Piglet and the Unseen

Piglet has had a zany week.  A twice-zany week has Piglet had!  First, she was trying a flying leap over a bush, and found herself straddling a fence (good thing it wasn't barble-thorned!)  She hung up there, squealing piteoushrilly (depending on your point of view!) until all of a sudden a "big wind" blew that fence down (Piglet stoutly maintains it was not herself that felled it!)

The moles below had softened the ground by tunneling it under the very softspot that Piglet landed, but she never saw their little pointy noses and sharp claws.  A few birds (ducks or something!) practically knocked themselves out trying to break her fall.  (It helped and they are okay, but one of them is still a little noodly and another's quack sounds like an oboe!  (Whether that is an improvement or not depends on who is listening!)  I better warn that duck that wolves like oboe music!)

Oh, oops!  Piglet is oinking, "Who is telling this story anyway?"

My apologies Piglet.  Sometimes my concern...

"Oh, can it already!  Where was I?  Oh yeah, the feathery winged things that came between me and the ground.  I couldn't see what they were!  It all happened so fast!  I think they were angels!  Only, in that case, I wish the had just gone all the way and caught me... I mean, I have a lump here (on her aforementioned soft-spot!) and a bruise back there... and look at my hooflet!  It feels all...."

I guess the rest of Piglet's zany week is going to have to wait for another story.  I'm Eyoring off now.... 

Piglet and the Second Unseen

Oh, I'm sorry!  I didn't mean you to think that I am Eyeore and that Piglet is the famed Piglet who is Winnie-the Pooh's friend.  I am elemphatically not Eyore (although I must confess that I go into Eyore mode sometimes!) No, this is a very different Piglet.  This crowd of critters is a wilder bunch of humanimals than Pooh's cohorts.  Altogether less civilized and...

"Oink!"  Nuzzle butt shove.  Er, yes, as I was saying, Piglet had a zany week.  The second strange thing that happened was...

"That I was running up a river bank and just as I was practifully up there the ground schmoozed and muddled under my hooves and there I was hanging dangling and dandlefied from the edge!  I couldn't get out of the hole with my front feet and I couldn't get perchase with my rear feet!  And I couldn't even squall because right under my nose was a blooming ragweed and all I could do was struggle and I was starting to slide down the bank and bring up a big sneeze, which really would have plummeted me out and down when...when...."

A bear came up and bapped your bottom!  She helped you up the bank!

"I didn't see it!" snurfled Piglet.  "Something was below me all of a sudden, and boy it moved quickety-lick because when I got up and sneezed and brushed the leaves and mud off and wiggled everything to make sure it was still working - whatever it was was gone!  Are you sure it was a bear?  I think it was - maybe it was a Baby Bigfoot!"  Piglet's eyes ogled.

"Or maybe it was Santa Clause's pet polar bear!" she bruinted ecstatically!

Oh, does Santa Claus have a pet polar bear?  Because I never...

"Why yes!  He does!  One time when the winter was especially white-deep and still strangely darkle, he...."  Piglet prattled on enthusiastically.

Ha ha! Ho! Ho ho hum... hmmm....  Piglet has trouble listening sometimes...  But her life sure is more exciting that way!

Piglet and the Big Bad Cold

Piglet is definabobbly not hip-hop-happity.  And that is putting a good facet on it!  She is in a disconsolate little heap next to her favorite stream, drumming her hooflets in frustration because they have no little wings on them and will not have wings for awhile.  Just when she really needs them!

Her Ankle has taken them await because, he says snobbingly, they are for educational porpoises only.  (Piglet tries to imagine those slick submarine teachers trying to attach them to - fins?! - and suspects dear old Mercurius of Lionidissing!)

And mean old winter is coming!  Nights are getting longer and perstronger and colder and molder!  Food is going to be harder to find!  She knows it!  She remombrrrs!  And now she can't get aweigh!  Fly south, as she was planing!  She's lost her zany!

Piglet kicks harder, flailing awound.  Ow!  Concurrently she realizes her tears are not eyecyles and, in her kicking, she has accidently dug truffles.  Well, she knows she will not be so lucky for long, and winter is steel coming, but she is a little consoled.  Those hooflets are good for something besides kickling!

Piglet watches the squirrels, wondering if there's a place she can hoard. 

