“Tigger dear!” said Kanga.
“He’s taken my medicine, he’s taken my medicine, he’s taken my medicine!” sang Roo happily, thinking it was a tremendous joke.
Then Tigger looked up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes, and his tongue went round and round his chops, in case he had left any outside, and a peaceful smile came over his face as he said, “So that’s what Tiggers like!”
Which explains why he always lived at Kanga’s house afterwards, and had Extract of Malt for breakfast, dinner, and tea. And sometimes, when Kanga thought he wanted strengthening, he had a spoonful or two of Roo’s breakfast after meals as medicine.
“But I think,” said Piglet to Pooh, “that he’s been strengthened quite enough.”
III
In Which a Search Is Organdized, and Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again
Pooh was sitting in his house one day, counting his pots of honey, when there came a knock on the door.
“Fourteen,” said Pooh. “Come in. Fourteen. Or was it fifteen? Bother. That’s muddled me.”
“Hallo, Pooh,” said Rabbit.
“Hallo, Rabbit. Fourteen, wasn’t it?”
“What was?”
“My pots of honey what I was counting.”
“Fourteen, that’s right.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” said Rabbit. “Does it matter?”
“I just like to know,” said Pooh humbly. “So as I can say to myself: ‘I’ve got fourteen pots of honey left.’ Or fifteen, as the case may be. It’s sort of comforting.”
“Well, let’s call it sixteen,” said Rabbit. “What I came to say was: Have you seen Small anywhere about?”
“I don’t think so,” said Pooh. And then, after thinking a little more, he said: “Who is Small?”
“One of my friends-and-relations,” said Rabbit carelessly.
This didn’t help Pooh much, because Rabbit had so many friends-and-relations, and of such different sorts and sizes, that he didn’t know whether he ought to be looking for Small at the top of an oak-tree or in the petal of a buttercup.
“I haven’t seen anybody today,” said Pooh, “not so as to say ‘Hallo, Small,’ to. Did you want him for anything?”
“I don’t want him,” said Rabbit. “But it’s always useful to know where a friend-and-relation is, whether you want him or whether you don’t.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh. “Is he lost?”
“Well,” said Rabbit, “nobody has seen him for a long time, so I suppose he is. Anyhow,” he went on importantly, “I promised Christopher Robin I’d Organize a Search for him, so come on.”
Pooh said goodbye affectionately to his fourteen pots of honey, and hoped they were fifteen; and he and Rabbit went out into the Forest.
“Now,” said Rabbit, “this is a Search, and I’ve Organized it—”
“Done what to it?” said Pooh.
“Organized it. Which means—well, it’s what you do to a Search, when you don’t all look in the same place at once. So I want you, Pooh, to search by the Six Pine Trees first, and then work your way towards Owl’s House, and look out for me there. Do you see?”
“No,” said Pooh. “What—”
“Then I’ll see you at Owl’s House in about an hour’s time.”
“Is Piglet organdized too?”
“We all are,” said Rabbit, and off he went.
As soon as Rabbit was out of sight, Pooh remembered that he had forgotten to ask who Small was, and whether he was the sort of friend-and-relation who settled on one’s nose, or the sort who got trodden on by mistake, and as it was Too Late Now, he thought he would begin the Hunt by looking for Piglet, and asking him what they were looking for before he looked for it.
“And it’s no good looking at the Six Pine Trees for Piglet,” said Pooh to himself, “because he’s been organdized in a special place of his own. So I shall have to look for the Special Place first. I wonder where it is.” And he wrote it down in his head like this:
Order of Looking for Things
Special Place. (To find Piglet.)
Piglet. (To find who Small is.)
Small. (To find Small.)
Rabbit. (To tell him I’ve found Small.)
Small Again. (To tell him I’ve found Rabbit.)
“Which makes it look like a bothering sort of day,” thought Pooh, as he stumped along.
The next moment the day became very bothering indeed, because Pooh was so busy not looking where he was going that he stepped on a piece of the Forest which had been left out by mistake; and he only just had time to think to himself: “I’m flying. What Owl does. I wonder how you stop—” when he stopped.
Bump!
“Ow!” squeaked something.
“That’s funny,” thought Pooh. “I said ‘Ow!’ without really oo’ing.”
“Help!” said a small, high voice.
“That’s me again,” thought Pooh. “I’ve had an Accident, and fallen down a well, and my voice has gone all squeaky and works before I’m ready for it, because I’ve done something to myself inside. Bother!”
“Help—help!”
“There you are! I say things when I’m not trying. So it must be a very bad Accident.” And then he thought that perhaps when he did try to say things he wouldn’t be able to; so, to make sure, he said loudly: “A Very Bad Accident to Pooh Bear.”
“Pooh!” squeaked the voice.
“It’s Piglet!” cried Pooh eagerly. “Where are you?”
“Underneath,” said Piglet in an underneath sort of way.
“Underneath what?”
“You,” squeaked Piglet. “Get up!”
“Oh!” said Pooh, and scrambled up as quickly as he could. “Did I fall on you, Piglet?”
“You fell on me,” said Piglet, feeling himself all over.
“I didn’t mean to,” said Pooh sorrowfully.
“I didn’t mean to be underneath,” said Piglet sadly. “But I’m all right now, Pooh, and I am so glad it was you.”
“What’s happened?” said Pooh. “Where are we?”
“I think we’re in a sort of Pit. I was walking along, looking for somebody, and then suddenly I wasn’t any
