Birds sang, worms wiggled in the dew-damp earth, and the sun poked its cheeky fingers through the root windows of Winnie the Pooh's tree-home. The bear awoke and gallumphed out of bed. He waddled over to the mirror, smoothing out the creases in his nightshirt, and stretched.
It was at this moment that Pooh saw the new visitor.
A little, round bump poked up under the cloth of his nightshirt, near the bottom. Could this be a new friend for Pooh to play with? Or… Pooh froze, having just been hit by a worrying realization: the bump might be a Woozle. It had crept into his home during the night, bitten tightly onto the seams between his legs, and would stay there until the opportune moment when it would pounce out and steal all of Pooh Bear's honey away.
Stresses like these called for a snack. Pooh waddled over to the Honey Corner, the corner of his tree home reserved for stacks upon stacks of honey jars. He tried to move carefully so as not to anger the Woozle, but it swung back and forth under his nightshirt, upsetting a table, and knocking over a vase. Pooh slapped it, trying to teach it a lesson, but it bounced up and poked him in the eye.
But after all manner of stumbling, Pooh reached his precious store of honey, popped the top off of a honey jar, and brought a gooey, yellow paw to his mouth, and… stopped.
Pooh was not hungry for honey.
Since the day he was stitched, Pooh had never not been hungry for honey. Through thunderstorms, floods, gloom eeyore days, and happy honey days, the foremost thought in Pooh's bear mind had been "it puts the Honey in the mouth," but today…
Pooh's attention was captured by a blur of orange and black that sped past the window. It was Tigger, Pooh's exotic, older tiger friend. Pooh had never noticed before the elegance of Tigger's spring tail, stiff and strong when compressed, long and springy as it flung Tigger into the air. There must be some well-developed musculature under all that felt fur to support such hopping. Truly, Tiggers were wonderful things.
And Pooh found himself stumbling out the door, tongue lolling, walking mindlessly after that Tigger booty…
When the pink mist faded from Pooh's vision, he found himself pressed up against a tree. He tugged backwards, trying to pull himself free, but could not. Looking down, Pooh saw that the Woozle was still attach to him, and that it had wedged itself inside a small, wooden window.
A voice came from inside the house. "Pooh Bear! Is that you?" It was Piglet, and in fact this was his very house.
"Hullo there, Piglet," responded the bear. "I seems to have caught myself in a sticky situation. There is a Woozle that has bitten me and won't let go, and now it's stuck in your window. Would you mind pushing it out?"
Piglet mustered up all of his braveness and began to wrestle the Woozle, pushing and pulling at it with all of his might.
"Oh yes, Piglet," said the bear. "I'm almost… there… just…"
Christopher Robin woke up, covered in a sweat. That dream again… he wrapped up his sheets and crept downstairs to do a load of laundry.