In Which JC Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents

(written for the Dreams 'N Print april list project. the subject was 'Tribute')

Disclaimer: Don't own any of the guys or any of the winnie the pooh characters (except for a very nice stuffed eeyore). I shamelessly stole one of AA Milne's fabulous plot lines. Bad me.

Note: This was written in the span of an hour. You can tell. Sorry. And JC=Eeyore, Lance=Piglet, Joey=Pooh, and Chris=Christopher Robin. Justin didn't want to come out and play.

Once upon a time in the Hundred Acre Woods...

JC sighed as he wandered along the bank of the river. He kicked at the sand with the toe of his shoe. His long hair flopped down around his face as he knelt down on the sandy bank and looked into the pristine water.

"Pathetic," he said. He sighed, stood up, and walked down along the edge of the river until he came to a bridge. He slowly walked across the bridge with loping strides and sat down on the bank on the other side of the river. "Pathetic," he said again. "Just what I thought. I look the same from over here."

"JC!" A happy voice floated through the clear air.

JC looked up. He saw Joey standing on the hump of the bridge.

"Hey, Joe," JC said. He looked back down at the river in front of him.

"It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?" Joey asked. He waddled the rest of the way across the bridge. "Just beautiful."

"Yeah," JC said. "For some, I suppose it is beautiful. If you like clouds."

Joey’s smile faded just slightly as he looked up at the sky with it’s two puffs of white cloud, but his smile was back a moment later. "It is a beautiful day," he said again. He nodded at JC. "Good morning."

"Good morning," JC said. He scuffed the heel of his shoe on the bank of the river, digging a small cave in the sand. "If it is a good morning. Which I doubt."

Joey sighed, his smile fading for real. "What’s the matter?"

"Nothing," JC said. "Why should it matter that I look the same on this side of the river as I do on that side?"

"Huh?" Joey asked, scratching his head.

"Because, really," JC said. "It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter that I don’t look a smidge bit older, or a smidge bit more loved, or a—"

"Why should you look older, JC?" Joey asked.

"That’s generally what happens on one’s birthday," JC said. "Isn’t it? One looks older? One looks loved?"

"Birthday?" Joey asked.

"Yes," JC said. He sighed. "Can’t you see all the presents? And the cake with the pink frosting dribbling down its sides?"

Joey looked all around the bank of the river. "Cake?" he asked. "Where?"

"Can’t you see them?" JC asked.

"No," Joey said.

"Neither can I," JC said. His frown deepened. "Joke. Ha. Ha."

"Oh," Joey said. "It is your birthday, though, right?"

JC nodded.

"Happy Birthday, then," Joey said.

"Happy Birthday to you, too," JC said.

"But it’s not my birthday," Joey said, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Why should you be miserable on my birthday?" JC asked. "It’s bad enough that I’m miserable on my birthday, with no notice taken of me, no presents, no cake with pink frosting dribbling down its sides…"

Joey stood up quickly. "I’ll be back, JC. You stay here." Before JC could answer Joey was running back across the bridge and into the woods.
 
 
 

Outside of his house Joey found Lance pacing.

"Oh dear," Lance said in his deep voice. He turned on the ball of his foot and took a few steps in the other direction. "Oh dear."

"Hello, Lance," Joey said.

"Hello, Joey," Lance said.

"What’s the matter?" Joey asked. "I could hear you ‘oh dearing’ all the way at the edge of the clearing."

"I was upset because I was supposed to meet you here and you weren’t here and…"

"Oh," Joey said. He smiled and patted his stomach. "Well, I’m here now."

"So you are," Lance said. "And thank goodness because I was getting hungry for my morning tea."

"I just saw JC," Joey said. "It’s his birthday today and he’s feeling quite terribly because no one’s remembered it."

"Oh dear," Lance said as he clasped his hands in front of him. "How awful."

"Isn’t it?" Joey asked. "I must give him—did you say tea?"

"Yes," Lance said. "We were supposed to meet for tea, remember?"

"Oh, yes," Joey said. He opened the door of his house and walked in. "If we had an appointment we mustn’t put it off any longer."

Lance nodded happily and followed Joey into the house. "What are you going to give JC?"

Joey opened his cupboards in an attempt to find all of the necessary makings of a proper tea. He was rooting through the shelves when he saw a very small jar of honey.

"This," he said, pulling the jar out of the cupboard. "Quality, grade A, bee friendly, friendly bee honey."

"Oh, that’s nice," Lance said, clasping his hands in front of him again.

"What are you going to give him?" Joey asked.

Lance bit his lip and mumbled an "oh dear." He looked at Joey with wide eyes. "Couldn’t I give that jar of honey, too?"

"Oh, no," Joey said, shaking his head. "Maybe if it were a bigger jar of honey, but this is so small… You need to give him something else."

"Oh," Lance said. He rested his head heavily on his curled fist. Suddenly he sat up straight. "I know, I’ll give him the balloon left over from my birthday party."

"That," Joey said, "is a very good idea, Lance. Everyone likes to get balloons for their birthday."

Lance nodded happily. "I shall go get it right now and take it to JC."

