Return to the Hundred Acre Wood David Benedictus

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Chapter Five

in which Pooh goes in search of honey

ONE MORNING WHEN Winnie-the-Pooh was Doing Nothing Very Much, but doing it rather well, he thought he would call on his old friend Christopher Robin and see whether he was doing anything. If not, perhaps they could do nothing together, because there are few things nicer than doing nothing with a friend.

“Are you busy?” inquired Pooh.

“Asbusyasabee,”saidChristopher Robin, “which is not really very busy at all since all bees seem to do is buzz.”

“Andmakehoney, don’t forget that. And speaking of honey...”

“My goodness, it’s nearly time for elevenses,” said Christopher Robin as Pooh sat down. “Would you care for some toast and marmalade?”

“I do believe I would,” said Pooh gravely. “I don’t suppose you could see your way . . .”

“’Fraid not,” said Christopher Robin, “right out of honey. But there’s some condensed milk.”

So they both had a slice of toast and marmalade, cut into strips which Christopher Robin called “soldiers.” then, while they ate, Pooh asked a difficult question.

“I have been thinking about honey,” he said, “and how we get it from the bees. Do you think they mind us taking it?”

“They probably want us to,” said Christopher Robin, “otherwise they’d run out of room. Like cows and milk.”

Pooh said: “I think we ought to say thank you to them.”

“That’s an excellent idea. Shall we go now? There’s No Time Like the Present.”

Pooh wrinkled his brow. “But we don’t have a present, do we? I wonder what the bees would like.”

Christopher Robin thought for a while, then decided to take them a model airplane, “Because they must be interested in flying.” Also a yo-yo because he had two, and a tin model of a farmhouse complete with climbing roses.

“If I were a bee,” said Pooh, “I would like best something beginning with B, but the only thing I can think of beginning with B is ‘bee,’ and they’ve got plenty of those already.”

“How about bread and butter?” suggested Christopher Robin.

So it was agreed that along with the airplane and the yo-yo and the farmhouse, they would take bread and butter wrapped up in greaseproof paper. But when they reached the hollow oak in which the bees had taken up residence—oh, many years ago, long before the days of Pooh and Christopher Robin—Pooh looked at the oak and then at Christopher Robin and then back at the oak.

“Do you see what I don’t see, Christopher Robin?”

“Yes, Pooh. Or no, as the case may be.”

There were no bees in the hollow oak. Christopher Robin and Pooh walked around the tree several times and into it and out of it again. There was nothing except a few wood lice.

“Let’s look on the bright side,” said Christopher Robin.

“Is there a bright side?”

“Of course there is, Pooh. Here we are with several slices of bread and butter and nobody to eat them.”

“Well, there is somebody to eat them,” said Pooh, “and that is certainly a bright side, but, on the dark side, if there are no bees...”

“I was thinking of that myself, Pooh.”

“Oh dear,” said Pooh.

“Cheer up, Pooh.”

Christopher Robin handed him a piece of bread and butter. “We will organize a Search Party.”

“I don’t think I am feeling verywell,”saidPooh,passing the bread and butter back to Christopher Robin. “I shall go home and count my pots of honey.”

But when he reached home, another shock awaited him. There were only three pots in the cupboard. And it didn’t take him long to count to three. When he looked more closely it appeared that one of them was empty. There was nothing for it but to compose a sad hum. It went like this:

Piglet had a haycorn,
A nice, big round one.
Eeyore had a thistle,
Which was juicy and green.
Rabbit had a carrot
(He went out and found one.)
Which was all very well for him.

Pooh looked everywhere,
The bedroom, the kitchen,
Even in the corners of the garden shed,
But there wasn’t any honey,
Not a spoonful, not a smidgeon.
“I should have stayed in bed,”
Said Pooh,
“With blankets on my head.”

So, Piglet, enjoy
Your fine, round haycorn,
Eeyore, your thistle
So juicy and green,
And Rabbit eat your carrot
And I hope that you enjoy it
While Pooh grows sad and lean.
For there isn’t any honey,
In the pot or in the larder,
And I even had a look in the gloomy shed.
No, there isn’t any honey,
And it isn’t very funny.
“I should have stayed in bed,”
Said Pooh,
“And just dreamt of honey instead.”

But this hum depressed Pooh even more. He tried to imagine a world without honey and how difficult it would be to get out of bed in the morning knowing that the shelf would be empty. And how difficult it would be to go to sleep at night knowing that when he got up again things would be just the same! He could only think of one way to cheer himself up. Very slowly he put a paw on the second-to-last pot of honey, and very slowly he drew it to him.

Meanwhile, Christopher Robin had set off on a tour of the Forest to ask if anyone had seen the bees. Hestarted in the boggy place that was home to Eeyore.

“Lost your way, Christopher Robin?”

“No, Eeyore, I came to see you.”

“That’s very kind of you. Of course, I do have other visitors from time to time. A week ago last Thursday there was this hedgehog, but hedgehogs, well, they’ve not got much small talk. One does one’s best. ‘How are the prickles ?’ I ask. ‘Much the same,’ they say, and then the conversation dries up.”

