When Raccoon finally finished with her fan club — they were all there to listen to her ask and answer her own questions — and came inside Beaver’s house, Beaver and Hare were sitting in the library having a quiet chat.
“Oh, there you are, Raccoon,” said Beaver. “Are your fans satisfied now?”
“I’m not sure,” said Raccoon wearily. “It’s like they’re never satisfied. Now they’re asking if I’m going to go on tour. And some of them are saying ‘are you going on tour? Yes!’”
“What’s a tour?” asked Hare.
“I’m not sure about that either,” said Raccoon. “It must be something you get on, or go on, or something like that. I was thinking it might be the name of a hill that I would go stand on so more fans could see me.”
“A tour is a journey,” said Beaver, “where you travel to different towns and cities so your fans there have a chance to come see you.”
“Oh,” said Raccoon, who had never been outside the forest. “I’m not sure I’d like that. Do other characters with cute affectations like me go on tour?”
Hare winced, sure that Raccoon was going to answer her own question. But it turned out that this time it was a real question.
“I think some do,” said Beaver. “You mentioned that character Eeyore from those other stories yesterday, and…”
“Hey, hold on there,” said Hare, “how do you know Raccoon mentioned Eeyore yesterday?”
“I just like reading,” said Beaver.
“You like reading?”
“Yes, so I read lots of different things.”
“But Beaver,” said Hare, “what does that have to do with knowing what Raccoon said yesterday when you weren’t even there?”
“I was there,” said Beaver, “just not the same way you were.”
“There’s another way of being somewhere?” said Hare.
“Of course there is,” said Beaver. “When you read a story, you’re there — just in a different way than the characters are.”
Hare scratched his head, wondering how Beaver managed to read about characters and be one at the same time.
“But what about me?” said Raccoon, “does that mean that I’m a character? I’m the one with the endearing characteristic, right?”
“It’s not endearing,” said Hare, “it’s annoying. But thank you for not talking that way today.”
“You said you didn’t like it,” said Raccoon. “And anyway, it already worked, and now I know what it’s like to be famous. It makes me tired.”
“It’s possible,” said Beaver, “that you, Raccoon — I mean you personally — might not have to go on tour in order to go on tour.”
Raccoon and Hare looked blankly at Beaver.
“What I mean,” explained Beaver, “is that other characters with endeari…er, ‘memorable’ characteristics, go on tour in things like traveling ice shows, but I don’t think it’s actually them in the show. I think they’re portrayed by somebody else. Maybe you could find somebody to portray you.”
“I’ve heard of traveling ice,” said Hare. “Magpie told me about something her Seagull friends Janice and Bugsy mentioned. If you fly really far out to sea, and way up north or south, there are big chunks of ice floating in the ocean.”
“Doesn’t the ice melt when it’s floating in the water?” asked Raccoon.
“How should I know?” said Hare. “It probably does. I guess the water makes the chunks all eroded and pitted, because I think Magpie said the chunks are called something like ‘pittsbergs’.”
“That’s odd,” said Beaver, “because I’ve read about a place called pittsberg, but it doesn’t move at all.”
“So there are shows on these pittsbergs?” asked Raccoon.
“I suppose there are,” said Beaver. “The details are not completely clear to me, but I think the characters are just costumes in the show.”
“Ice is very cold,” said Hare, “so maybe they’re not costumes so much as coats.”
“So you’re saying,” said Raccoon hesitantly, “that I could just stay home, but if I do, my winter coat is going to end up in a show in pittsberg? How am I going to stay warm in the winter?”
“That would be a problem,” nodded Hare.
The three animals nodded together.
“I think I’ve had enough of having fans,” said Raccoon. “How do I stop all this nonsense? I’m already tired, and I don’t want to be cold all winter.”
“I think the first thing you ought to do,” said Hare hopefully, “is to never obviate your unique and characteristic linquistic quirk again.”
“I won’t,” said Raccoon. “Anyway it’s hard to remember to talk that way. But Hare, you have one too, you know.”
“I have what?” asked Hare.
“A unique…a weird way of talking,” said Raccoon.
“I certainly do not individuate semantically,” protested Hare.
“Oh, my, but you certainly do,” agreed Beaver. “Sometimes, Hare, for no apparent reason, you start using big words to say simple things. In fact you just did.”
“I did?” asked Hare.
Raccoon and Beaver nodded.
“Uh-oh,” said Hare. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Raccoon and Beaver nodded.
Hare’s ears drooped. “I don’t want any fans,” said Hare. “Nobody even told me what an autograph is. I hate being cold. And I’m not going to any pittsbergs.”
“It may be too late already,” said Beaver, “but what you should do, Hare, is try to use the shortest, simplest words you can from now on.”
Hare thought for a moment.
“That is a capital notion, which I shall…” he began, then clapped his paw over his mouth. He started over.
“I mean to say that such polysyllabic constructions shan’t…” he clapped two paws over his mouth.
“When speaking extemporaneously…” he began again, then grabbed the nearest pillow and covered his face.
Raccoon leaned close to Hare and whispered something in his ear. From behind the pillow, Beaver and Raccoon heard Hare’s muffled voice say “Okay.”
“There,” said Raccoon to Beaver, “all fixed.”
“What did you say?” asked Beaver.
“I just said ‘end the story here and hope nobody remembers this,” said Raccoon.