Piglet under the Weather

Piglet is sick.  She's lost her zany-world-view funny-bone and feels tired, tired, tired.  Part of that feeling is just growing up, even for a wild animal in the forest who has to spend a lot - ALOT - of time just finding food.

Right now, she's in "bed" though.  She's in a nice soft dusty dip shaped like a spoon lined with leaves and milkweed fluff she has gathered from the pods - hmm, it feels so silky! (for a while!)

I feel sad for her, tossing and turning feverishly under her cover of grasses and bright fall maple leaves!

But never mind.  Even Piglet knows her malaise is only temporary.  Soon she will be thinking about mayonnaise!  With peanut butter and bananas on toast!

Well, or the forest equivalent!

Paeglaet's Fable

Piglet loves stories.  When she was visiting her Uncle "Lions-and-Tigers-and-Bears OhMy!", who was in thrall to the drama of the hunt and named himself to take on the attributes of his enemies (Lyon for short!) Piglet was inspired to write a story of her own.  (I have never known anyone with a name in quotes before, except sports nicknames (or was that gangsters? I'm confused!) but why not?  Prince uses/d a symbol!)

Well, anyway, Piglet observed that her Uncle Lyon is very security conscious.  He keeps his pet fish Puma and Phoebe (Piglet (perhaps a little insensitively!) thinks one of them should be named Sushi!) in their bowl in a bird cage.  With that arrangement, even if a cat burglar snakes his way past the chien lynx fence and bulls past the boutique pussy-willow bouquet into the house they will bee okay!

Uncle Lyon is a lamb, he always lox the door.  But if the cat burglar wrenches it and tries to dog the fish, they won't be cowed, although it will probably still get their goats if he bats their cage.  After all, should something go wrong, they might bearly escape!  The cat might wolf one of them down, or worse yet, pig out and swallow both of them!  With nowhere to flea!

Then he would vamoose, goosing his Jaguar!

And I'm gnat lion!  I'd see it owl!  Once I come out from under the sofa, I'll be ratting out the cheetah!

Piglet is rolling around laughing.  This story is better than zany, it is positively looney, she crows.

Right now she is signing her tale with a flourish. Her nom de plume?  Pigalatte!

Piglet and the Shagbark Hickory

Feeding a growing Piglet is a full-time job.  Even after snurfling up a good cache of her favorite truffles, Piglet is still a little hungry for something... she can't put a cloven hoof on just what, though... so she's wandering through the woods, turning up her snout at wriggly bugs that were practically her favorite food a month ago... that she would gladly snarf up on a lean day, but...now there were way too many of those bugs littering up the place all kind of grubby-looking and she wasn't that hungry anymore....

She paused and rubbed her side against a shagbark hickory, scratching a bugbite (she wished she'd caught that pest!) 

"Ow!"

"Oink?"  Piglet stopped scratching and pricked up her ears.

"Well, that's better!  What do you think you're doing?"

"Whaaa?"  Piglet couldn't remember doing anything!

"Watch what you're doing, you mannerless little gilt!"

(That does sound obscene doesn't it?  But gilt is a real word, and showed the erudition, or agriculturation (or something!) of whatever was addressing her.

"It isn't enough that you are always messing around with my roots!  Do you also have to rub off my bark?"  grumped the Shagbark hickory (for that was what was complaining.) "My poor bark is very susceptible to shredding and very prone to shedding!"  (And she has an hysterical voice to match! Piglet thought a little uncharitably.)

"It's a good thing I'm not in the city, some crazy zany teenager would probably come hit me with something a lot bigger than you are!"  the tree went on, simultaneously looking at the bright sight of things (she thought!) and insulting Piglet (Piglet thought!)

Piglet almost picked up her hooflets and hammered them against the trunk of that rude tree, but she was pretty full and not quite up to it.  She tried, though, and the tree, rustling rudely, threw a few hazelnuts at Piglet (all the while pretending that the wind was bending her branches!)

Well, what do you know.  Piglet inspected the nuts that had bounced off her and pondered.  They looked pretty good!

Taking care of her itchy need was a rude trespass to the hickory, and the tree's attempt to drive Piglet away just provided her with something new and different for dessert!

Piglet was happy.  She wandered away to a nice sunny meadow spot that no one else knew about and loafed and luxuriated.  She did think that she was going to have to rub up against that ol' shagbark hickory again sometime soon!

