Winnie-the-Pooh

‘Tell Roo to be quick, somebody,’ he said. ‘My tail’s getting cold. I don’t want to mention it, but I just mention it. I don’t want to complain, but there it is. My tail’s cold.’

‘Here I am!’ squeaked Roo.

‘Oh, there you are.’

‘Did you see me swimming?’

Eeyore took his tail out of the water, and swished it from side to side.

‘As I expected,’ he said. ‘Lost all feeling. Numbed it. That’s what it’s done. Numbed it. Well, as long as nobody minds, I suppose it’s all right.’

‘Poor old Eeyore! I’ll dry it for you,’ said Christopher Robin, and he took out his handkerchief and rubbed it up.

‘Thank you, Christopher Robin. You’re the only one who seems to understand about tails. They don’t think – that’s what’s the matter with some of these others. They’ve no imagination. A tail isn’t a tail to them, it’s just a Little Bit Extra at the back.’

‘Never mind, Eeyore,’ said Christopher Robin, rubbing his hardest. ‘Is that better?’

‘It’s feeling more like a tail perhaps. It Belongs again, if you know what I mean.’

‘Hullo, Eeyore,’ said Pooh, coming up to them with his pole.

‘Hullo, Pooh. Thank you for asking, but I shall be able to use it again in a day or two.’

‘Use what?’ said Pooh.

‘What we are talking about.’

‘I wasn’t talking about anything,’ said Pooh, looking puzzled.

‘My mistake again. I thought you were saying how sorry you were about my tail, being all numb, and could you do anything to help?’

‘No,’ said Pooh. ‘That wasn’t me,’ he said. He thought for a little and then suggested helpfully: ‘Perhaps it was somebody else.’

‘Well, thank him for me when you see him.’

Pooh looked anxiously at Christopher Robin.

‘Pooh’s found the North Pole,’ said Christopher Robin. ‘Isn’t that lovely?’

Pooh looked modestly down.

‘Is that it?’ said Eeyore.

‘Yes,’ said Christopher Robin.

‘Is that what we were looking for?’

‘Yes,’ said Pooh.

‘Oh!’ said Eeyore. ‘Well, anyhow – it didn’t rain,’ he said.

They stuck the pole in the ground, and Christopher Robin tied a message on to it:

NORTH POLE

DISCOVERED By

POOH

POOH FOUND IT

Then they all went home again. And I think, but I am not quite sure, that Roo had a hot bath and went straight to bed. But Pooh went back to his own house, and feeling very proud of what he had done, had a little something to revive himself.

CHAPTER NINE

in which Piglet is entirely surrounded by water

It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never in all his life, and he was goodness knows how old – three, was it, or four? – never had he seen so much rain. Days and days and days.

‘If only,’ he thought, as he looked out of the window, ‘I had been in Pooh’s house, or Christopher Robin’s house, or Rabbit’s house when it began to rain, then I should have had Company all this time, instead of being here all alone, with nothing to do except wonder when it will stop.’ And he imagined himself with Pooh, saying, ‘Did you ever see such rain, Pooh?’ and Pooh saying, ‘Isn’t it awful, Piglet?’ and Piglet saying, ‘I wonder how it is over Christopher Robin’s way,’ and Pooh saying, ‘I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by this time.’ It would have been jolly to talk like this, and really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.

For it was rather exciting. The little dry ditches in which Piglet had nosed about so often had become streams, the little streams across which he had splashed were rivers, and the river, between whose steep banks they had played so happily, had sprawled out of its own bed and was taking up so much room everywhere, that Piglet was beginning to wonder whether it would be coming into his bed soon.

‘It’s a little Anxious,’ he said to himself, ‘to be a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by Water. Christopher Robin and Pooh could escape by Climbing Trees, and Kanga could escape by Jumping, and Rabbit could escape by Burrowing, and Owl could escape by Flying, and Eeyore could escape by – by Making a Loud Noise Until Rescued, and here am I, surrounded by water and I can’t do anything.’

It went on raining, and every day the water got a little higher, until now it was nearly up to Piglet’s window … and still he hadn’t done anything.

‘There’s Pooh,’ he thought to himself. ‘Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right. There’s Owl. Owl hasn’t exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There’s Rabbit. He hasn’t Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan. There’s Kanga. She isn’t Clever, Kanga isn’t, but she would be so anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to Do without thinking about it. And then there’s Eeyore. And Eeyore is so miserable anyhow that he wouldn’t mind about this. But I wonder what Christopher Robin would do?’

Then suddenly he remembered a story which Christopher Robin had told him about a man on a desert island who had written something in a bottle and thrown it into the sea; and Piglet thought that if he wrote something in a bottle and threw it in the water, perhaps somebody would come and rescue him!

He left the window and began to search his house, all of it that wasn’t under water, and at last he found a pencil and a small piece of dry paper, and a bottle with a cork to it. And he wrote on one side of the paper:

HELP!

PIGLIT (ME)

and on the other side:

IT’S ME PIGLIT, HELP HELP!

Then he put the paper in the bottle, and he corked the bottle up as tightly as he could, and he leant out of his