Paddington Here and Now

by Michael Bond

  “I’m sure Paddington’s uncle will have it moved when you want to get yours out, Henry,” said Mrs. Brown, catching the look on her husband’s face. “Better that than have it towed away.”

  “Too true it is!” agreed Uncle Pastuzo. “Rules and regulations! People invent the motorcar and make things so you can’t live without one. Then others come along and make it impossible to live with it! Poppycock!”

  “Yes, well…” began Mr. Brown. “You try saying that to a traffic warden.”

  “I did,” said Uncle Pastuzo. “One of them tried to give me a ticket when I came out of that oyster place. Only been in there two minutes.”

  Producing a giant dagger from under his poncho, he ran his free paw along the length of the blade. “I tell him, ‘You want to watch it, gringo!’”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Brown. “I hope you didn’t give him our address.”

  Uncle Pastuzo chuckled. “Me? I was not born yesterday. Gave him your neighbor’s number. Hombre name of Curry. Heard all about him from Lucy. Seems you two don’t get on too well.”

  “You are in touch with Paddington’s Aunt Lucy?” said Mrs. Brown, anxious to change the subject.

  “First stop when I set out,” said Uncle Pastuzo. “There she was, large as life and twice as happy in the Home for Retired Bears. Knitting away in her rocking chair like there was no tomorrow. Could hardly hear myself think for all the needles clicking: tea cozies, bed socks, scarves…you call that retirement?

  “She tell me your address. Only thing is, I remember the number of your house but forget the name of the road. Not like Darkest Peru. Where I live we only got one. Straight up to the top of the mountain and straight back down again. Got the rest of the address from that oyster place. That was when I know it was meant.”

  He turned to Paddington. “Spoke to man in there with bad twitch. Said he knew you well, sobrino. Seems like you are not the apple of his eye.”

  “You will be staying, of course,” broke in Mrs. Brown. “We can make a room ready while you are having your breakfast.”

  Uncle Pastuzo glanced out at the garden. “No need,” he said, pointing to the summer house. “Give me hammer and nail, and that will suit me just fine. Like a palace.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Mrs. Brown. “Won’t you be cold?”

  “You haven’t slept outside in the Andes in the middle of winter,” said Uncle Pastuzo.

  “That’s true,” admitted Mrs. Brown.

  “Wake up most mornings with icicles on your whiskers. Those that have them,” he added hastily, not wishing to offend.

  “I’d better move the lawn mower,” said Mr. Brown.

  He paused. “Er…forgive my asking, but why do you need a hammer and a nail?”

  “Need somewhere to hang this.” Uncle Pastuzo reached for his hat. “Home is where you hang it.”

  With a quick flick he sent his hat flying across the room. It hovered for a brief moment near the ceiling before landing gently on top of a standard lamp.

  “Gosh!” said Jonathan admiringly. “I wish I could do that.”

  “I teach you,” said Uncle Pastuzo. “Is what they call a knack.”

  “It may be a knack,” said Mrs. Brown, fearing for her china, “but it might not be so easy with a school cap.”

  “Meantime,” said Uncle Pastuzo, ignoring the interruption, “I give Señora Bird a hand. Make sure she does eggs the way I like. Over easy, sunny-side up.”

  “May I come too?” asked Paddington eagerly.

  The Browns looked at each other when they were on their own.

  “What do you think he meant when he said home is where you hang your hat?” asked Mrs. Brown. “It sounded a bit permanent to me.”

  “How long is a piece of string?” said Mr. Brown. “I know one thing; if breakfast is anything to go by, we’d better get some more supplies in before the shops close for Christmas.”

  In the end it was Mrs. Bird who answered most of their questions. Clearly she couldn’t wait to unburden herself when she returned at long last.

  “That should keep them quiet for a while,” she said, undoing her apron. “Besides, there is a lot of catching up to do. I’ve left Paddington in charge of the toast and marmalade.”

  “Tell us the worst,” said Mr. Brown.

