On Wednesday, when the sky is blue,

  And I have nothing else to do,

  I sometimes wonder if it's true

  That who is what and what is who.

  Owl shook his head as he stepped backward into his house. “You’ve changed, Bear.”

  I stepped across the threshold. “Oh I have?”

  “You used to be so happy, and fat.”

  I snorted. “And you used to be the smart one, right owl?”

  “Well I—”

  I cut him off. “You see, Owl. You seem to be in an awful hurry.” I closed the door behind me. “And that doesn't make any sense to me, considering you have nowhere to go.” I pulled out the feather from my pocket and held it in front of his face. “Unless you were feeling guilty enough about something to finally leave the woods?”

  Owl let out a short squawk. “This isn’t customary procedure, Pooh. You should know that.”

  “Oh yes, customary procedure?” I tossed the feather at Owl, hitting him square between his yellow eyes. “Well, let me spell this out for you so that you understand. You see, my good friend Eeyore is dead. And you see, he was done up to look like he had killed himself. You know, an easy leap because of his depression.”

  “He was depressed.” Owl screeched.

  “Oh yes. Trust me I know.” I reached out and pushed Owl. Just a little. Just to show him that in this small house of his I was the stronger one. “And it would have been the perfect crime too. Except for a few things. Because, I know now, that he didn’t kill himself.”

  Owl’s eyes somehow got even wider. “He didn’t?”

  I shook my head. “Oh, no no. Not in the slightest.” I reached out and shoved him again. His back bumped against the far wall. He had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run from the truth.

  “We should offer a reward!” Owl said. “We write a notice to say that we will give a large something to anybody who finds Eeyore's killer.”

  “That’s a great idea, Owl. But you see. I knew something was wrong. And I knew you would know something about it.”

  “I would?” Owl was as good a liar as he was a speller. “And why would I know anything?”

  “Because there were no tracks?”

  Owl blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  I sighed. “Of course you don’t Owl. But you see, there should have been at least some tracks, right?” I pointed to Piglet, who had quietly stood behind me this whole time. “My friend visited him just yesterday. Would have been odd to have no marks from that. And Eeyore himself. He loved to pace. And yet,” I popped the cork on my honey jar and I took a long draught. That was what I needed. “And yet, there were no tracks at all.”

  “But I—” Owl protested.

  My hand shot out like a flash of lightning and grabbed Owl by the throat. I pinned him to the wall as he struggled. I leaned in close. My eyes right in front of his own.

  “You see Owl. I figured that someone wiped the ground of tracks. Someone who wouldn’t leave tracks of his own. And so I come to the one animal in this fucking excuse for a forest who could fly and who also once used Eeyore’s own goddamn tail as a bell-rope.”

  Owl wheezed and gasped in my grip.

  “Pooh. Don’’t.” Piglet’s voice carried a tsunami of worry. Whether for Owl or for me, I couldn’t tell. Probably both. That was just how he was wired. He cared about people. I cared about people too, but I also cared about justice. Justice for my friend.

  I could feel the anger building. Then I felt a hand on my leg.

  “Let him go, Pooh.” Piglet’s voice was soft.

  I let go.

  Owl fell to the ground, gasping and writhing. I hadn’t realized I had held onto him for that long. But it was hard to muster up any pity for the guy.

  “Tell me what I want to know.”

  Owl looked up at me. There were tears in his eyes. “I can’t.”

  “Tell me.” I took another drink of honey and capped it again. “Or the next thing you write for me will be your last will and testament. I can put it on top of your casket.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I took a small step toward him and it was enough to break him. I could see it in his eyes. The resignation. The fear. The realization that the only way to get out of this immediate, and quite painful, danger he was in now was to trade it for danger and potential pain later.

  “It was Roo.”

  I froze. “What?”

  Owl stumbled over the words in an effort to get them out before I could threaten him again. “He told me I had to wipe all the tracks from Eeyore’s place. He paid me. He didn’t tell me why and I didn’t ask. I just needed it to get out. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to fly. But I needed the money Pooh and it was all there. I didn’t realize what he had done til I flew down early this morning and saw him hung up like that.” He looked up at me. “Just let me go. He’ll kill me if he finds out I told you.”

  I stood frozen to the spot. I hadn’t heard that name in a long time. Not since… I shook my head. Owl still quavered in front of me on the ground. I stared at him. Then I cleared my throat and spit on him. The glob of saliva landed on his beak.

  “I hope you get out Owl. not for your sake. But because I don’t know what I will do if I see you around here again, knowing what you did to help cover up Eeyore’s murder.”

