Paddington Complete Novels

by Michael Bond

  “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 backwards 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 honoured 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 round the rim. We shall be travelling 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 round.”

  “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 800 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 their 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 you 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 further round 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 round 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 goodbye, 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 realised 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 doormat. One marked ‘Señorita 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 goodbye; 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 goodbyes,
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 up 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.”

  “Do hurry up, Henry,” called Mrs Brown. “Paddington’s waiting.”

  “Why don’t you have a go then,” said Mr Brown, handing him the spade.

  Paddington needed no second bidding and in no time at all he prized the box out of the ground and had the lid open.

  The first thing he came across was a canvas bag with his name on the tag. Pulling on the drawstrings he felt inside and discovered it was full of foreign coins.

  “Uncle Pastuzo must have collected them while he was travelling round the world,” said Jonathan, taking a closer look. “I bet they’re worth a bomb!”

  Underneath that, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, were seven large glossy photographs of the whole family taken inside the capsule on the London Eye.

  “So that’s where he disappeared to,” said Judy. “I saw a notice on the way in saying if you pose at a certain point a picture is automatically taken, ready to buy when you get off.”

  “What a very kind thought,” said Mrs Brown. “We must have ours framed, Henry. It can have a place of honour on the mantelpiece.”

  “I shall put mine by my bed,” said Mrs Bird.

  “We can take ours with us when we go back to school,” added Judy.

  “And I shall put mine alongside Aunt Lucy’s picture,” said Paddington. “I’ll give Mr Gruber his tomorrow. I expect he would like it for the shop.”

  “We shall miss Uncle Pastuzo,” said Mrs Brown on the way back to the house.

  “He may have been a bit of a whirlwind, but it will seem very quiet without him.”

  “At least that bear’s ends are tied up now,” said Mrs Bird. “It’s always bothered me.”

  Having overheard the conversation, as soon as he got indoors Paddington hurried upstairs to his bedroom and examined his reflection carefully in the mirror.

  As ever, Mrs Bird was right. He had no idea how or when it had happened, but Uncle Pastuzo must have done a good job. Everything was in its proper place. No matter which way he turned he couldn’t see the slightest sign of any knots.

  Later on that morning the Browns heard the sound of hammering coming from Paddington’s room, but everyone was so pleased by the fact that he was still with them, they pretended not to notice.

  “I’ve been following Aunt Lucy’s example,” he announced that evening when they all went up to his room to say good night. “I’ve been counting my blessings. Except, I wanted to do mine before I go to sleep. I have so many I may not have time tomorrow.

  “I still have some important shopping to do and I shall need to go to the bank to get all Uncle Pastuzo’s coins counted.”

  “I don’t think you will be very popular with the rest of the queue at this time of the year,” warned Mr Brown.

  “Anyway,” said Mrs Brown, “you mustn’t go spending the money on us. Your being here is the best present we could possibly have.”

  “Life just wouldn’t be the same without you,” added Mrs Bird, amid general agreement.

  Paddington pointed to a large nail on the back of his bedroom door. “Uncle Pastuzo taught me one thing,” he explained. “Home is where you hang your hat.”

  Removing his bush hat he tossed it into the air. Much to his surprise it landed back on his head.

  “Never mind, Paddington,” said Mrs Brown, amid the laughter that followed. “Practise makes perfect, and from now on you have all the time in the world!”

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  EARLY ONE SPRING morning Paddington hurried into the garden as soon as he had finished breakfast in order to inspect his rockery. He was an optimistic bear at heart, and having planted some seeds the day before, he was looking forward to seeing the results.

  The seeds had been a free gift in one of Mrs Brown’s magazines, and the picture on the side of the packet was a blaze of bright yellow flowers. Some of them were almost as tall as the magazine’s gardening expert, Alf Greenways.

  Mr Greenways was known to his many friends in the trade as ‘Beanpole Greenways’, so it was as good a recommendation for success as anyone could possibly wish for.