“I came to ask you something. Eeyore, have you seen any bees? They’ve gone missing.”

“Oh, they have, have they? Well, they haven’t come here. They’ve swarmed, I expect. That’s what bees do. The grass is always greener on the other side of the Forest. Would have swarmed myself years ago, but it’s not the sort of thing one can do on one’s own.”

“Oh, Eeyore, thank you. You’ve been such a help.”

“Really?” asked Eeyore to Christopher Robin’s retreating back. “You’re not just saying that? Glad to have been of service, if I was. And if not, think nothing of it. Come again in a year or two.”

“Owl,” said Christopher Robin a short time later, “we’re looking for the bees.”

“They’ll be in the hollow oak,” said Owl.

“We thought so too, but they really aren’t, and Eeyore thinks they may have swarmed to somewhere else. Owl, I was wondering, if you were to fly over the Forest you might spot them, then hoot for us to come over.”

“Indeed,” conceded Owl. He really wanted to say something else, only Christopher Robin seemed to have covered it all already.

Pausing only to exercise his wings with a few loosening flaps, off Owl went. He flew east into the sun, which made him blink, south to where he could see his shadow flying beneath him on the chalky slopes of the downs, west to Where the Woozle Wasn’t (and where the bees weren’t either), and then back north to where he had started from. Everywhere there were trees and rolling grass and little insects—none of which were bees.

He was considering Giving Up and going home to a mug of cocoa and a digestive biscuit when he saw what at first he took to be a bundle of bracken in a bush, or maybe a pile of old leaves rolled along by the wind into a place from which they could roll no farther.

Owl thought to himself : “Maybe,” and then, “It might be!” and then, “It is!” He hooted his loudest hoot and Christopher Robin, hearing him, climbed onto his bicycle and tinkled the bell. Pooh balanced himself in the bicycle basket and directed Christopher Robin all the way to where Owl was hovering on a friendly current of air. Sure enough, in a bramble bush right underneath Owl was what might have been a bundle of bracken or a pile of old leaves, but was neither of those things. Pooh’s eyes opened very wide.

“Bees,” he cried. “Thousands and thousands of them.”

“Oh, Pooh!” said Christopher Robin, one foot on the ground to steady the bicycle. “Aren’t they grand?”

“Should I ask them to come home?” asked Pooh.

“You could try.”

“Bees!” cried Pooh. The bees buzzed a little louder. “BEES!”

The buzzing of the bees grew not just louder but angrier and one of them landed on Pooh’s nose.

“I don’t think this is working, Pooh. We shall have to think of something else,” said Christopher Robin.

“I can only think of honey,” said Pooh sadly, “and having none.” He blew the bee off his nose.

They moved away from the swarm, and then stopped to think.

“Perhaps they don’t like our voices,” suggested Christopher Robin.

“I can’t help being growly,”saidPooh.“I’m a Bear.”

“We could play them some music,” said Christopher Robin. “‘The Homecoming Waltz,’ perhaps. I’ll go and get the gramophone.”

But the bees ignored “The Homecoming Waltz”; and when Christopher Robin played “God Save the King” the buzzing became Very Fierce indeed, and Pooh said: “Maybe it should be ‘God Save the Queen?’” but they didn’t have that.

Then, when Christopher Robin put on “You Are My Honeysuckle, I Am the Bee,” the buzzing got so ferocious that Pooh took the needle off the record in such a hurry that it made a big scratch.

“Bother!” said Pooh. “If they don’t like conversation and they don’t like music, and if they keep getting angry all the time, what are we to do?”

“We must hold a Crisis Meeting,” said Christopher Robin. “I’ll summon the others.”

So Christopher Robin rode off on his bicycle, while Pooh returned home to do an Emergency Check on his pantry. To his dismay, there were only two pots of honey left on the shelf, and one of them was nearly empty. He put them on the table, and he counted them this way and that, but it was not much fun counting to two (or one and a quarter), whichever way you did it. So he put his finger into one of them and took it out and sucked it. He thought he had never tasted anything so delicious in all his life.

The Crisis Meeting was held the next morning in a clearing in the Forest. Pooh explained that the bees had left the hollow oak; Owl described where they had ended up, and Christopher Robin suggested that they needed to be Enticed Back. Then there was silence, except for a chomping sound. Lottie, who was seated on the edge of the circle, was making daisy chains, biting through the stalks with her sharp little teeth.

“The thing about bees,” she said, when she noticed everyone was looking, “is that they like flowers. And they do what their Queen tells them to, so you need to get her on your side. You can tell which one the Queen Bee is because she makes a sort of humming noise.”

“Lottie,you are a remarkable rodent !” said Christopher Robin. “Do you have a plan?”

“Otters are not rodents but mustelids actually,” said Lottie. “But, yes, I am remarkable, and I do have a plan.”