  “Well…”—Mrs. Bird took a deep breath—“Paddington’s uncle lives high up in the Andes mountains in an area that is rich in all kinds of precious metals: copper, gold, silver…platinum. Now, who do you think benefits the most?”

  “The people who dig for it?” suggested Jonathan.

  “Wrong,” said Mrs. Bird.

  “Their employers?” hazarded Judy.

  “Wrong again,” said Mrs. Bird.

  “If the car parked in our front drive is anything to go by,” said Mr. Brown, “Uncle Pastuzo.”

  “Right,” said Mrs. Bird. “He has a little store at the top of one of the biggest mines, and when the workers come up at the end of their shift, hot, tired, and above all thirsty, he’s there ready and waiting with hot dogs and ice-cold drinks.

  “They may have spent their time underground looking for precious metals, but Uncle Pastuzo has his own gold mine at the top. In any case, there is nowhere else to spend their earnings.

  “Having grown wealthy over the years, he now wants to see a bit of the world while he can. As he says, you can’t take it with you.”

  “He told you all that while you were cooking his breakfast?” said Mrs. Brown.

  “And a lot more besides,” said Mrs. Bird. “There’s nothing like getting together over a kitchen stove to make people open up.”

  “Er…while you were chatting, did you get any idea of how long he plans to stay?” asked Mr. Brown.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” said Mrs. Bird, “he can make it as long as he likes.

  “He has the same big brown eyes as certain others I could name,” she added dreamily, “and he’s very polite. You can see where Paddington gets it from—along with his Aunt Lucy, of course.”

  “So what more can you tell us?” asked Mrs. Brown.

  “Just you wait and see,” said Mrs. Bird mysteriously. “It’s his idea and I wouldn’t want to spoil it, especially as it’s meant to be a surprise for Paddington.”

  And there, for the time being, matters rested.

  After his mammoth breakfast, Paddington’s uncle went outside to his car and returned carrying a suitcase. Laying it down in the middle of the floor, he opened the lid and pressed a button, and a small folding bed began to erect itself. It was followed by a whirr and a hiss of air as a mattress took shape.

  “Bought it in Hong Kong,” he said briefly.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something bigger?” asked Mrs. Brown.

  Uncle Pastuzo shook his head. “They say that to me when I stay at the Ritz hotel in Paris, France. They no like it when I say I prefer my bed to theirs. I tell them, if they no let me use my bed, then I camp out in front of their hotel and hang my washing out to dry. They like that even less.”

  “It’s a wonder they didn’t have you arrested,” said Mr. Brown.

  Uncle Pastuzo jingled some coins in a trouser pocket. “Not so as you would notice…buenas noches.”

  Having said good night, Paddington’s uncle opened the French windows, gathered his belongings together, and headed toward the summer house.

  “I’d better move the lawn mower,” said Mr. Brown.

  “Don’t forget the hammer and nails,” called Mrs. Brown.

  “It must be nice to be so independent,” she continued, closing the door after them. “But it is rather unsettling for the rest of us. I wonder when he wants to be woken?”

  “I should leave him be for the time being,” said Mrs. Bird. “It’s best to let sleeping bears lie.”

  “Perhaps he’s hibernating,” suggested Jonathan.

  “Our geography mistress says bears don’t hibernate in the true sense of the word,” said Judy. “On the other hand, some of them do
go to sleep for months at a time. Perhaps we should ask Paddington?”

  “Don’t put ideas into that bear’s head,” warned Mrs. Bird. “He has more than enough in there already.”

  As things turned out, however, they were all wrong about Uncle Pastuzo. The next morning he was up bright and early, and after announcing he “had matters to deal with,” disappeared soon after breakfast and didn’t arrive back until late that afternoon.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” said Mrs. Brown, “what do you picture doing for the rest of the day?”

  “You mean, what are we doing?” said Uncle Pastuzo.

  There was a toot from the limousine outside.

  “Better hurry,” said Uncle Pastuzo. “Otherwise we miss flight.”

  “Miss the flight?” echoed the Browns.

  “That is what they call it,” said Uncle Pastuzo, ushering everyone out of the door.

