that, dear,” said Kanga.
“Age?”
Tigger counted his paws, and then his whiskers, and then Roo’s paws and whiskers, and then Kanga’s paws and whiskers.
“Don’t know,” he said at last.
“I’ll put down twelve,” said Rabbit.
“Hooray!”cried Tigger. “Then I can have a birthday.” When Rabbit had put all the information from the Census together, he created a chart. He coloured it using a set of crayons that were still in their matching paper wrappers, and then took it along to show Christopher Robin.
“Very fine, Rabbit,” said Christopher Robin, “but why aren’t you on the chart?”
Rabbit stared at the paper.
“Ah,”he said eventually, shuffling his feet. “It was ...” he continued, looking at the floor, “an Oversight.”
“Then you’d better complete the job.”
Rabbit found that answering his own questions was simple enough to start with. How old was he? Five seemed about right.What was his occupation? Rabbit thought for a bit, then wrote “Importent Things.”
Before long, he got to the question about the size of his family. Wherever Rabbit turned there were Friends and Relations. There always had been. But which were
Friends and which were Relations?
Once upon a time he had bought a special diary and tried to jot down all their birthdays, but even for a sensible and organized animal like Rabbit it was more than he could cope with.
So he went to see Grandad Buck, who was Very Ancient and the Head of the Rabbit Family.
Grandad Buck did not entirely approve of Rabbit, partly because he did not entirely approve of anyone, but he listened intently, thought for a few moments, and then said, rather grandly: “My advice to you is to spread the word that all your Friends and Relations are invited to your abode. Promise them food. Then, as they arrive, get their names and ages. That should do the trick.”
He paused, then looked hard at Rabbit, and barked: “Now, young fellow, I must ask you please to go away.”
Rabbit did just as Grandad Buck had advised,promising carrots for Relations and shortbread for Friends. And in due course, on the day selected, Rabbit opened the door at 8.30 A.M. sharp and the first rabbit demanded her shortbread.
“But you’re a relation,” objected Rabbit. “You get carrots.”
The little rabbit put her paws over her floppy ears.
“Am not a Relation! I want shortbread!”
So as not to hold things up, Rabbit gave her a piece. Within an hour he had taken down the details of three hedgehogs, four mice, six squirrels, three beetles, and also twenty-one rabbits—all of whom claimed to be “Friends.” The shortbread from the tin with the picture of Edinburgh Castle on the lid was long gone, and the homemade jam was going the same way. Rabbit was running out of paper, and still the line stretched all the way to Kanga’s house. Many of the younger ones discovered the Sandy Pit in which Roo played, and approved of it and played in it themselves.
The carrots from Rabbit’s garden lay neglected. Friends who had come too late for shortbread became very cross and started rampaging around the place, until Rabbit’s sensible and tidy drawing room was thrown into disarray and covered in muddy and sandy paw-prints everywhere. Some of the younger element invented a game which involved rolling yourself up in the fireside rug with a lace doily on your