Alan Milne - Winnie the Pooh

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

"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

"Never mind, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, rubbing his hardest. "Is that

"It's feeling more like a tail perhaps. It Belongs again, if you know what I

"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

"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,

"No," said Pooh. "That wasn't me," he said. He thought for a little and then

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

"Yes," said Christopher Robin.

"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:

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

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

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

"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

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 in the sea; and Piglet thought that if he wrote something in a bottle and threw it

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:

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

"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