  Climbing into the front seat, he settled down alongside the driver and began issuing instructions. But they were lost on the Browns as they entered via the rear doors.

  Paddington nearly fell over backward with surprise when he climbed inside. The last person he expected to see was Mr. Gruber, seated in an armchair at the far end.

  “It is a small world, Mr. Brown,” said his friend. “And as I think I once said to you, it gets smaller all the time. I feel very honored to have been invited.”

  “It’s very James Bond,” said Judy, eyeing a bank of television screens.

  “Everything except a nuclear warhead,” agreed Jonathan.

  “I don’t think I could live with those curtains,” said Mrs. Bird, casting an expert eye over the furnishings. “They’re far too grand, and they don’t go with the carpet.”

  “I hope we don’t come across anyone we know,” said Mrs. Brown, settling herself down in another armchair. “Perhaps we’d better draw them just in case.”

  “They won’t be able to see us,” said Jonathan, pointing to the tinted glass, “but if you like…” Running his eyes over a control console in front of them, he pressed a button and the curtains slid together.

  “Do you know what’s happening, Mr. Gruber?” asked Paddington.

  But Mr. Gruber wasn’t letting on. “It is something I have always wanted to do, Mr. Brown” was all he would say.

  Mrs. Bird was equally tight-lipped on the subject, and for most of the journey everyone else was kept so busy trying out the various gadgets they hardly noticed where they were going anyway.

  When they eventually drew to a halt Jonathan pressed the button again, and as the curtains parted he and Judy joined Paddington at one of the windows.

  “Guess what!” said Jonathan.

  “It looks like a bicycle wheel to me,” said Paddington.

  “It’s called the London Eye,” said Judy.

  “We’re all going for a ride on it,” explained Mr. Gruber.

  “We’re going for a ride on a bicycle wheel!” exclaimed Paddington. “I hope we don’t get a puncture!”

  “There’s no fear of that,” said Mr. Gruber. “If you take a closer look, you will see there are lots of cabins all around the rim. We shall be traveling in one of those.”

  “They look as though they are made of glass,” said Judy. “They aren’t, of course, but it does mean you can look every which way while you are going around.”

  “And you can stand up and walk around,” added Jonathan.

  “Thirty-two of them,” said Uncle Pastuzo, helping the others disembark from the car. “Each one holds twenty-five passengers. That is nearly eight hundred people. I book through your friend at the oyster shop, sobrino, and I pay extra so we have a whole one to ourselves. He is so pleased he say any time you want a holiday you go see him.”

  “Mrs. Bird’s right,” whispered Jonathan. “Bears do fall on their feet.”

  “I fix everything,” said Uncle Pastuzo, as a hostess came forward to greet them. “We take what is called the VIP trip. Tee hee!”

  “Tee hee?” repeated Mrs. Brown.

  “Ought to be VIB—Very Important Bears!”

  Doubled up with laughter at his own joke, Uncle Pastuzo followed on behind their escort.

  The timing was exactly right. As they arrived at the starting point, an empty capsule arrived. The doors slid open, and as they stepped aboard, the sun began to disappear behind the Houses of Parliament.

  For the first few minutes, as the wheel slowly revolved and they gathered height, Mr. Gruber pointed out many of the important landmarks still visible in the gathering dusk to Paddington’s uncle: Big Ben; Buckingham Palace; the Tower of London; St. Paul’s cathedral; the many parks and lakes; and the British Telecom Tower, silhouetted like a pencil against the skyline.

  Paddington had visited many of them over the years, but somehow, as London began to unfold before his eyes, they seemed to take on a different life, the buildings evolving into tiny scale models of the real thing, the streets peopled by ants and model cars going hither and thither everywhere he looked.

  “Is the only way to see the world,” said Uncle Pastuzo, pleased at everyone’s reaction. “From on high and away from the crowds.”

  As darkness fell still further and the capsule gradually rose higher and higher, lights began appearing all over London. Floodlit buildings came into view, and Christmas lights twinkled in the night sky.

