One fine morning in the Hundred Acre Wood, Winnie the Pooh woke up with a rumbly in his tumbly. He stretched, yawned, and gave his head a little scratch, for something seemed amiss. “Oh bother,” he said, noticing that his honey pot, which usually sat proudly beside his bed, was missing.
Now, Pooh was not the sort of bear to panic, but this was a matter of some urgency. A bear without honey is like a day without sunshine, and Pooh very much liked both honey and sunshine. So, with a determined nod, he decided to visit his good friend Rabbit, for Rabbit was clever and often knew what to do in a bother like this.
As Pooh wandered along the familiar path, humming a little hum to keep his spirits up, he thought of how nice it would be to have just one small smackerel of honey. But no matter how much he thought or hummed, the honey did not appear, so he kept on walking until he reached Rabbit’s house.
“Hallo, Rabbit!” Pooh called cheerfully as he knocked on the door.
But there was no answer.
“Perhaps Rabbit is out,” Pooh thought. But just as he was about to turn around and head back, he heard a faint rustling sound from the garden. Curious, Pooh followed the noise and found Rabbit kneeling in his carrot patch, looking rather flustered.
“Good morning, Rabbit,” Pooh said, trying to sound as though he wasn’t thinking about honey at all. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, botheration!” Rabbit exclaimed, not even noticing Pooh at first. “These carrots simply won’t stay put! I plant them in the ground, and they pop right back out again, as if they’ve got minds of their own!”
Pooh tilted his head and watched as Rabbit pushed a particularly stubborn carrot back into the soil, only for it to spring up again with a little boing.
“Why don’t you sit on them?” Pooh suggested helpfully, for Pooh’s solution to many things involved sitting down, particularly if it was near a pot of honey.
Rabbit looked up, surprised to see Pooh there. “Oh, Pooh! I didn’t see you! Sitting on them won’t do; they’ll just pop up somewhere else. I’ve been at this all morning, and it’s simply exhausting!”
Pooh thought for a moment, which, as everyone knows, is no small task for a bear of very little brain. Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, he said, “Perhaps I could help. Two paws are better than one, as Christopher Robin always says.”
Rabbit, who was usually the one to give advice, paused and then nodded. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. You take that side, and I’ll take this one.”
As Pooh wandered over to the carrot patch, he realised that he couldn't possibly push all the carrots down by himself. If you can help Winnie push 40 carrots down, you may be rewarded with some honey
Click here to go to the carrot patch
PS - There is a bonus cache in this series, and you can collect the bonus word in the final logbook