"Where's Pooh?" he asked.
"Tigger dear, where's Pooh?" said Kanga. Tigger explained what had happened at the same time that Roo was explaining about his Biscuit Cough and Kanga was telling them not both to talk at once, so it was some time before Christopher Robin guessed that Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit were all lost in the mist on the top of the Forest.
"It's a funny thing about Tiggers," whispered Tigger to Roo, "how Tiggers never get lost."
"Why don't they, Tigger?"
"They just don't," explained Tigger. "That's how it is."
"Well," said Christopher Robin, "we shall have to go and find them, that's all. Come on, Tigger."
"I shall have to go and find them," explained Tigger to Roo.
"May I find them too?" asked Roo eagerly.
"I think not to-day, dear," said Kanga. "Another day."
"Well, if they're lost to-morrow, may I find them?"
"We'll see," said Kanga, and Roo, who knew what that meant, went into a corner and practised jumping out at himself, partly because he wanted to practise this, and partly because he didn't want Christopher Robin and Tigger to think that he minded when they went off without him.
"The fact is," said Rabbit, "we've missed our way somehow."
They were having a rest in a small sand-pit on the top of the Forest. Pooh was getting rather tired of that sand-pit, and suspected it of following them about, because whichever direction they started in, they always ended up at it, and each time, as it came through the mist at them, Rabbit said triumphantly, "now I know where we are!" and Pooh said sadly, "So do I," and Piglet said nothing. He had tried to think of something to say, but the only thing he could think of was, "Help, help!" and it seemed silly to say that, when he had Pooh and Rabbit with him.
"Well," said Rabbit, after a long silence in which nobody thanked him for the nice walk they were having, "we'd better get on, I suppose. Which way shall we try?"
"How would it be," said Pooh slowly, "if, as soon as we're out of sight of this Pit, we try to find it again?"
"What's the good of that?" said Rabbit.
"Well," said Pooh, "we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought that if we looked for this Pit, we'd be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren't looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really."
"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit.
"No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it on the way."
"If I walked away from this Pit, and then walked back to it, of course I should find it."
"Well, I thought perhaps you wouldn't," said Pooh. "I just thought."
"Try," said Piglet suddenly. "We'll wait here for you."
Rabbit gave a laugh to show how silly Piglet was, and walked into the mist. After he had gone a hundred yards, he turned and walked back again... and after Pooh and Piglet had waited twenty minutes for him, Pooh got up.
"I just thought," said Pooh. "Now then, Piglet, let's go home."
"But, Pooh," cried Piglet, all excited, "do you know the way?"
"No," said Pooh. "But there are twelve pots of honey in my cupboard, and they've been calling to me for hours. I couldn't hear them properly before, because Rabbit would talk, but if nobody says anything except those twelve pots, I think, Piglet, I shall know where they are calling from. Come on."
They walked off together; and for a long time Piglet said nothing, so as not to interrupt the pots; and then suddenly he made a squeaky noise... and an oo-noise... because now he began to know where he was; but he still didn't dare to say so out loud, in case he wasn't. And just when he was getting so sure of himself that it didn't matter whether the pots went on calling or not, there was a shout from in front of them, and out of the mist came Christopher Robin.
"Oh, there you are," said Christopher Robin carelessly, trying to pretend that he hadn't been Anxious.
"Here we are," said Pooh.
"Where's Rabbit?"
"I don't know," said Pooh.
"Oh-well, I expect Tigger will find him. He's sort of looking for you all."
"Well," said Pooh, "I've got to go home for something, and so has Piglet, because we haven't had it yet, and "
"I'll come and watch you," said Christopher Robin.
So he went home with Pooh, and watched him for quite a long time... and all the time he was watching, Tigger was tearing round the Forest making loud yapping noises for Rabbit. And at last a very Small and Sorry Rabbit heard him. And the Small and Sorry Rabbit rushed through the mist at the noise, and it suddenly turned into Tigger; a friendly Tigger, a Grand Tigger, a Large and Helpful Tigger, a Tigger who bounced, if he bounced at all, in just the beautiful way a Tigger ought to bounce.
"Oh, Tigger, I am glad to see you," cried Rabbit.
Chapter VIII.
In which Piglet doesa very grand thing
HALF-WAY between Pooh's house and Piglet's house was a Thoughtful Spot where they met sometimes when they had decided to go and see each other, and as it was warm and out of the wind they would sit down there for a little and wonder what they would do now that they had seen each other. One day when they had decided not to do anything, Pooh made up a verse about it, so that everybody should know what the place was for.
Now one autumn morning when the wind had blown all the leaves off the trees in the night, and was trying to blow the branches off, Pooh and Piglet were sitting in the Thoughtful Spot and wondering.
"What I think," said Pooh, "is I think we'll go to Pooh Corner and see Eeyore, because perhaps his house has been blown down, and perhaps he'd like us to build it again."
"What I think," said Piglet, "is I think we'll go and see Christopher Robin, only he won't be there, so we can't."
"Let's go and see everybody," said Pooh. "Because when you've been walking in the wind for miles, and you suddenly go into somebody's house, and he says, 'Hallo, Pooh, you're just in time for a little smackerel of something,' and you are, then it's what I call a Friendly Day."
Piglet thought that they ought to have a Reason for going to see everybody, like Looking for Small or Organizing an Expotition, if Pooh could think of something Pooh could.
"We'll go because it's Thursday," he said, "and we'll go to wish everybody a Very Happy Thursday. Come on, Piglet."
They got up; and when Piglet had sat down again, because he didn't know the wind was so strong, and had been helped up by Pooh, they started off. They went to Pooh's house first, and luckily Pooh was at home just as they got there, so he asked them in, and they had some, and then they went on to Kanga's house, holding on to each other, and shouting "Isn't it?" and "What?" and "I can't hear." By the time they got to Kanga's house they were so buffeted that they stayed to lunch. Just at first it seemed rather cold outside afterwards, so they pushed on to Rabbit's as quickly as they could.
"We've come to wish you a Very Happy Thursday," said Pooh, when he had gone in and out once or twice just to make sure that he could get out again.
"Why, what's going to happen on Thursday?" asked Rabbit, and when Pooh had explained, and Rabbit, whose life was made up of Important Things, said, "Oh, I thought you'd really come about something," they sat down for a little... and by-and-by Pooh and Piglet went on again. The wind was behind them now, so they didn't have to shout.