In Which Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest, and Piglet Has a Bath
- Kanga and Baby Roo have appeared in the forest. No one knows from where, but there they are.
- Pooh and Piglet go to Rabbit's house to discuss the matter.
- And crotchety old Rabbit does not like this new development one bit. He was perfectly happy with the way things were. And now there are these new animals. He doesn't like it. Not one bit.
- He especially doesn't like that Kanga carries Roo around in her "pocket." We're not sure why. In fact, we think that would be awesome. We'd be lying if we said we hadn't dreamt up a couple of schemes to make it happen. Alas, perhaps people just weren't meant to be carried around in pockets?
- Rabbit decides that the best thing to do about this whole situation is to kidnap Roo. Good plan.
- Then, when Kanga wonders where he is, everyone will pop out and say "Aha!" Great plan.
- Pooh practices saying "Aha" in a scheming sort of way, but he just can't quite get why it's such a big deal to say "Aha".
- As Pooh worries about how the plan will go off, Piglet worries about Kanga being Fierce. Not runway Fierce. Dangerous Fierce.
- But Pooh and Piglet forget about their worries when Rabbit tells them they're indispensable to the scheme. Ah, Pride, you are a fickle mistress.
- Rabbit lays out an eleven-step plan. We'll let you scrutinize it on your own, but it boils down to this: Pooh distracts Kanga while Rabbit takes Roo from her pouch and replaces him with Piglet. The old Switch-er-Roo. (Nailed it.)
- The three geniuses go off in search of the newcomers, and find them practicing jumps in a field.
- Pooh goes up to talk to/distract Kanga with poetry, but Kanga doesn't care about poetry. Clearly, she hasn't heard of Shmoop yet. It's like it's 1926 over there or something.
- Piglet and Rabbit insist with suspicious conviction that she listen carefully to the poem and look at Pooh the whole time.
- Lo and behold, Kanga doesn't listen. She's supervising her child instead. Ugh.
- Meanwhile, Roo is in the midst of taking his thirteenth "last jump before we go home."
- Rabbit finally offers to lift Roo into Kanga's pouch.
- They distract the mother by pointing something out in a nearby tree. Is it a bird? A fish?
- Kanga finally distracted, Piglet jumps into her pouch and Rabbit scampers away with Roo.
- Kanga hops away home.
- Unaccustomed to the long hops of large marsupials, Piglet has a less than pleasurable journey inside of Kanga's pouch.
- They get back to Kanga's house, and she immediately sees what's happened.
- But she's clever, that Kanga. She knows Christopher Robin (the character) would never let anything bad happen to Roo, so she's not worried. Instead, she plays a trick right back.
- She pretends that she doesn't notice that Roo is missing, and goes on treating Piglet as if he were her baby kangaroo.
- She decides to give Piglet a nice cold bath.
- She even scolds "Roo" for making voices like Piglet's and for making a face like Piglet's. Oh, she's good. She's really, really good.
- Just as Kanga's about to give Piglet some medicine—a taste of his own medicine! No, really, she gets out some medicine to give him... anyway... where were we?
- Just as Kanga is about to give Piglet some medicine, Christopher Robin (the character) shows up at the door, and says he saw Roo playing over at Rabbit's house.
- Piglet triumphantly tries to claim his own identity again.
- Not so fast!
- CR plays along with Kanga's ruse (in case you didn't notice, we love wordplay here at Shmoop).
- He pretends not to recognize Piglet. Piglet, after all is always dirty and ratty. This animal is clean. It must be some relation of Pooh's.
- Suddenly Piglet dashes away home, taking care to muss and dirty himself up a bit along the way.
- Meanwhile, Rabbit has grown quite fond of Roo, and Pooh has taken to practicing jumps like a kangaroo.
- In the end, they all get along, and the newcomers become part of the gang.