The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh The House at Pooh Corner: Chapter 8

In Which Piglet Does a Very Grand Thing

• Pooh and Piglet meet in a quiet, warm spot in the woods where they often meet to decide what to do together.
• This time they decide to do nothing, so Pooh makes up a song about it.
• Another day, they decide almost the opposite. They decide to go visit everybody and have a very friendly day.
• Really, they want to be fed by everybody. That's the dream.
• Piglet thinks they should have a reason for visiting, so Pooh declares that their reason is Thursday, and they are to wish everybody a Very Happy Thursday.
• It's a very windy day, so they go to Pooh's house first, which is closest.
• After a snack they move along to Kanga's, chatting about the fierce wind the entire way.
• There, they have lunch.
• And on to Rabbit's.
• Though he's not impressed with their reason for visiting, Rabbit gives them a little something to eat, and then they're on their way.
• To Christopher Robin's (the character).
• They have an early tea with CR, then hurry to see Eeyore, hoping to get a proper tea-time tea with Owl afterward. Tea is big in England, so this is important.
• A few Negative Nancy words from Eeyore, and on to Owl's.
• They walk into the wind, which is mightier out there in the field by Eeyore's house and blows Piglet's ears right back and his nose right up and his body almost clear over.
• Eventually, they get back into the shelter of the forest and make their way promptly to Owl's.
• They go in and Pooh can barely contain himself thinking about more snacks and tea.
• And Owl just keeps trying to make conversation.
• Owl talks about the weather.
• Fittingly, during some wind talk, they hear a loud cracking noise.
• Pooh starts shouting for Piglet to watch out for the clock, and for him. Suddenly, everything is sliding!
• Another CRACK! and everything falls and clutters.
• When the confusion is over, a tablecloth balls itself up and starts wriggling round the room.
• It's just Piglet.
• They start to find each other in the mess and it dawns on them that Owl's house has been blown down.
• Sideways, in fact. Owl now has a uniquely wall-like floor, which will soon be all the rage in Sweden (you'll see), but was less than ideal back in England in 1928.
• They try to think of something to do with all this mess, so Pooh thinks of a song.
• The song having been sung, Owl turns their attention to the real problem, which is figuring out how to exit the building, seeing as something's fallen on the front door and there's no clear path out.
• In an interesting turn, both Piglet and Owl turn to Pooh—the very-little-brained-bear—to come up with a good plan.
• Pooh's first plan is for Owl to fly Piglet up to the letterbox (the mail slot) which is now in the ceiling, where Piglet, being very small, can squeeze through and run for help.
• Owl protests the plan because of something about dorsal muscles.
• And Piglet protests because it's just plain scary!
• New plan, at least in part: tie a string around Piglet and Owl flies the other end up through the wire around the letterbox. This sets up a pulley system so they can hoist Piglet up to the slot.
• Piglet will squeeze through.
• Run for help.
• Rescued.
• Owl won't have to use dorsal muscles, whatever those are.
• Piglet, well, you're small so there's really no choice. We had to use win-lose on that one. It wasn't pretty.
• Pooh convinces Piglet by appealing to his prideful side. It's a very grand thing to do. People will talk. And someone (Pooh) may write a song about it one day.
• Piglet is hoisted up to the letter box, he squeezes through the slot, and shouts a report down to his friends. The tree has blown clean over, and a branch has fallen on the door.
• But don't worry, Piglet will soon return with Christopher Robin (the character) for help in half-an-hour.
• Half-an-hour?
• Just enough time for Owl to tell a dreadfully boring story and Pooh to take a nap while pretending to listen.
• The story ends here, but we know they get rescued. It's all okay. This isn't the Sopranos or anything.