The exciting conclusion, built around a punchline I did not, in fact, have planned from the start, but which only came to me while writing the previous part.
In Which a Party is Held, and the Geode is Finally Caught.
Rabbit had such a good time on his geocaching Expotition that he immediately told all of his friends and relations. And when one has as many friends and relations as Rabbit, well, suddenly geocaching had become less of a Expotition and more of a Popular Fad.
As you will recall, the button left by the Piglet had been collected by Eeyore in return for a ribbon, which had gone to Owl, who left a quill in its place. Meanwhile, the spring left by Tigger was traded by Rabbit for a gardening glove,
The next day, the feather was taken by Early, who left in its place one of the nicest bottle caps in his bottle cap collection. The bottle cap was taken later that day by Late, who thought it would make a good birthday present for his brother Early, as he collected bottle caps. Late left a temporary tattoo of Lightning McQueen.
The gardening glove went to Henry Rush, the beetle, who felt it would be a lovely summer home. In its place, he left a guitar pick. The guitar pick, in due course, was taken by Small, who left a highly detailed 1:87 scale model of the 1987 Progress Rail EMD-SD70ACe-T4 Locomotive Unit 7240 out of Houston.
Even Lottie the otter took a turn, as did Gopher, despite not being in the book, and Beaver, and Kessie the Bluebird, and Lumpy, and even Penguin. And then, once all the animals of the Hundred Acre Wood had taken a turn at finding the Geocache, Christopher Robin himself found it. He signed the book, and took the very pretty rock that had been left there by Winnie-the-Pooh, and in its place he left… Well, actually, I’m not going to tell you what he left, because as far as I know, it is there still, and if some day you happen to be geocaching in the Hundred Acre Wood, you just might be the one to find it yourself, and then wouldn’t it be a lovely surprise?
Because he saw how much all of his friends had enjoyed learning about Geocaching, Christopher Robin decided to throw a party in honor of Evelyn (and Red Zoomer) to thank her for introducing them to this grand new game. There was honey, and haycorns, and thistles, and carrots – both raw and cooked, as someone had heard Evelyn preferred her carrots cooked – and extract of malt, and little cocktail toasts with butter and sugar sprinkles, and American pasteurized processed cheese food product, and plenty of Tropical Fantasy Fruit Punch.
Everyone had tremendous fun at the party. There was dancing, and games, and music, and everyone sang, “For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow” along with other public domain songs, and then they all settled in to talk about the various treasures they had each found in the geocache and how much fun it was to go on a special expotition.
Presently, Roo decided to demonstrate a new bounce he’d been working on, except that it didn’t quite go to plan, with Roo ending up on entirely the wrong side of the picnic table and everything which had been on top of it being sent into a sort of very general disarray. And among the things which were sent into disarray was the very pretty rock which Winnie-the-Pooh had left in the geocache, and which Christopher Robin had subsequently taken out of it. And the sort of disarray it was sent into involved bouncing off the ceiling and then hurtling toward the floor, only with Piglet somewhere in the middle, such that he would have received a very severe bonk on the head, had Evelyn not been there to catch it instead.
“Oh thank goodness,” Piglet said. “I should have had a very nasty bump. Thank you, Evelyn.”
But Evelyn looked at the very pretty rock in her hand and said, “Oh dear. The rock must have broken when it hit the ceiling.” And she showed everyone how there was now a crack running the entire length of the rock, and as she held it up, the whole thing fell apart into two pieces. “Christopher Robin, I’m sorry your rock got broken,” Evelyn said. But the others looked surprised.
To everyone’s wonder and amazement, the rock was hollow. Moreover, the inside of the rock was lined with tiny red crystals. Owl flapped his wings in surprise. “I say,” he declared, “I do believe that is a-”
“It’s a geode,” Christopher Robin declared. “They taught us about them in school. Do you know what this means?” Everyone sort of nodded understandingly as if they all understood exactly what it meant, but then started to shuffle nervously because they very much hoped no one was going to ask them to actually say what it meant.
But finally, Edward Bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, Pooh Bear (Pooh for short), Friend of Piglet (FoP), Rabbit’s Companion (RC), Eeyore’s Comforter and Tail-Finder (ECaTF), Pole Discoverer (PD) and Geocache Finder (GF), spoke up. “It means,” he said, in a suitably impressed sort of voice, “That Evelyn has Caught the Geode. The Geode has been Caught. By Evelyn.”
“My friends,” Christopher Robin announced, “All our hard work Geode-Catching has finally payed off. Today, Evelyn has caught the geode!” And everyone gave three cheers for Evelyn, and if they hadn’t already been having a party, they would have thrown a party for her. And Christopher Robin told Evelyn that even though the Very Pretty Stone had been his geocache treasure, he would very much like for her to keep half of it, while he kept the other half, so that wherever they were, they could look at their half of the geode and remember this adventure.
And so she did.
Awww
Also sorry about your friend.