Tigger Comes to the Forest and Has

Tigger Comes to the Forest and Has Breakfast
(After A. A. Milne)

This story began when Winnie-the-Pooh woke up in the middle of the night because of a strange
noise. The noise went on so Pooh decided to find out who it was. This is how he met Tigger.
Tigger was a stranger in the forest but he was friendly and cheerful. In the morning Pooh offered Tigger honey for breakfast. Tigger tasted honey and said he didn't like it. Piglet’s haycorns were not to his taste either. That’s why Pooh and Piglet decided to take Tigger to Eeyore’s place.
“ Hallo, Eeyore!” said Pooh. “This is Tigger.”
“What is Tigger?” said Eeyore.
“This,” explained Pooh and Piglet together, and Tigger smiled the happiest smile and
said nothing
He’s just come,” explained Piglet.
Eeyore thought for a long time and then said:
“ When is he going?”
Pooh explained to Eeyore that Tigger was a great friend of Christopher Robin, and
Piglet explained to Tigger that he mustn’t mind what Eeyore said because he was always
gloomy; and Eeyore explained to Piglet that, on the contrary, he was feeling particularly
cheerful this morning; and Tigger explained to anybody who was listening that he hadn’t
had any breakfast yet.
“ Tiggers always eat thistles,” said Pooh. “ So that was why we came to see you, Eeyore.”
“ Don’t mention it, Pooh.”
“ Oh, Eeyore, I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to see you.”
“ Quite-quite. But your new stripy friend — naturally, he wants his breakfast. What did
you say his name was?”
“ Tigger.”
“ Then come this way, Tigger.”
Eeyore led the way to the most thistly-looking patch' of thistles that ever was, and waved
a hoof at it.
“A little patch I was keeping for my birthday,” he said; “ but, after all, what are birthdays?
Here today and gone tomorrow. Help yourself, Tigger.”
Tigger thanked him and looked a little anxiously at Pooh.
“Are these really thistles?” he whispered.
“ Yes,” said Pooh.
“ What Tiggers like best?”
“ That’s right,” said Pooh.
“ I see,” said Tigger.
So he took a large mouthful.
“ Oh!” said Tigger.
He sal down and he put his paw in his mouth.
“ What’s the matter?” asked Pooh.
“ Hot!” mumbled Tigger.
“ Your Friend,” murmured Eeyore, “ appears to have bitten on a bee.”
Pooh’s friend stopped shaking his head and explained that Tiggers didn’t like thistles.
“ Then why spoil a perfectly good one?” asked Eeyore.
“ But you said,” began Pooh, “ you said that Tiggers liked everything except honey and
haycoms.”
“And thistles,” said Tigger, who was now running round in circles. With his tongue
hanging out.
Pooh looked at him sadly.
“ What are we going to do?” he asked Piglet.
Piglet knew the answer to that, and he said at once that they must go and see
Christopher Robin.
“You’ll find him with Kanga,” said Eeyore. He came close to Pooh, and said in a loud
whisper:
“Could you ask your friend to do his exercises somewhere else? I shall be having lunch
soon, and don’t want it bounced on just before I begin. Fussy of me, but we all have our little
ways.”
Pooh nodded solemnly and called to Tigger:
“Come along and we’ll go and see Kanga. She’s sure to have lots of breakfast for you.”
Tigger finished his last circle and came up to Pooh and Piglet.
“ Hot!” he explained with a large and friendly smile.
“Come on!” and he rushed ofT.
Pooh and Piglet walked slowly after him. As they walked Piglet said nothing, because
he couldn’t think of anything, and Pooh said nothing, because he was thinking of a poem.
Tigger had been bouncing in front of them all this time, turning round every now and then
to ask. “ Is this the way?” Ш
And now at last they came in sight of Kanga’s house, and there was Christopher Robin.
In the house they told Kanga what they wanted, and Kanga said very kindly: “ Well, look in
my cupboard, Tigger, dear, and see what you’d like.” Because she knew at once that, however
big Tigger seemed to be, he wanted as much kindness as Roo.
“Shall I look, too?” said Pooh, who was beginning to feel a little eleven o’clockish.' And
he found a small tin of condensed milk, and something seemed to tell him that Tiggers
didn’t like this, so he took it into a corner by itself where nobody would stop him.
But the more Tigger put his nose into this and his paw into that, the more things he
found that Tiggers didn’t like. And when he had found everything in the cupboard, and
couldn’t eat any of it, he said to Kanga, “ What happens now?”
But Kanga and Christopher Robin and Piglet were all standing round Roo, watching
him have his Extract of Malt. And Roo was saying, “ Must I?” and Kanga was saying, “ Now,
Roo, dear, you remember what you promised.”
“What is it?” whispered Tigger to Piglet.
“ His Strengthening Medicine,” said Piglet. “ It helps him to put on weight but he hates it.”
So Tigger came closer, and he leant over the back of Roo’s chair, and suddenly he put
out his tongue, and the Extract of Malt was gone. Kanga said “ Oh!” and pulled the spoon
safely back out ofTigger’s mouth just as it was disappearing in it.
“Tigger, dear!” said Kanga.
“ He’s taken my medicine, he’s taken my medicine, he’s taken my medicine!” sang Roo
happily, thinking it was a tremendous joke.
Then Tigger looked up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes, and his tongue went round
and round his chops,' in case he had left any outside, and a peaceful smile came over his
face as he said, “ So that’s what Tiggers like!”