  They even had a brief glimpse of ice-skaters on the far side of the river farther around to their right.

  There was one slight hiccup almost at the end of its journey, when Uncle Pastuzo called them all together to see what he called “something special,” but by the time they had formed themselves into a group, the moment had passed.

  It had been one long series of magical moments, and in the rush to disembark, nobody noticed Uncle Pastsuzo disappear for a minute or two. In any case they had grown used to his sudden comings and goings.

  On the journey home Paddington joined in the general agreement that it was the best treat they’d had for a very long time.

  All the same, Mrs. Bird couldn’t help noticing that in between whiles both Paddington and his uncle were unusually quiet.

  She couldn’t help wondering if all the talk about going around the world and now the trip on the London Eye had given Paddington itchy paws, but for the time being she kept her thoughts to herself. There was no sense in spoiling everyone else’s pleasure.

  Uncle Pastuzo dropped Mr. Gruber off first.

  “You have been a good friend over the years to my sobrino,” he said, shaking him warmly by the hand. “For that I bless you.”

  Somehow as Mr. Gruber waved good-bye, it all seemed very final.

  The Browns’ housekeeper had difficulty in getting to sleep that night, and the result was she woke rather later than usual the next morning. Even so, the house felt strangely quiet.

  Slipping into a dressing gown, she was making her way downstairs when she happened to glance out of the landing window and realized Uncle Pastuzo’s car was no longer in the driveway.

  Her heart missing a beat, she hastened back upstairs to Paddington’s room.The duvet was pulled back and there was a hollow in the mattress where he must have lain, but it felt cold to the touch.

  On the way down again she found two envelopes lying on the front door mat.The one marked “Señora Bird” she put into her apron pocket for later; the other was marked for Mr. and Mrs. Brown.

  Soon the whole household was awake to her calls, and everyone came rushing downstairs to see what the excitement was about.

  The note to Mr. and Mrs Brown was typically short.

  “Been there, done that, now is time to go home,” read Mr. Brown. “So, amigos, it is time to say adiós and gracias.”

  “That’s nice,” he said, once he had got over the initial shock. “Somehow adiós sounds better than good-bye; it’s not quite so final.”

  “And gracias is so much better than a simple ‘thank you,’” agreed Mrs. Brown.

  “The thing is,” said Mrs. Bird,
searching for the right words and hardly able to find the right ones to say what was uppermost in her mind. “Where’s Paddington?”

  Something in the tone of her voice caused a ripple of apprehension to run through the others.

  “He was out in the garden the last time I saw him,” said Jonathan. “I think he was doing some early-morning digging.”

  One glance through the dining-room window was enough.

  Paddington nearly dropped his seaside spade with surprise when he suddenly found himself surrounded by the rest of the family.

  “I was looking for some buried treasure,” he announced. “Uncle Pastuzo left me a map he made.

  “He doesn’t like good-byes, so he slipped it under my door last night after I went to bed.” He held it up for the others to see. “I thought I’d better get up early in case Mr. Curry saw me and wanted to know what I was doing.”

  “X marks the spot where you start,” said Jonathan, looking at the roughly drawn map.

  “It says ten paces north,” said Judy. “Then five paces east.”

  “The trouble is,” said Paddington, “I’m not sure which is north.”

  “I’ll get my spade,” said Mr. Brown, by now as excited as the rest of them.

  Having followed the instructions, he ended up in the shrubbery. That’s my prize buddleia,” he said. “It can’t be under that. At least, I hope it isn’t.”

  “It’s probably a case of bear’s paces,” said Mrs. Brown. “They’re not as long as ours. You’d better let Paddington have a go.”

  Having first been pointed in the right direction, Paddington set out while the others counted the steps as he went.

  Sure enough, this time the trail ended in the middle of a flower bed. Mr. Brown brushed aside a pile of leaves to reveal a freshly dug patch of earth, and after a few prods with his spade he struck metal.

  “Brilliant!” exclaimed Jonathan.

  “I don’t know about that,” said Mr. Brown. “It’s the box I keep my golf balls in. I hope they’re all right.”