And I know there's no scientific evidence for it, but I think those hickories made Piglet a little nutty!

Treelluminations of Piglet

Piglet likes to think of herself as tough.  Well, tough but feminine.  It turns out she is a little delicato, though.  Sometimes her angst causes her to upsitopple and discombobulate!  (And sometimes even nonsense words have a tradition!)

Foreign ubestry, the study of trees where they would rather not be, makes her shindiggerly more confrazzled!   The cities need the trees, and not the other way around, that's for truthful!  And firly as sycosomores pine for flight and larches, so do cities seed'em!

Piglet doesn't know who/what to feel for!  Well, urban trees have to sacrifice themleaves trunksandroots for the good of the whole zany planetverse.  Humans merely being needing them without knowinit!

Piglet's delicatessence is in the woods!  And thankful she bee!

She's nature-tough, not city-tough!  And even there, she is young-tough, not hard mosquito-lion-horsefly-bitten tough!

Well, maybe a little callousy!

Sus's Maybe Metamorphosis

Piglet frowns to herself.  Sus scrofa.  She's not sure she likes the sound of that scientific name - hers, supposedly.  Sounds kind of sucio.  Sounds kind of scruffy.  Compare that, she thinks (okay, okay, I told her!) with the sound of Homo sapiens!  (Well, come to think of it, that sounds, if you don't know Latin, kind of sappy!  Not to mention in slang, sexually confusing!)

As Piglet grows, she is getting a little more concerned with her image.  In the forest scientific names might not be all that important, though.  After all, Fox, clever as he is, does not know he is Vulpes fulva.  And surely the colorful Towhee of Piglet's acquaintance doesn't care if he is variously known even in the scientific community under three different names! 

(Don't even ask - I wrote them down, but what is the point?  Scientific names were invented to make talking about the flora and fauna easier, but now it is sometimes even more difficult!  Be honest now - which would you rather do, argue about whether a very interesting little critter should be called Green-tailed Towhee, Rufous-Sided Towhee, or Spotted Towhee, or whether it should be called Pipilo maculatus, Chlorura chlorura or Pipilo erythrophthalmus?)  (Oops, ignore the order!  I mean, not the scientific order....  Whew!  I'm getting confused!)

Piglet giggles and so do I.  Scientific names are good and necessary.  But sitting in a room arguing about them cannot compete with sitting in a grassy meadow puddle or, for that matter, struggling through a snowdrift in a late spring blizzard!

And the only nonsense words I can manage in this tale are the zany scientific ones!

Well, they aren't really nonsense.  Piglet is thinking of getting political (or would you say scientificallycorrectical?) and try to get the scientific world to grace her species with a more honest and honorable name.

I think she shouldn't bother.  Piglet is resplendently Piglet!

And you know, I think she knows it!

Who cares if the Geranium in my window sill is really Pelargonium?

Me, I'm perfectly happy to call them all Yums!

Piglet and the Duck

Piglet is running back and forth by the water's edge.  When does a pond turn into a lake?  This pond is about that size.  Not quite.  Piglet is flustrated and quandried.

She wants to talk to Duck, but every time she cries "Duck!" trying to get Duck's attention, Duck ducks!  Down she goes out of hearing, and when Piglet tries to call underwater, all she can do is burgle, er, I mean burble and gurgle!

Piglet contemplates the tip of Duck's tail, which is still peeking out of the water.  For a zany split-second, she imagines that Duck's tail is Duck's head and she should start talking to it!

Piglet comes to her senses and gives herself a shake.  Maybe she should call Duck "goosey" or "quacker" to keep her above the surface, but she doesn't want to offend.

Piglet pauses in her pacing and a fly dive-bombs her ear.  Why is it, Piglet ponders, that ducks duck and flies fly?  She keeps tossing her head, but that fly is determined to gain entrance to Piglet's ear.

What did she get into, Piglet wonders, to get the fly so obsessed with her left ear?  Where has she been that day?  Into what fetid delicacies has she plunged eye-deep?

The fly dive-bombing her ear again shakes Piglet out of her culinary revery.  Who knows where or what she ate?  Piglet shimmies out of the fly's reach (for a split second!) and kergiggles.

Pigs pig!

Piglet Meets, er, well, Piglet!

