The house at Pooh Corner - Milne Alan Alexander. Страница 6

But Piglet was quite sure; and his mind ran on, and he saw Pooh and the Heffalump talking to each other, and he thought suddenly, and a little sadly, that it would have been rather nice if it had been Piglet and the Heffalump talking so grandly to each other, and not Pooh, much as he loved Pooh; because he really had more brain than Pooh, and the conversation would go better if he and not Pooh were doing one side of it, and it would be comforting afterwards in the evenings to look back on the day when he answered a Heffalump back as bravely as if the Heffalump wasn't there. It seemed so easy now. He knew just what he would say:

HEFFALUMP (gloatingly): "Ho-ho!"

PIGLET (carelessly): "Tra-la-la, tra-la-la."

HEFFALUMP (surprised, and not quite so sure of himself): "Ho-ho!"

PIGLET (more carelessly still): "Tiddle-um-tum, tiddle-um-tum."

HEFFALUMP (beginning to say Ho-ho and turning it awkwardly into a cough): "H'r'm! What's all this?"

PIGLET (surprised): "Hullo! This is a trap I've made, and I'm waiting for a Heffalump to fall into it."

HEFFALUMP (greatly disappointed): "Oh!" (After a long silence): "Are you sure?"

PIGLET: "Yes."

HEFFALUMP: "Oh!" (nervously): "I-I thought it was a trap I'd made to catch Piglets."

PIGLET (surprised): "Oh, no!"

HEFFALUMP: "Oh!" (Apologetically): "I-I must have got it wrong then."

PIGLET: "I'm afraid so." (Politely): "I'm sorry." (He goes on humming.)

HEFFALUMP: "Well-well-I-well. I suppose I'd better be getting back?"

PIGLET (looking up carelessly): "Must you? Well, if you see Christopher Robin anywhere, you might tell him I want him."

HEFFALUMP (eager to please): "Certainly! Certainly!" (He hurries off.)

POOH (who wasn't going to be there, but we find we can't do without him."): "Oh, Piglet, how brave and clever you are!"

PIGLET (modestly): "Not at all, Pooh." (And then, when Christopher Robin comes, Pooh can tell him about it.)

While Piglet was dreaming this happy dream, and Pooh was wondering again whether it was fourteen or fifteen, the Search for Small was still going on all over the Forest. Small's real name was Very Small Beetle, but he was called Small for short, when he was spoken to at all, which hardly ever happened except when somebody said: "Really, Small!" He had been staying with Christopher Robin for a few seconds, and he had started round a gorse-bush for exercise, but instead of coming back the other way, as expected, he hadn't, so nobody knew where he was.

"I expect he's just gone home," said Christopher Robin to Rabbit.

"Did he say Good-bye-and-thank-you-for-a-nice-time?" said Rabbit.

"He'd only just said how-do-you-do," said Christopher Robin.

"Ha!" said Rabbit. After thinking a little, he went on: "Has he written a letter saying how much he enjoyed himself, and how sorry he was he had to go so suddenly?"

Christopher Robin didn't think he had.

"Ha!" said Rabbit again, and looked very important. "This is Serious. He is Lost. We must begin the Search at once."

Christopher Robin, who was thinking of something else, said: "Where's Pooh?" – but Rabbit had gone. So he went into his house and drew a picture of Pooh going a long walk at about seven o'clock in the morning, and then he climbed to the top of his tree and climbed down again, and then he wondered what Pooh was doing, and went across the Forest to see.

It was not long before he came to the Gravel Pit, and he looked down, and there were Pooh and Piglet, with their backs to him, dreaming happily.

"Ho-ho!" said Christopher Robin loudly and suddenly.

Piglet jumped six inches in the air with Surprise and Anxiety, but Pooh went on dreaming.

"It's the Heffalump!" thought Piglet nervously. "Now, then!" He hummed in his throat a little, so that none of the words should stick, and then, in one most delightfully easy way, he said: "Tra-la-la, tra-la-la," as if he had just thought of it. But he didn't look round, because if you look round and see a Very Fierce Heffalump looking down at you, sometimes you forget what you were going to say.

"Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um," said Christopher Robin in a voice like Pooh's. Because Pooh had once invented a song which went:

So whenever Christopher Robin sings it, he always sings it in a Pooh – voice, which seems to suit it better.

"He's said the wrong thing," thought Piglet anxiously. "He ought to have said, 'Ho-ho!' again. Perhaps I had better say it for him." And, as fiercely as he could, Piglet said: "Ho-ho!"

"How did you get there, Piglet?" said Christopher Robin in his ordinary voice.

"This is Terrible," thought Piglet. "First he talks in Pooh's voice, and then he talks in Christopher Robin's voice, and he's doing it so as to Unsettle me. "And being now Completely Unsettled, he said very quickly and squeakily: "This is a trap for Poohs, and I'm waiting to fall in it, ho-ho, what's all this, and then I say ho-ho again."

"What?" said Christopher Robin.

"A trap for ho-ho's," said Piglet huskily. "I've just made it, and I'm waiting for the ho-ho to come-come."

How long Piglet would have gone on like this I don't know, but at that moment Pooh woke up suddenly and decided that it was sixteen. So he got up; and as he turned his head so as to soothe himself in that awkward place in the middle of the back where something was tickling him, he saw Christopher Robin.

"Hallo!" he shouted joyfully.

"Hallo, Pooh."

Piglet looked up, and looked away again. And he felt so Foolish and Uncomfortable that he had almost decided to run away to Sea and be a Sailor, when suddenly he saw something.

"Pooh!" he cried. "There's something climbing up your back."

"I thought there was," said Pooh.

"It's Small!" cried Piglet.

"Oh, that's who it is, is it?" said Pooh.

"Christopher Robin, I've found Small!" cried Piglet.

"Well done, Piglet," said Christopher Robin.

And at these encouraging words Piglet felt quite happy again, and decided not to be a Sailor after all. So when Christopher Robin had helped them out of the Gravel Pit, they all went off together hand-in-hand.

And two days later Rabbit happened to meet Eeyore in the Forest.

"Hallo, Eeyore," he said, "what are you looking for?"

"Small, of course," said Eeyore. "Haven't you any brain?"

"Oh, but didn't I tell you?" said Rabbit. "Small was found two days ago."

There was a moment's silence.

"Ha-ha," said Eeyore bitterly. "Merriment and what-not. Don't apologize. It's just what would happen."