The Bear Who Lost His If

How it begins

Bram Hollow lost his if on the way to the bakery. It might have slipped from his coat when he bent to tie his shoe. It might have rolled beneath the bridge. Without it, he could not imagine either possibility.

He knew only what was true.

The bridge was wooden. The sky was gray. Tansy Venn had made six apple buns and one biscuit shaped like a question mark.

'What would happen if we added cinnamon?' she asked.

Bram looked at the buns. 'They have apples.'

'Yes, but imagine.'

'They have apples.'

Tansy put down the cinnamon. She knew the bear well. He built cupboards, repaired chairs and once made a splendid cart from a door somebody was throwing away. He usually had more ideas than pockets to keep them in.

'Have you lost something?'

'I don't know how to find out.'

She offered him the question-mark biscuit. He ate the dot first.

Outside, a puddle filled the path. Tansy suggested they jump. Bram saw only a puddle too wide for one ordinary step. She fetched a plank. He understood a plank. Together they crossed.

'Could we make a bridge from two planks?' she asked.

'We have one.'

'Could there be another?'

Bram stared at the yard beyond her bakery. It contained timber, rope and a broken wheel. Once, those things would have become a dozen different objects in his mind. Now they were only themselves, waiting.

Tansy sat beside him. She did not ask him to try harder. Instead she began describing the most ridiculous cart she could think of: four teapots for wheels, a roof made of buns and a cinnamon chimney.

Bram's mouth twitched.

From beneath the bridge came a very small voice.

'If?' it said.

The bear lifted his head. For the first time that morning, the world seemed to contain somewhere he had not yet looked.