Some of you probably imagine Piglet as this cute little pink oinklet that you saw in the movies.  Actually, that is how Piglet usually views Piglet.

When she looks down and sees all that brown fur, and realizes that her curly imaginary tail (which, remember, she can never really see at all!) isn't really the way she generally imagines it, well, it is quite a shock!

Piglet, as I keep trying to tell you, is really a boarlet.  The name Piglet just has more cache.  (Piglet is too lazy to look up how to type in accents and other diacritical marks.  Boarlet is too wild.  Deal with it!)

Usually, before Piglet gets too hungry she'll rustle up a meal.  (Literally!  She's looking for food and doesn't really pay a whole lot of attention to what form of life she is chowing down.  (Tastes good is best, though!))  She knows that staying well-fed is the best way to preserve her sweet disposition.

If Boarlet is hungry, watch out!  She won't just bite the hand that feeds her; she'll bite it off!  All the better if it has a pearl on it!  Chomp, chomp!  (Stupid hand, what does it think it is anyway?  Better than she?)

Patronize Piglet to your Peril!

She is growing tusks, and if she turns her back on you, you could very well mistake her for a bear!

(Knowing Piglet, she'll probably be running away, though... the  zany little gilt!)

Piglet Runs Away

Piglet has a pretty consistent way of dealing with all her problems.

She runs away.

If the problem is merely an unpleasantness, she rolls her eyes and looks off into the distance (as if she could see it!)  Her mind has run away, off to a more pleasing prospect.

If she's scared, she really runs.  She's pretty quick!

The other day, she caught a whiff of adult big-cat, and ran like crazy.  The only trouble was, everybody else picked up on that scent and started running, too!  A lot faster than Piglet!

Pretty soon she was sandwiched in between a herd of zany-coated zebras, a bunch of trumpeting elephants, and a rhino or two!  Not remarkably, they were not even aware of her puny presence!

Piglet was sure she was doomed to be crushed like a bug.  But then, just as quickly as they had pressed in upon her, they were gone, each group running in a slightly different direction.  Piglet cowered under a shrub, panting so hard she couldn't sniff.  If there hadn't been a little muddy spot nearby to cool herself off in, she might have expired from excess body heat!  (Boars are very ladylike, even the males.  They not only don't sweat - they don't even perspire!)

Piglet calmed down a little and started to ruminate about the stampede.  She was pretty sure none of them had been worried about where they were heading.  They all just wanted to get AWAY!

Next time, though, she hoped she would be stampeding with lemmings!

(I'd better warn her to look before she leaps!  Or wear her ankle-wings!)

Piglet and the Mood

Yesterday Piglet was in a kind of bumblejumble angeswood.  You know what I mean, the way you feel when the sweather is all fjiorjasty and neverthebest just conflagates with blither.  Some people would think she was zany and kafloozle with boodlehop but it isn't that at all - honorplunkly!

Personifically, I think she is a little polarbear twins!  Or maybe highly-lowly!  Maybe she has Saw Altogether Drainage!

Piglet was supeering through the plants when she inhaled a bit of kerfluage or accivertently ate some of those frogperches that are leapering out of the grain.

Whatever it was, she was definitely out for the day!  Out of it, I mean!  Good thing Piglet is not a grumpy-drunk!

Piglet and Mind over Matter

This morning I almost tripped over Piglet, she was standing so uncharacteristically stock-still.  Her eyes were fixed upon a very ordinary-looking spot under a hazelnut tree.  (Her snout, too!)

"'Sup, Pegilt?" said I.  (Sometimes I, zanily, like to mess with her name.)

She sighed and looked at me not very rapprochementally.  Reproachfully, rather!

"I was trying to dig a truffle.  I'm hungry!" she oinked plaintively.

"Well, why weren't you doing it then?" I asked (very reasonably, I thought!)

"I was trying!  I was trying to do it with my mind!  But you interrupted me!"

"But Piglet," I asked.  "Don't you need to use your nose for that?"

"Well, I found it with my nose, silly!  Now I'm just trying to get it out of the ground!"

I was confused.  "But don't you use your nose for that, too?"  I persisted.  "I mean, isn't that what you use that callousy pad on the end of your nose for?  Digging?"

