Well, he washed the pot out, and dried it, while Owl licked the end of his pencil, and wondered how to spell ‘birthday’.
‘Can you read, Pooh?’ he asked a little anxiously. ‘There’s a notice about knocking and ringing outside my door, which Christopher Robin wrote. Could you read it?’
‘Christopher Robin told me what it said, and then I could.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what this says, and then you’ll be able to.’
So Owl wrote … and this is what he wrote:
HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA
BTHUTHDY.
Pooh looked on admiringly.
‘I’m just saying “A Happy Birthday”,’ said Owl carelessly.
‘It’s a nice long one,’ said Pooh, very much impressed by it.
‘Well, actually, of course, I’m saying “A Very Happy Birthday with love from Pooh.” Naturally it takes a good deal of pencil to say a long thing like that.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Pooh.
While all this was happening, Piglet had gone back to his own house to get Eeyore’s balloon. He held it very tightly against himself, so that it shouldn’t blow away, and he ran as fast as he could so as to get to Eeyore before Pooh did; for he thought that he would like to be the first one to give a present, just as if he had thought of it without being told by anybody. And running along, and thinking how pleased Eeyore would be, he didn’t look where he was going … and suddenly he put his foot in a rabbit hole, and fell down flat on his face.
BANG!!!???***!!!
Piglet lay there, wondering what had happened. At first he thought that the whole world had blown up; and then he thought that perhaps only the Forest part of it had; and then he thought that perhaps only he had, and he was now alone in the moon or somewhere, and would never see Christopher Robin or Pooh or Eeyore again. And then he thought, ‘Well, even if I’m in the moon, I needn’t be face downwards all the time,’ so he got cautiously up and looked about him.