Winnie the Pooh and Piglet were sitting by the river with Christopher Robin, not doing anything in particular, when Piglet said “Is that Owl coming this way?”
Christopher Robin and Pooh both looked where Piglet was pointing in the sky. “Oh I suppose so,” said Christopher Robin carelessly. “Owl is flying very fast; I wonder what he wants.”
In a very short amount of time Owl landed beside them. What Owl wanted was to tell them Something Important. He first took a few moments to catch his breath because he wasn’t used to flying quite so quickly. That gave Pooh almost enough time to get back to not doing anything in particular, but it wasn’t quite long enough when Owl said: “Christopher Robin! And Piglet, and Pooh, of course. I have Something Important to confide in you.”
Pooh wondered what “confide in you” might mean, because if it was something IN you, then you mightn’t want Owl having anything to do with it. But he didn’t have time to wonder this all the way to the end, because Christopher Robin said “What is it, Owl?”
“Well,” said Owl,” it all began during my morning flight. I habitually take flight at nine minutes after six every morning, you know, and do my daily swooping. This is to survey my surroundings, of course, and also it’s my way of taking a bit of Exercise.”
When he said that last part he glanced at Pooh out of the corner of his eye, because he knew Pooh did — or was supposed to do — his Stoutness Exercises. But Pooh was looking in a different direction and missed the chance to nod at Owl in an understanding sort of way, which had been how Owl had hoped he might nod.
“It was during this daily ritual of mine,” said Owl, “that I saw something different. Something unusual. Something unexpected. ‘Something,’ to use an expression often employed by my cousin Esmerelda, who is an eagle and very sharp-eyed, ‘That You Don’t See Every Day.’”
Piglet’s ears began to twitch. Not because he wanted them to, but because they were wondering when Owl was going to get to the point. It was the sort of thing Piglet’s ears often wondered when Owl was talking, and sometimes Piglet felt embarrassed by it.
“And what I saw,” continued Owl (and Piglet’s ears stopped twitching because it seemed like Owl was about to tell them his Something Important), “what I saw,” said Owl again because he felt that somehow he might have been interrupted, “was a pig”.
“But Owl,” said Christopher Robin, “you can see a pig every day. Piglet, here, is a young pig, and a very fine one indeed.”
At this, Piglet’s ears turned pink and he looked at Christopher Robin, thinking how nice it was to be called a “fine young pig.”
“Not this sort of pig,” said Owl, waving his wing in Piglet’s direction. “That sort of pig,” and he pointed up into the sky with his other wing.
Christopher Robin, Pooh, and Piglet looked up in the direction where Owl was pointing. “Owl,” said Pooh, “I think that’s a bird.”
“My dear Pooh,” said Owl, “if you please, would you try to look harder?”
Pooh scrunched up his face, which he thought was What You Did when someone told you to “look harder”. He still saw something in the sky with wings, and he said “Well, Owl, I see something with wings. And there are two things that fly with wings, and one of them is a bird. And it’s too far away for it to be the other one, which is a bee.”
“Just wait for a moment,” said Owl, and he made a sort of “come here” gesture with his wing. The flying thing flew over and landed next to them. They saw at once that it was not a bird at all, but a pig. This pig, though, had wings.
“Oh, ‘ello chaps,” said the pig. “An’ ‘ow are you, Owl? These the friends you were tellin’ me ‘bout?”
“Indeed they are,” said Owl, “and I expect they are as surprised to see a pig who can fly as I was.”
“Oh, I don’t ‘spect so,” said the pig. “Us flyin’ pigs been talked about since the 1500s at least. That chap John Withal wrote about us in his book, y’know. An’ since he was just goin’ on about tellin’ proverbs that everybody already knew, stories ‘bout us are a long sight older.”
“Ah, yes,” said Owl, “that reminds me of my great-great-great grandfather Cyril, who…”
“An’ not only that,” interrupted the pig, “but we sort are even in Alice in Wonderland. The Duchess, don’t ya know, tells Alice she’s got as much right to think as pigs have to fly. And what that means is Alice has every right in th’ world, o’ course!”
With that, the pig opened his wings, which were even wider than Owl’s, and flew off with a “ta-ta, chaps!” over his shoulder.
“Well,” said Owl, whose feathers were still ruffled from having been interrupted, “as I was about to say, my great…”
“You were right,” interrupted Christopher Robin, “that sort of pig, Owl, is not the sort you see every day.”
“I think,” said Pooh, who was hoping that now they could get back to doing nothing in particular, “that I feel better with things that I do see every day. Like you, Christopher Robin, and you, Piglet.”