Piglet looked at me from under what I noticed were unusually curly eyelashes.  And now that I think of it, she looked allover pretty well shiny-clean and brustled up!

"But the ground is so dirty!  I've heard that you can move mountains if you have enough faith!  I'm only trying to dig up a little sod!"

I backed off immediately.  Piglet is a good sort, usually.  I think she will eventually break down and break ground!

But just in case I better warn the potoroo to give her plenty of space, lest she bully them for their hard-earned truffles!

I have the feeling that Piglet is still a little kerjibbety from whatever Herbemidia looniae she got into the other day!

 Piglet and the Horse's Ass

One day, Piglet was out pirouetting and prancing along, kicking up grasshoppers and flowers to eat (as if accidentally!)  when she caught a glimpse of a beautiful chestnut-glombered coat!

Since when it comes to romance sub-adults see what they want to see (and adults, too, come to think of it!) Piglet thought she had come upon a primulaceous boar with the most beautiful coat she had ever seen!

But before she could get close enough to say "Hullo!" its owner had disappeared!

Well, for the next few days, Piglet was distracted.  I wouldn't go so far as to say she never ate or hunted, but her heart wasn't in it much.  Always, always, she was looking for another glimpse of that beautiful reddish-golden coat!

She asked around.  Had anyone seen such a pig?

No, no, nobody had seen a subadult like that around!  He sounded kind of fashion-zany to them, but they were too polite to say so.

Then, one day, when Piglet was mooning around almost blind with lovenausea (funny how that seems to happen the most when you don't know the who you are in love with!) she saw it again!

Softly, she approached, trying to get a glimpse of this beautiful creature's face.  No luck, he was resting in a copse!  So she gently snoozled him with her snout....

"Naaanneighy!"  he cried, and struggled up on aawfuullly long spindly legs.

Piglet craned her neck, ogling!  Her true love wasn't a pig at all.  He was a horselet!

Piglet had mistaken a horse's ass for a strapping young boar!  Her only excuse was that he was a very young horse, so his rump could be mistaken for a pig's!  (That is, if you were almost blind, like Piglet, and smelled so strong yourself that you masked that horsey odor!)

(I always have heard that love is blind, but I think that discovering it doesn't have a sense of smell either might just be a scientific breakthrough!  Come to think of it, in my experience, love isn't very conducive to hearing, either!)

What does love have, then?  Well, for one thing, a strongly beating heart!

But love wasn't what was making Piglet's heart beat fast, anymore!  She was just too shocked and surprised to calm down right away!

Several shades pinkler than usual, she slalomed away.

The little colt went galloping off to his mom, aunts, and nannies, just to feel safe.

Piglet needn't have been embarrassed.  That little foal was too young to know anything about Piglet's feelings or intentions.

But of course, Piglet just had to oink about her experience to everyone!

We all had a good laugh!  Even Piglet!

Piglet and the Sneel

One day when Piglet was rummaging around the woods, she ran upon a little pond above a dam some boys had built across a rivulet. She was snurfling up some water when right under her snout, she saw a sneel!

It was a kind of pinkish-silvery, long, fishy-looking eelish sort of critter and Piglet had never seen anything like it.

"Watcha doin'?"  it asked.  (Piglet in no way could tell if it was a "he" or a "she!")  "Drinking," oinked Piglet prissily, (for she had no idea how snurfly she was!)  "What are you doing?"

"I'm not sure," the Sneel replied, kind of wrimmiggling around.  "I think I was supposed to come down the river to the ocean.  Am I there yet?  Is this the ocean?"

Piglet rooled around a little, giggling. "Not yet!  I think you will positively absopoofly know the ocean when you see it, because not only is it very big, it is so big that there is no room for anything like it that's bigger!"

"Well, I don't know," said the sneel.  "I'm getting kind of tired.  Maybe this is good enough.  But I think" - he swam around the edge - a pretty small circle! - "I kinda think I don't know how to get out of here."

Well, now Piglet didn't know very much, but she was pretty sure if the sneel wanted an ocean, a little temporary pond wouldn't do!  But she didn't know what to say, because she couldn't see any immediate way out either!

But then an idea struck her!  "You know," she grunted softly, "it's kind of gray today, with all those clouds up there.  I'm pretty sure it's going to rain.  And all that rain will carry you right on down to the ocean!"