  He also owned the nursery supplying the sunflower seeds, so it was no wonder he was beaming all over his face as he held a watering can aloft, spurring his blooms to even greater heights.

  Paddington got down on all fours and peered at the freshly-raked soil in his patch of garden, but apart from a disconsolate-looking caterpillar, there wasn’t so much as the tiniest of green shoots to be seen. Everything was exactly as he had left it the night before when he had gone outside with a torch before going to bed.

  Mr Greenway’s seeds were rather large and he couldn’t help wondering if he had planted them upside down by mistake.

  A robin redbreast landed on a nearby rock to take a closer look at what was going on, but having spotted Paddington’s network of cotton threads protecting the patch, it flew off in disgust.

  Mr Brown was right. Gardens were a good example of life in the raw; a constant battle between good and evil. Slugs, for example, were given very short shrift, often ending up with the contents of a salt cellar upended over them, whereas worms were always welcome – unless of course they happened to come up for air in the middle of the lawn.

  All the same, it was disappointing, and for a moment or two Paddington toyed with the idea of going indoors and fetching his binoculars in case the caterpillar had a hearty appetite and he could see traces of green on its lips.

  He was in the middle of weighing up the pros and cons when he heard an all-too-familiar voice calling out to him.

  His heart sank as he looked up and saw the Browns’ neighbour peering at him over the top of the fence. Not that there was anything new in that; Mr Curry was a notorious busybody and he spent his life poking his nose into other people’s affairs.

  Because his patch of garden coincided with some higher ground on Mr Curry’s side, Paddington often bore the brunt.

  It was most disappointing. Mr Brown had spent half of the weekend raising the fence at that particular point, with the express intention of putting a stop to their neighbour’s spying.

  At the time Mrs Bird had said ‘the chance would be a fine thing’ and it looked as though her worst fears were being realised.

  “What are you doing, bear?” growled Mr Curry suspiciously. “Up to no good as usual, I suppose.”

  “Oh, no, Mr Curry,” said Paddington. “I was just checking my blooms – except I haven’t got any yet. Mrs Bird was right. She said yo
u would be bound to find a box to stand on. I mean…”

  “What was that, bear?” barked Mr Curry.

  “Mrs Bird saw a fox in our garden the other day,” said Paddington hastily. “She thinks it came over here because it couldn’t find anything interesting in yours.”

  Paddington was normally the most truthful of bears and he stayed where he was for a moment or two in case the proverbial thunderbolt landed on his head, but nothing happened, so he breathed a sigh of relief and carried on looking for new plant shoots.

  “I don’t see any point in having flowers,” growled Mr Curry. “Nasty things. They make the place untidy – dropping their petals everywhere. Just you wait.”

  “I was hoping Mr Brown might take a photograph of mine when they are ready,” explained Paddington. “It’s my Aunt Lucy’s birthday in August and she says flowers always brighten things up. They don’t have many in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima and I thought I could send her a picture she can keep by her bed.”

  A gleam entered Mr Curry’s eyes and he suddenly perked up. “Do you know what day it is today, bear?” he asked casually.

  Paddington thought for a moment. “I think it’s a Wednesday, Mr Curry,” he said.

  “Nothing else about it?” asked Mr Curry.

  “Not that I know of,” said Paddington. “I can ask Mrs Bird if you like.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Mr Curry hastily. Reaching inside his jacket pocket, he removed a folded sheet of paper.

  “It’s funny you should mention the word ‘birthday’, bear,” he continued, waving it in the air. “Quite a coincidence, in fact. Don’t tell anyone else, but it happens to be my birthday today.”

  “Does it really, Mr Curry?” exclaimed Paddington. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well,” said the Browns’ neighbour, “you do now, but since you have clearly forgotten the fact, it’s…”

  He broke off as the paper slipped from his fingers and they both watched it flutter to the ground on Paddington’s side of the fence and land at his feet.