In which Christopher Robin can't fall asleep.

[nowwearesix]

Christopher Robin couldn't sleep. He lay in bed for a while, staring up at the moonlight filtering through the house's roof. Pooh and Piglet curled next to him on the little bed, both looking content

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[strandedseaman]

Horatio, likewise, had trouble sleeping, though his difficulties were due to his upcoming marriage. Try as he might, he could not shake the idea that he would do something foolish in front of so many people. It was a thought that kept him up at night, and therefore quick to spy Christopher Robin slipping from his hut.

He ought to have been more stern, but the truth was, Horatio was glad for the company. "Mischief afoot?" he called softly through the darkness.

[nowwearesix]

"I couldn't sleep," Christopher Robin answered, turning to walk toward where Horatio sat. "I don't know why. Can't you either?"

[strandedseaman]

Horatio shifted on his log to let the boy have the seat closest to the dying fire. "Sometimes our heads are too full of thoughts, no matter how tired our bodies."

[nowwearesix]

Christopher Robin sat down on the log, resting his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. "What sort of thoughts?"

[strandedseaman]

"Oh, any sort of thoughts. Happy thoughts, sad thoughts, excited thoughts." Horatio eyed the length of Christopher Robin's pyjamas with some disapproval. "It is why we ought to put our thoughts to rest as well as our bodies, or we risk facing the next day unalert."

[nowwearesix]

"Sometimes," said Christopher Robin, sounding a little put out, "the thoughts don't want to rest. They want to go running about."

[strandedseaman]

"Sometimes," said Horatio, "it helps to talk about those thoughts and get them in order. Barring that, a book or a game of cards usually helps me. May I ask which thoughts they are that trouble you?"

[nowwearesix]

"I'm not sure," Christopher Robin answered. "I can't quite catch them to find out what they are. I would say, otherwise," he added, because it always seemed important to Ray and Horatio that he tell them things he was thinking. Which he didn't mind at all, it was nice to have someone who wanted to hear what he was thinking, only this time he really wasn't sure.

[strandedseaman]

Horatio looked troubled, though it was not for Christopher Robin's missing thoughts so much as something else that was missing. A moment later he realised what it was. "Ah, has Pooh abandoned you to your troublesome awakeness?"

[nowwearesix]

"He was asleep," Christopher Robin explained fondly. "Piglet, too. It's quite tiring, you know, exploring and having adventures all day."

[strandedseaman]

"Oh, I imagine so. Well, then." Horatio smoothed down his uniform pants with a purposeful look. "It is up to us to solve our sleeplessness. What sort of battleplan shall we formulate?"

[nowwearesix]

Christopher Robin sat for a moment and thought. "Perhaps if we run around very fast we might catch the thoughts, or at least make them tired?"

[strandedseaman]

Horatio smiled. "I suppose we might try, though we can't run very far." Civilised as the Hamlet had become, it was still very much in the jungle. "Not out of the ring of fire light, anyway. We could run around it?"

[nowwearesix]

Christopher Robin bounced to his feet. "I'll race you!"