Joey nodded as his friend ran out the door of his house. He looked down as his stomach rumbled.

"Oh dear," Joey said. "Lance left without eating his tea. Oh well, I shall have to eat it for him." He got so into eating, however, that he didn’t realize he’d eaten all of the tea and all of JC’s pot of honey, too, until his spoon scraped the bottom of the pot.

"Oh dear," Joey said again. He stared at the empty pot in his hands. "Now I’ve eaten JC’s birthday present." He stood up and looked in his cupboards, but they were all surprisingly bare. He looked at the pot again. "It is a very nice pot." He held it up to the window, turned it one way and then the other. "Very nice indeed." He touched his forefinger to his temple. "Maybe if I put his name on it."

Joey found a small pot of brown paint and a brush. He carefully wrote ‘JC’ in block letters on the ceramic surface. He stared at it as the letters dried. "It still needs something," he said.

Two minutes later he was out his door with the pot, now decorated with a large brown bow.
 
 

While all of this was happening, Lance had made it back to his house, had grabbed his large birthday balloon, red, and had started back out on the path towards JC’s place by the river. He was running because, since he was Lance, he wanted to be the first to give JC his present.

As he was running he was thinking about how happy JC would be to get the balloon, because it was a very nice balloon if Lance did think so himself. Christopher Robin had gotten it ‘specially for him.

Because he was running and thinking, he was relatively surprised when he heard a BANG! and he ended up face first on the ground, not necessarily in that order.

"Ouch," Lance said. He turned over and rubbed his head, wondering what the bang was. It was then that he saw the limp piece of red rubber sitting by his hand. "Oh dear," he said. "Oh dear."

He looked at the balloon, now able to fit into his palm. "And I haven’t got another balloon," he said. He sighed. He stood up and began walking slowly towards JC’s place by the river. "I suppose I shall have to go explain."

Before too long he was able to see JC sitting on the bank of the river. "Good morning, JC," Lance called.

"If it is a good morning," JC said. His hair flopped into his eyes as he looked up at Lance. "Which I doubt." He looked back down at the ground.

"Happy birthday, though," Lance said. He walked across the bridge over to where JC was sitting.

JC looked up at him. "What did you say?"

"Happy birthday," Lance said. "Many happy returns of the day."

JC shook his head. "One more time."

"Happy birthday," Lance said loudly. He gripped the piece of rubber in his hand. "I brought you a present."

"For me?" JC asked. He looked around the riverbank. "A present for me?"

"Yes," Lance said. "A present for you."

"What is it?" JC asked.

"A balloon," Lance said.

"A balloon?" JC asked. His features were almost light. "For me?"

"Yes," Lance said. He sighed miserably. "But, JC, I fell down on the way here, and it popped." He handed the piece of rubber to JC. "I’m sorry."

"It’s okay," JC said, his face dark again. "As long as you’re not hurt." He stared at the piece of damp balloon. "Was it a nice balloon?"

"Very nice," Lance said.

"How big?" JC asked.

Lance held out his hands to illustrate the size of the balloon. "About this big."

"My favorite size," JC said. He looked up at Lance again. "And what color?"

"Bright red," Lance said. "Cherry."

"My favorite red," JC said. He sighed.

Lance sighed and felt terrible. He had just sat down about five feet from where JC was when he heard a happy shout.

"Happy Birthday, JC!" Joey said. He skipped across the bridge.

"Yes, it is," JC said. "I suppose."

"I’ve brought you a present," Joey said. He held the pot with its large brown bow out in front of him. "It’s a pot."

"I can see that," JC said.

"It’s a pot to put things in," Joey said. He turned the pot around in his grip. "Or to make noise with if you bang its side, or something."

"Uh-huh," JC said. He looked at the pot. "It’s a very nice pot." He cocked his head to one side.

Joey tapped the side. "See? Noise." He set the pot down next to JC.

JC cocked his head to the other side. He looked from the scrap of balloon in his hand to the pot sitting on the bank beside him. With careful movements he untied the big brown bow, stretched the rubber balloon over the opening, and tied the ribbon back around the pot. With a shy smile he flicked the now covered opening.

*Plunk*

JC laughed. He tapped the balloon with his fingers. The pot made a different sound.

"It’s a drum," he said. He smiled at Joey and at Lance and continued tapping away with his fingers.

"I’m very glad," Joey said, "that I thought of giving you a pot to make a drum from."

"And I’m very glad that I thought of giving you something to cover your drum with," Lance said.
 
 
 

"And what did I give him?" Chris asked Joey later. "I didn’t forget him, did I?"

"No, Christopher Robin," Joey said as he shook his head. "You gave him that thing."

"The notebook and pen set?" Chris asked. "So he could write down his music?"

Joey nodded happily.

"But why didn’t I give it to him that morning?" Chris asked.

"Because you were busy preparing his party," Joey said. "Where there were lots of cherry red balloons and a big cake with lots of pink frosting dribbling down the sides. And."

"Yes, I remember," Chris said. He slung an arm over Joey’s shoulders and they walked off into the sunset.

--The real story is "In Which Eeyore Has A Birthday and Gets Two Presents."--
--Go read it. It's much better.--