Then Piglet started looking around, because all that problem-solving was making her hungry!

"Oh good", said Sneel, "so all I have to do is wait for the rain and... which way was I was going?  I think I'm going from fresh to salt, but..."

"Downstream," answered Piglet, (though how should she know, since she only had his word for it, and he seemed kind of confused!)  "Just wait for the rain."

Piglet was glad that those clouds were pretty heavy and it would probably rain zany hard, because in that case, that little dam would wash away and Sneel wouldn't have to worry about which way he was going!  There would be only one way to go!  (Piglet considered this with gravity.)

"I'm off!" she grunted.  "Good luck!" she caroled.  And with that, she left Sneel, who seemed a little calmer, to explore his temporary home, while she went hoofing off for lunch.

You are looking at me with a squint and asking, "Is this made up?  Is a sneel really real?" 

My response:  Go ask an anacatamoneel!

Piglet and the Vulture

Piglet sighed.  It was just one of those days, I guess.  First she stepped on Turtle's toe.

She knew it must have hurt, and she felt bad about it.  She didn't do it on purpose!  But try as she might to get turtle to emerge again so she could apologize properly, he wouldn't.

His shell sat there like a stone.  Even when she nosed it to get him to come out, he wouldn't.

Well, what could she do.  It was Piglet's nature to roam and stir up stuff.  She was bound to step on someone's toes now and then, or ruffle someone's feathers...

Which she was about to do next.

At best, Vulture was a difficult child.  In the morning when the sun hit his eyelids, he didn't say, "Good morning!" 

He said, "I don't like it."

(That didn't stop him from spreading his wings to enjoy (er, I mean, take advantage of) its warmth a few minutes later on, because by then he had found something else to complain about... the water was too cold, or his mate was chuffing too much...)

Right now, he had just spotted his breakfast when Piglet tripped over it.  (I don't mean literally "tripping" (er, and I don't mean high on drugs either!) I mean she was kind of merrily dancing along!  With a little spring in her step!)

Vulture hissed, "I don't like that!"

Piglet stopped, came down (thudunkle), and grunted, "Huh?"  (She hadn't meant to grunt - honest! - it just came out that way!)

"The way you just sashayed through my dinner like that.  I don't like it!"

"Huh?" Piglet asked again, peering around to see who had spoken.

"You are standing on my dinner!"

Piglet looked down, then twisted around and looked down again (this time at the ground underneath her back feet.)  There lay a ground squirrel she hadn't noticed before.  Or smelled, strangely enough.  Because it was dead.  Poor squirrel!

"WELL?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Piglet squealed.  "I didn't know!"

She backed away. That vulture looked pretty scary, even from fifteen yards away!

She stepped lively, though, and put an extra wiggle and shimmy into her moves, even though she no longer felt like it.  That was the best way to make a vulture lose interest!

"Well," he grumbled, "as long as you haven't ground dirt into it!"

Piglet continued to back away, then turned, kicked up her heels, and sped off.

She knew, if she had, that nasty old bird would find every little speck!

It was just one of those zany days.

Only, not in a good way!  More like strainy, or drainy!

Piglet and the Long-"Eared" Owl

Piglet was smitten.  The other afternoon she was on a walk and she saw an owl!  This round tawny-faced being seemed very dignified, but he winked at her!  The effect was extra powerful because on his low roost, she and the owl were almost eye to eye.  Piglet was all a-dither.

Owls were known to be so wise!  They kept company with goddesses!  Some of them were members of Parliament!  Piglet's ankle-wings quavered in sympathy with the avian (or maybe trembled from that arrow from Cupid's bow!)

She ran around, telling everyone she saw about her encounter with the owl.  He had the most cunning ears!  His feathers were gorgeous, absolutely the splurgiest avian finery she had ever seen!  (Piglet had yet to see an ostrich, and she wasn't sure she wanted to see one, with a boa around its neck!  Eeew!)

But why are owls considered so wise?  She wanted to know.  (She had never heard an owl say anything except "Whoo," and although it was nice that they showed an interest, they never seemed to recognize her the next time round!)

Fox said that owls were very cunning.  They looked all innocent, with their round moon faces and their small-looking beaks.  But really, their beaks were like hawks' beaks, just as large and fearsome!  They just had cunningly-placed fluffy feathers all around their oral cavities, to make their beaks appear smaller and more innocent-looking.

