Winnie the Pooh

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 window as far as he could lean without falling in, and he threw the bottle as far as he could throw -splash!-and in a little while it bobbed up again on the water; and he watched it floating slowly away in the distance, until his eyes ached with looking, and sometimes he thought it was the bottle, and sometimes he thought it was just a ripple on the water which he was following, and then suddenly he knew that he would never see it again and

that he had done all that he could do to save himself.

'So now,' he thought, 'somebody else will have to do something, and I hope they will do it soon, because if they don't I shall have to swim, which I can't, so I hope they do it soon.' And then he gave a very long sigh and said, 'I wish Pooh were here. It's so much more friendly with two.'

When the rain began Pooh was asleep. It rained, and it rained, and it rained, and he slept and he slept and he slept. He had had a tiring day. You remember how he discovered the North Pole; well, he was so proud of this that he asked

Christopher Robin if there were any other Poles such as a Bear of Little Brain

might discover.

'There's a South Pole,' said Christopher Robin, 'and I expect there's an East

Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them.' Pooh was very excited when he heard this, and suggested that they should have an

Expotition to discover the East Pole, but Christopher Robin had thought of something else to do with Kanga; so Pooh went out to discover the East Pole by himself. Whether he discovered it or not, I forget; but he was so tired when he got home that, in the very middle of his supper, after he had been eating for little more than half-an-hour, he fell fast asleep in his chair, and slept and

slept and slept.

Then suddenly he was dreaming. He was at the East Pole, and it was a very cold pole with the coldest sort of snow and ice all over it. He had found a bee-hive to sleep in, but there wasn't room for his legs, so he had left them outside.

And Wild Woozles, such as inhabit the East Pole, came and nibbled all the fur off his legs to make Nests for their Young. And the more they nibbled, the colder his legs got, until suddenly he woke up with an Ow!-and there he was, sitting in his chair with his feet in the water, and water all round him!

He splashed to his door and looked out...

'This is Serious,' said Pooh. 'I must have an Escape.'

So he took his largest pot of honey and escaped with it to a broad branch of his tree, well above the water, and then he climbed down again and escaped with another pot... and when the whole Escape was finished, there was Pooh sitting on his branch dangling his legs, and there, beside him, were ten pots of

honey...

Two days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his legs, and

there, beside him, were four pots of honey...

Three days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his legs, and there beside him, was one pot of honey.

Four days later, there was Pooh...

And it was on the morning of the fourth day that Piglet's bottle came floating past him, and with one loud cry of 'Honey!' Pooh plunged into the water, seized the bottle, and struggled back to his tree again.

'Bother!' said Pooh, as he opened it. 'All that wet for nothing. What's that bit

of paper doing?'

He took it out and looked at it.

'It's a Missage,' he said to himself, 'that's what it is. And that letter is a

'P,' and so is that, and so is that, and 'P' means 'Pooh,' so it's a very important Missage to me, and I can't read it. I must find Christopher Robin or

Owl or Piglet, one of those Clever Readers who can read things, and they will tell me what this missage means. Only I can't swim. Bother!'

Then he had an idea, and I think that for a Bear of Very Little Brain, it was a good idea. He said to himself:

'If a bottle can float, then a jar can float, and if a jar floats, I can sit on the top of it, if it's a very big jar.'

So he took his biggest jar, and corked it up.

'All boats have to have a name,' he said, 'so I shall call mine The Floating

Bear.' And with these words he dropped his boat into the water and jumped in

after it.

For a little while Pooh and The Floating Bear were uncertain as to which of them was meant to be on the top, but after trying one or two different positions, they