  I turned toward the door. “Come on Piglet.” I walked out the door, Piglet close behind. The suitcase sat there, still half full. I tipped it over and shook it out. Emptying it. We walked together for a few minutes.

  Piglet stopped. “Are you going to find Roo?”

  I nodded. “I have to.”

  “Even after what he did to you?”

  My hand went to my lower abdomen by reflex. I felt the stitches running alongside my ribcage. I had lost a lot of stuffing that day. Probably too much. But the honey had helped. Soothed my pain. It still did.

  “Yes.”

  "I think," said Piglet. "I think that I have just remembered something. I have just remembered something that I forgot to do yesterday and shan't be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose I really ought to go back and do it now."

  He turned to go.

  “Piglet?”

  He stopped. “Yes Pooh?”

  “It’s ok. I will do this for both of us.”

  His voice was soft. "It is hard to be brave when you're only a Very Small Animal."

  “I know.”

  I turned from him and began the long walk to the sandy pits. I made sure to skirt Rabbit's house. The last thing I needed was to have another encounter with his so-called friends and relations. And I made sure to give the bee tree a wide berth. They would never forget, I was sure. But the sand pits. Fond memories of Kanga and Roo playing. Reading poetry and indulging in the innocence of youth and a time long past. A brighter time for all of us. The sand pits had long since been choked with weeds, their grip growing tighter every year. I sat on the edge and opened the honey jar from home. I drank the rest of it in one long gulp. Then I tossed the jar into the pit. The honey swirled inside me and I embraced the giddy feeling it gave me. The warmth. The feeling that for one moment, just one moment, I was happy in a place I belonged. It might have been a lie. But it was a damn convincing one, like a mother telling their child they could do or be anything with their lives. By the time the kid finds out that’s not true, it’s too late. I sniffed. The ultimate con.

  “Pooh?”

  I jumped and whirled in surprise. But the voice was unmistakable. She stood there, her long ears pressed against the back of her head, her large, powerful feet planted firmly on the ground. But it was impossible to ignore her eyes. Red and intense. Just like she had been. Now they were older, haunted by good times long gone and the faded echoes of friends laughter.

  “Kanga?”

  “What are you doing here Pooh? You haven’t been by since…” Her eyes traveled to the stitches at my midsection and back again. It was lightning fast, but I noticed. She noticed that I noticed and blushed. “I guess I never thought you’d come back.”

  “First time for everything, I suppose.” I gave it some thought. “Or a second.”

  I sat back down at the edge of the sand pits. Kanga sat down next to me. Close enough for me to smell her fur. Catch the scent of freshly laundered linen from her apron. It never changed. That heady aroma that screamed out to me that she might be 100% kangaroo, but she was all woman. And I was a man. She sighed.

  “You’re here about Eeyore, aren’t you?” Her voice was quiet. Distant. Like she was talking to herself late at night.

  I nodded.

  “I heard he killed himself.” She knew where this was going. Kanga was far smarter than anyone gave her credit for. And that included me. “Hung himself by his own tail.”

  “I heard that too, Kanga. Saw it myself as well.”

  She shifted closer to me. “But you don’t believe that. Do you?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  We sat there in silence. The moment stretched on into an infinity of foreboding and an endless waltz of memory. If neither of us said anything, maybe we could find comfort in the memories we made a long time ago. Before everything went to hell in a handbasket. Before age and greed soured the milk and honey of an unblemished future stretched out ahead of us. But I had work to do. And she knew that.

  “You’re not here for me, are you?”

  “No.”

  More silence. This time darker. Deeper.

  “He’s not here, you know.”

  “Where is he?” I didn’t want to tell her that her son was a murderer. “I need to talk to him.”

  She shrugged. “My son hasn’t kept me in the loop for years. I have no idea where he might go.” She lowered her head. “Or what he might do. He’s made some bad choices. I learned a long time ago, but perhaps not soon enough, that I can’t protect him from those choices.”

  I felt her hand on mine. It was warm. I looked at her and she looked at me.

  “Stay a while?” Her voice was soft. She was soft. “Surely you can do that. For old times’ sake?”

  “Kanga. I … I don’t know.”

  I wanted to say yes. I truly did. I thought about Eeyore, and what his final moments must have been like. The desperate owl as he threw clothes into a suitcase in a doomed effort to leave. I had unfinished business. And yet. Maybe it was the honey I drank. Or maybe it was the whisper of a ghost of a happy memory still calling to me. Or maybe it was me thinking with my manhood instead of my brain. Which was probably why we half ran, half stumbled back to Kanga’s house nearby, tore off each other’s clothes and fell into bed.

  I was sure I would regret it the next day.

  But I didn’t care.