Then she told them that bees like not only flowers but shiny, glittery things in general, so colourful decorations might entice them back. Everyone was asked to search their houses and the Forest for anything suitable with which to decorate the hollow oak.

Oh, how they toiled! Eeyore trotted to the very edge of the Forest, with Piglet on his back clinging tightly to his mane, and they returned with masses of bluebells and clover. Rabbit summoned as many Friends and Relations as could be brought together at short notice and instructed them to come back with anything that was glittery. Rabbit himself contributed a canteen of cutlery which he had been polishing and keeping for a special occasion. Kanga had taken on the job of arranging things, hanging spoons and forks around the entrance to the hollow part of the tree. Lottie slunk along dragging a diamond tiara.

“It’s not real, of course,” she explained to anyone who would listen (and some who would not), “but it comes from a very good house.”

Roo and Tigger found a box of marbles which they put into nets, and these too were attached to the tree branches like exotic fruit. Christopher Robin tied the model airplane to a twig as high up as he could reach.

By the time the sun had fallen behind the Six Pine Trees the work was finished, and everyone stood back staring in wonder at a tree unlike any that had ever been seen in that Forest or any other. On every twig within reach were wreaths of flowers, and from every branch hung tinkly, glittery things which twisted and turned in the breeze and reflected the crimson sky.

Piglet sighed. “That is beautiful.”

“Yes,”said Pooh, “but will the bees think so?”

There was nothing for it but to wait until the morning.

Pooh had a dream that night. He was in a cage, and beyond the bars of the cage was a honey tree. It was covered in buds, and from each bud there dripped down a rich, heavy dollop of—oh, my! But whenever he tried to stretch his paws through the bars they were immediately grasped by brambles.

Suddenly he woke up. Through the window he could just see to the east a lightening of the sky, all lemon and pink.

Would the bees be back? Would there be honey?

Pooh’s stomach rumbled sadly, but he ignored it and climbed out of bed.

It was so cold at dawn in the Hundred Acre Wood that Pooh could see his breath making smoke signals in the air. He listened hard and could just hear the tinkly, glittery sounds of all the things that were hanging from the tree. He rounded the corner, and there in front of him stood the hollow oak.

But no bees.

“Oh . . . bother,” said Pooh, though bother was not quite what he meant. “Oh, double bother!” he added.

He felt as if he should very probably compose a hum; only it was as if the bees had taken all the hums with them. There were no hums left in the world, and no honey and no smackerels of anything, and only empty tummies ... and while there might be a rhyme or two in all that, Pooh didn’t have the heart for it.

“Please come back and make some honey,” he said to any bees who might be listening. But, of course, no bee could hear him.

Pooh sat on the ground and stared at the empty, glittering tree. He stared until the sun was high in the sky, and the other animals came to find out if Lottie’s plan had worked.

When they saw how things were, they began to remove the decorations from the tree. They took away the airplane, and the marbles, and the baubles, and the spoons and the forks, and the tiara that had glittered so beautifully, although it was only paste.

When they were finished, Christopher Robin said to Pooh, “Don’t worry, we’ll think of an idea,” and he led everyone away.

Pooh didn’t go with them, but stood quietly wishing that he was not a Bear of Little Brain and that he could think of an idea himself.

Pooh decided to go back to the bramble bush and check that the swarm was still there, which it was. Then it occurred to him that if he stood on a nearby branch, he might be able to hear the humming noise that Lottie had said the Queen made. Perhaps if a Honeyless Bear bowed very low and asked her very nicely, a Queen might take pity on him.

Still all Pooh could hear was the rustle of leaves. Maybe if he edged a little farther so that his ears were really close to the bees, then . . .

There was a loud crack as the branch on which he was standing gave way. Pooh landed face-first, right in the middle of the swarm—and in the brambles.

Then for the first time he heard the humming noise, and he thought to himself that it must be the Queen, but no sooner had he thought this than he felt a sharp pain on the end of his nose. It might have been a sting and it might have been a bramble, but he found that he didn’t care which just so long as there weren’t any more.

So he picked himself up and ran away as quickly as he could, and the bees flew after him just as fast.

Then, as he ran from the bees thinking about very little except that he was running and a swarm of angry bees was behind him, Pooh found that he had an idea. And it was not just an everyday idea, but one of the very best ideas he had ever had. Instead of running back to his own house, or Christopher Robin’s house, or anywhere else at all, he went straight back to the hollow tree.

When he got there, he pretended to hide inside. Sounding crosser than ever, the bees followed him in.

But Winnie-the-Pooh was not there. He had sneaked out by the back way and sat on a little hillock abou a hundred yards away, to see whether the bees would follow him out.

He watched and he watched, but although all the bees had flown into the tree not a single one flew out. And when he had satisfied himself that the bees were back to stay, he forgot about how sore and swollen his nose was and how cold it was when you had had no breakfast and had forgotten your scarf, and he began to think abou his bed, which would be nice and warm. Better still, he thought of his one remaining pot of honey, which had still not been opened.

But it soon would be.

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