The world changed on a drizzly morning when the first scents of another coming winter found Winnie draped across the slopes of her den, pondering whether it wasn’t time for lunch.
A bright, round noise in the distance roused her to her feet. She took a step toward her gate, ready to take cover, but then she stopped. It didn’t seem like guns or bombs; it had none of that hard edge to it. For some reason, the sound made your Bear think of romping through a summer field of high yellow grass after Mama.
The noise was joined by others like it, and within moments, church bells were ringing across London, bobbing against one another while your Bear listened in wonder.
And then there was one bell louder and deeper than them all, which felt like it was tolling from inside Winnie’s chest.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Ga-dong.
Miss Saunders flung open the gate and rushed in. “It’s Big Ben, Winnie!” She clapped her hands together as tears sprouted from her eyes. “They’re letting it ring for the first time in years. The War is over! The War is over at last!”
In the wake of those bells, the air vibrated as if a great storm had just ended. Winnie listened, feeling slightly dizzy as crowds flooded Regent’s Park and the streets outside the Zoo, blowing whistles and bugles, shouting and singing.
Two weeks later, Harry stood in her den.
“We won the Great War, Winnie,” he said, sounding slightly stunned.
While he was feeding her, she noticed a fresh badge shaped like an acorn on the cuff of his uniform and touched it with her nose.
“They made me a Major,” Harry told her, shrugging at the sky. “Nine days after the fighting ended.”
Cole stopped me. “What happened to the other guys? Harry’s friends?”
“Edgett went on to be chief of the Vancouver Police Department. And Brodie made it through the War too.” I hesitated.
“What about Dixon?”
I’d expected this question. But I still wasn’t prepared for it.
“Dixon was wounded less than two months before the end of the War. He should have been okay because his wounds weren’t that bad. He was on the deck of a French hospital ship, talking to the other patients, and… well, he just collapsed. His heart gave out. Dixon died of a heart attack. He was forty-eight years old.”
Cole’s eyes flickered, and he pushed his chin into the top of his Bear’s head and bunched his blanket in his fingers.
Softly, I said, “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
Cole closed and opened his brown eyes once, twice, but they stayed clear. “That’s because it’s not,” he said with a grown-up shake of his head.
They sat together on the slopes, Harry petting your Bear calmly, each of them lost in their thoughts.
“In Winnipeg,” said Harry, “it’s so cold you can feel icicles on the insides of your nose. Have I ever told you that? You’re much too big to sleep under the bed now, so I guess—”
Someone called to them from across the empty moat. “Winnie,” boomed Pfeiffer, “who’s that with you? Is that your soldier?”
Winnie stood on her hind legs beside Harry.
Pfeiffer took off his hat to reveal his thin gray hair sticking straight up. “Thank you, good sir! Thank you for bringing us Winnie, our favorite bear!” He glanced into the next den and cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Sam. I meant our favorite black bear, Ursus americanus. Polar bears, Ursus maritimus, are an entirely different subspecies.”
Someone whistled from the walkway that overlooked the back of her den, and Winnie went to see who it was. A boy in a brown cap tossed her an apple, and she leapt and caught it in her mouth.
Winnie wagged her head. “Thanks, Charlie!”
Harry laughed. “You’ve made quite a life for yourself here, haven’t you?” he said, ruffling the fur on top of her head as she settled beside him to eat. Harry sighed in a satisfied way. “All I wanted, ever since I found you in White River, was for you to be loved. And look,” he said, lifting his hand to wave back at the spectators now waving at them. “Look at how loved you are.”
Winnie rested her chin on his knee.
“I won’t take it personally,” he said. “After all, it’s not much of a choice between living in the world’s finest zoo and living in a freezing-cold stall with no one to talk to but me and a sick donkey.”
The sun set, and the Zoo closed, but Miss Saunders said Harry could stay as long as he wanted. He lay on his back on the slopes, looking at the stars, with your Bear’s head on his chest, listening to his heart.
Sam was snoring next door.
“I have to let you go, Winnie,” Harry said very quietly. “The War taught me about sacrifice, if nothing else. I’ve seen so many people give up what’s dearest to them, all for something greater.”
He kissed the top of her head. “You will always be my Bear.” His fingers found the special place at the back of her neck, and her eyes began to close, and his heartbeat sounded like Mama’s.
When she woke up, he was gone.
Cole fidgeted with his Bear’s ear. “I would never have left her.”
“You wouldn’t have?” I said. “But then what happened next could never have happened. Something even greater than the Great War was waiting for your Bear. And if it wasn’t for that, this story might have never been remembered and told.”
Some years after the War, a four-year-old boy and his father were led through the tunnels inside the Terraces and up the steep wooden steps to Winnie’s den. The boy wore an itchy coat that ended just above his knees; his unusually long, wavy hair covered his ears. He had a dimple in the middle of his chin, just like Harry.
The boy held back, clutching his father’s leg. “It’s all right,” said Zookeeper Graves, who had returned to his position after the War. “She won’t harm you.”
Winnie approached slowly and opened her mouth. “Who are you?” she wanted to know.
She’d been visited by children before, but there was something special about this one. She could smell it.
“My name is Christopher Robin Milne.” His father bent to murmur in his ear, and the boy pulled a very small stuffed animal from his coat. He showed it to your Bear. It had three buttons down its front and a tiny snout and ears that were too big, and it held its paws in the air in a very excitable way. “And this is Piglet,” said the boy. “Say hello, Piglet.”
Winnie was surprised to find that Piglet smelled like the Woods.
The boy glanced at the pond at the front of her den. “Would you like to join us on an Expotition? Piglet wants to cross the sea, except she might be scared.”
Not two moments later, Christopher Robin and Piglet were riding on Winnie’s back through the puddle. “Don’t drop us! Hold steady! Watch out for the waves! What’s that up ahead? Go on, silly bear, go on!”
Christopher Robin came back again and again. He named his teddy bear after Winnie. From the walkway above the den, his father, Mr. Milne, watched their adventures with delight. Sometimes he’d write in a small notebook and chuckle.
When Christopher Robin was six years old, Mr. Milne wrote Winnie-the-Pooh, which was an overnight success. Then he wrote The House at Pooh Corner.
That’s how Winnie became Christopher Robin’s bear.
So many have felt the same way about your Bear. Her Mama, of course. And the trapper’s boy. The men of the Second Canadian Infantry Brigade. And everyone at the Zoo.
Harry.
Christopher Robin.
Me.
And you.
Most amazing of all, the whole world too.
That’s the entire story, the real one, the true story of Winnie, who was brave enough to go Farther Than Any Bear Has Ever Gone, all the way through a century to come back in this story for you.
Cole got up and carried his Bear by one leg over to the shelf next to his closet, which was crammed with treasures: a wooden lighthouse from our trip to Tobermory, a photo of him and his friend Asher atop Huckleberry Rock, his bronze ski medal, the space-age crystal-growing kit he’d won at the fall fair.
He reached to the back for my worn copy of The House at Pooh Corner, the one my grandfather gave me, and stood the book up at the shelf’s edge, propping its front cover open with his stuffed animal. A creased black-and-white photo was taped inside. It was of Cole’s great-great-grandfather, the courageous man he had been named for. He was holding a little something out for Bear, who stood up straight and held Harry’s wrist tenderly with one paw, eager to taste whatever came next.
And my Boy saluted them both.