Winnie the Pooh - Milne Alan Alexander. Страница 3

away from it.

"Hooray!" you shouted.

"Isn't that fine?" shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you. "What do I look like?"

"You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon," you said.

"Not," said Pooh anxiously, "-not like a small black cloud in a blue sky?"

"Not very much."

"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different. And, as I say, you never can

tell with bees."

There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed. He could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn't quite reach the honey.

After a little while he called down to you.
"Christopher Robin!" he said in a loud whisper.
"Hallo!"
"I think the bees suspect something!"
"What sort of thing?"

"I don't know. But something tells me that they're suspicious!"

"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey?"

"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."

There was another little silence, and then he called down to you again.

"Christopher Robin!"

"Yes?"
"Have you an umbrella in your house?"
"I think so."

"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.' I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are practising on these bees."

Well, you laughed to yourself, "Silly old Bear!" but you didn't say it aloud because you were so fond of him, and you went home for your umbrella.

"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as soon as you got back to the tree. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered that the bees are now

definitely Suspicious."
"Shall I put my umbrella up?" you said.

"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The important bee to deceive is

the Queen Bee. Can you see which is the Queen Bee from down
there?"
"No."

"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying,

'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do what I can by singing a little Cloud

Song, such as a cloud might sing... Go!"

So, while you walked up and down and wondered if it would rain, Winnie-the-Pooh sang this song:

How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!
Every little cloud
Always sings aloud.
"How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!"
It makes him very proud
To be a little cloud.

The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them, indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud for a moment, and then got

up again.

"Christopher-ow!-Robin," called out the cloud.

"Yes?"

"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These

are the wrong sort of bees."
"Are they?"

"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort of

honey, shouldn't you?"
"Would they?"

"Yes. So I think I shall come down."

"How?" asked you.

Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go of the string, he would fall-bump-and he didn't like the idea of that. So he thought for a long time, and then he said:

"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you got your