"And," the fox said, growing more animated as he spoke, as if the owl were a special hero of his, "his wings are feathered (well, even more than usual for a bird) so that his flight is absolutely silent!  He can glide up on you at night without a peep (or hoot, either, double entendre intended!)" 

Piglet did not understand everything Fox was saying.  She had, however, heard a thing or two about Fox's nocturnal joyglides and backed up a step or two.  (She felt pretty safe, though, because he had a lot of yolk around his snout!)  (Although, come to think of it, she had heard some reference to eggs and ham as Fox's preference!)

When Piglet heard some loons on the lake, she figured it a good time to exit Fox's presence!  At the very least, she'd have some witnesses if he tried anything.  (If it wasn't too dark already!)

She scampered to the water's edge.  "Hallooo, loons!" she called.  They swam up to greet her, mindlessly milling about (and there were only two of them!  Zany!)  She told them about her big crush, only now her enthusiasm was tempered a-tingle with fear.  When she came to the part about the owl winking at her, they hooted with laughter.

"He was just winking at some little owlette behind you!"  they rolicked.  "He's too wise to get caught up with the likes of you!"  What's the matter with you?  Where was your Daddy Boar when you were growing up?"

This talk stunned and mystified Piglet.  Why would liking her not be smart?  Piglet thought she was pretty foxy! (Well, she reconsidered, not exactly foxy!)  She looked over her shoulder to make sure that Fox was not flurking around.

Piglet decided to consult other creatures about Owl.

Small birds had no use for Owl, she found.  They just thought he was a big bully and "no better than he should be."  They thought he was a status-seeker and an idiot for being so grapacious against his own kind (birds) when some bigger birds were after him!  It made no sense, they twittered (in between catching little gnats and mosquitos!)

And those big "ears" that made him appear to listen better than other birds (and therefore be more understanding, perhaps?), why they were no more ears than a cardinal's crest was!

Piglet, more confused than ever, began to think that maybe Owl hadn't winked at her.  On looking back on her afternoon, she thought maybe he had just opened one eye, as if he had been sleeping and was too drowsy to open them both.

Why, maybe Owl wasn't wise at all, she astounded, shocked at her own audacity.  Just lazy and sleepy during the day.  If you keep your mouth shut and don't become easily stirred up, everyone thinks you are wise.  And then again, "Maybe you are," she thought to herself, thinking of her day's disillusions.  She had got so caught up in the riddle of owl, that she had almost forgotten to eat!

And that reminded her of owls' cough balls (or "pellets" as they were euphemistically labeled by their producers.)  Faugh.  Nasty!

And what about Long-"Ears" old used nest?

Not so comfortable and attractive as Piglet's home!  So that is where Piglet headed.  (But she did find time to snack along the way!)

Me, I think that all the animals are right.  Owl is cunning, wise, and an idiot.  He is a sacred creature (like all of us), and a harbinger of death (like all of us!)

Owl is very, very beautiful, but probably prefers owlettes to piglets!  (Even  the priglettiest of piglets!)

And I think it is high time that someone taught Piglet about the the birds and the bees!

Only - please - just not me!

Piglet and the Big Cat

With her ankle wings, and under the patronage of her Ankle, Icamercury (Icky for short)  Piglet has flown to almost every continent.  And in almost every continent there are big cats.  Pumas, leopards, tigers - wherever you go, practically, there are big cats!

The other morning, during that gray hour between night and dawn, a big cat princided he wanted to (or abshad to!) play cat and mouse.

Pad, pad, soft swish.  Piglet's ears pricked up.

Nothing.

Piglet started chewing again, but her ears just wouldn't settle down and turn around right.  They kept twizzling and svitching!  So she scrampered away from the sounds as fast as she could, into the thorniest brer patch she could find!

Phooey!  Her breakfeast was interruinupted!  But it couldn't be helped.  She snortled ruminemptly.

Poor Piglet!  It's hard not to play cat and mouse with someone who really wants to play cat and mouse.  Especially hard not to  "play along" if he's the cat, and you're the mouse!

In the distance, thrown off by Piglet's madash through the creek, the big cat roars in flustration.  He's grumblehungry!

Piglet's not sorry!  Well, yes she is!  Somebuddy's bound to be catsupper!

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