Winnie-the-Pooh. A. A. Milne

the blue one home with you.

      ‘Which one would you like?’ you asked Pooh. He put his head between his paws and thought very carefully.

      ‘It’s like this,’ he said. ‘When you go after honey with a balloon, the great thing is not to let the bees know you’re coming. Now, if you have a green balloon, they might think you were only part of the tree, and not notice you, and if you have a blue balloon, they might think you were only part of the sky, and not notice you, and the question is: Which is most likely?’

      ‘Wouldn’t they notice you underneath the balloon?’ you asked.

      ‘They might or they might not,’ said Winnie-the-Pooh. ‘You never can tell with bees.’ He thought for a moment and said: ‘I shall try to look like a small black cloud. That will deceive them.’

      ‘Then you had better have the blue balloon,’ you said; and so it was decided.

      Well, you both went out with the blue balloon, and you took your gun with you, just in case, as you always did, and Winnie-the-Pooh went to a very muddy place that he knew of, and rolled and rolled until he was black

      all over; and then, when the balloon was blown up as big as big, and you and Pooh were both holding on to the string, you let go suddenly, and Pooh Bear floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed there – level with the top of the tree and about twenty feet 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 gun?’

      ‘Of course I have,’ you said. ‘But if I do that, it will spoil the balloon,’ you said.

      ‘But if you don’t,’ said Pooh, ‘I shall have to let go, and that would spoil me.’

      When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you aimed very carefully at the balloon, and fired.

      ‘Ow!’ said Pooh.

      ‘Did I miss?’ you asked.

      ‘You didn’t exactly miss,’ said Pooh, ‘but you missed the balloon.’

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the balloon, and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down to the ground.

      But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon all that time that they