Winnie-the-Pooh

‘This party,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘is a party because of what someone did, and we all know who it was, and it’s his party, because of what he did, and I’ve got a present for him and here it is.’ Then he felt about a little and whispered, ‘Where is it?’

While he was looking, Eeyore coughed in an impressive way and began to speak.

‘Friends,’ he said, ‘including oddments, it is a great pleasure, or perhaps I had better say it has been a pleasure so far, to see you at my party. What I did was nothing. Any of you – except Rabbit and Owl and Kanga – would have done the same. Oh, and Pooh. My remarks do not, of course, apply to Piglet and Roo, because they are too small. Any of you would have done the same. But it just happened to be Me. It was not, I need hardly say, with an idea of getting what Christopher Robin is looking for now’ – and he put his front leg to his mouth and said in a loud whisper, ‘Try under the table’ – ‘that I did what I did – but because I feel that we should all do what we can to help. I feel that we should all—’

‘H-hup!’ said Roo accidentally.

‘Roo, dear!’ said Kanga reproachfully.

‘Was it me?’ asked Roo, a little surprised.

‘What’s Eeyore talking about?’ Piglet whispered to Pooh.

‘I don’t know,’ said Pooh rather dolefully.‘

I thought this was your party.’

‘I thought it was once. But I suppose it isn’t.’

‘I’d sooner it was yours than Eeyore’s,’ said Piglet.

‘So would I,’ said Pooh.

‘H-hup!’ said Roo again.

‘AS – I – WAS – SAYING,’ said Eeyore loudly and sternly, ‘as I was saying when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that—’

‘Here it is!’ cried Christopher Robin excitedly. ‘Pass it down to silly old Pooh. It’s for Pooh.’

‘For Pooh?’ said Eeyore.

‘Of course it is. The best bear in all the world.’

‘I might have known,’ said Eeyore. ‘After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said “Bother!” The Social Round. Always something going on.’

Nobody was listening, for they were all saying, ‘Open it, Pooh,’ ‘What is it, Pooh?’ ‘I know what it is,’ ‘No, you don’t,’ and other helpful remarks of this sort. And of course Pooh was opening it as quickly as ever he could, but without cutting the string, because you never know when a bit of string might be Useful. At last it was undone.

When Pooh saw what it was, he nearly fell down, he was so pleased. It was a Special Pencil Case. There were pencils in it marked ‘B’ for Bear, and pencils marked ‘HB’ for Helping Bear, and pencils marked ‘BB’ for Brave Bear. There was a knife for sharpening the pencils, and india rubber for rubbing out anything which you had spelt wrong, and a ruler for ruling lines for the words to walk on, and inches marked on the ruler in case you wanted to know how many inches anything was, and Blue Pencils and Red Pencils and Green Pencils for saying special things in blue and red and green. And all these lovely things were in little pockets of their own in a Special Case which shut with a click when you clicked it. And they were all for Pooh.

‘Oh!’ said Pooh.

‘Oh, Pooh!’ said everybody else except Eeyore.

‘Thank-you,’ growled Pooh.

But Eeyore was saying to himself, ‘This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.’

Later on, when they had all said ‘Good-bye’ and ‘Thank-you’ to Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent.

‘When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,’ said Piglet at last, ‘what’s the first thing you say to yourself?’

‘What’s for breakfast?’ said Pooh. ‘What do you say, Piglet?’

‘I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting to-day?’ said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully.

‘It’s the same thing,’ he said.

‘And what did happen?’ asked Christopher Robin.

‘When?’

‘Next morning.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Could you think, and tell me and Pooh sometime?’

‘If you wanted it very much.’

‘Pooh does,’ said Christopher Robin.

He gave a deep sigh, picked his bear up by the leg and walked off to the door, trailing Winnie-the-Pooh behind him. At the door he turned and said, ‘Coming to see me have my bath?’

‘I might,’ I said.

‘Was Pooh’s pencil case any better than mine?’

‘It was just the same,’ I said.

He nodded and went out … and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh – bump, bump, bump – going up the stairs behind him.