It Wasn’t Me!

by Michael Bond

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  A note from the author

  1 Never Fear – Harry’s Here

  2 The Spirit of Christmas

  3 Seeing Stars

  4 Pets

  5 A Strange Sighting

  6 Wishing Will Make It So

  7 Springtime in Paris

  8 A Day in the Garden

  9 Trouble with the Oven

  About the Author

  Also by Michael Bond

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Imagine swallowing a computer chip and becoming a living computer…

  Imagine being rescued by a helicopter…

  Imagine having a pig as a pet…

  Imagine being Harry Manners.

  He’s an unusual boy. His teachers wish he would stop daydreaming. His dad wishes he would keep quiet when the football is on. But if Harry was a bit more ordinary then life wouldn’t be nearly so interesting, would it?

  From the much-loved creator of Paddington Bear comes this timeless tale of a mischievous schoolboy, inspired by the real-life adventures of Michael Bond’s grandson Harry!

  To the original Harry,

  dearly loved despite everything.

  Copyright © Michael Bond

  A note from the author

  Most leading characters in works of fiction are modelled on real people, and in committing that fact to paper the author usually goes to endless trouble to make sure their personal details remain hidden from view so that no one will recognize them. While I was writing this book I was able to enjoy the luxury of making sure the reverse was true. In short, what you read says it all. There is nothing added and nothing taken away. It is simply Harry all the way.

  1

  Never Fear – Harry’s Here

  ‘FANCY HARRY SAYING you can recognize his grandfather from a mile away because he has lots of white hair with a hole in the middle!’

  Hearing Dad’s voice coming from the next room, I pricked up my ears – Harry being the key word, of course, because it happens to be my name.

  ‘It was only an essay,’ said Mum.

  ‘Only an essay!’ Dad gave a loud snort. ‘Well, it’s your father. But you know who to blame if everyone starts pointing him out next time he goes to a school concert; like they did with me when he concocted that story about my being in the fire brigade.

  ‘“How very interesting, Mr Manners . . .”’ Dad went into his ‘Miss Spooner the Headmistress’ routine. ‘“You must come and give a talk to the fifth form one of these days. We would all love to hear what it’s like. Do you spend much of your time up a ladder?”’

  ‘I really don’t know what made him do it,’ admitted Mum. ‘I suppose he must have been reading something about them at the time. Anyway, it’s not his fault he happens to be blessed with a vivid imagination.’

  I’ll say this for Mum. She always sticks up for me.

  ‘Remember that parents’ evening when the geography teacher told us that Harry had been keeping the whole class enthralled with the story of how we’d been rescued by a helicopter during a snowstorm on the Cairngorms?’ said Dad. ‘We’ve never been within a hundred miles of the Cairngorms. The trouble is, we have to suffer. I shall never hear the last of it if they get to know about it in the office.’

  ‘I think it’s all wrong,’ said Mum, ‘getting children to write an essay about their home life. I suppose the teachers do it so that they can get to know them better.’

  ‘Find out about things that are none of their business, more like.’ Dad sounded a bit disgruntled. He’s a funny person, my dad. I don’t mean funny laugh-out-loud – I mean funny peculiar. Once he gets his teeth into something, he goes on and on about it. Meal times are the worst. There’s no escape then. He says things like: ‘If we’d been meant to eat peas with a knife, they’d have made them with dents on the blade.’

  I think eating’s boring – especially when it’s peas. It makes it more interesting if you try to see how many you can balance on a knife at one go. I once got up to thirty-two before Dad noticed, and that was only because he shouted and it made me jump so much, they all rolled off onto the floor! Even then I only found twenty-seven. The rest got trampled into the carpet.

  Breakfast time is the worst; especially when I’m in a hurry to get to school. Or, to put it another way, when I’m late for school and Mum keeps telling me to get a move on.

  Dad comes out with things like: ‘Must you use your hand as a shovel? Why can’t you use a spoon like any normal child?’

  I bet he was just as bad when he was small. ‘I was thinking only the other day at breakfast, “cornflakes” is a funny name for a food – it sounds like something that’s come away from your foot.’

  ‘Must you?’ said my Big Sister, pretending to throw up.

  That did it. I’d had enough. My Big Sister’s right about one thing. She says listeners never hear any good about themselves, and at times like that it’s best to be alone in your room.

  That’s one of the good things about having an untidy bedroom. People don’t come in and start poking around. With mine they usually open the door, say something like ‘Ugh!’ then go away again.

  Having made myself comfortable, I went back to my Max Masters.

  There’s nothing like a good book. They make pictures in your head. At least, they do in mine. I remember reading one written by someone called Ray Bradbury. It was about a machine that could take you on a trip back in time. The only trouble was, you weren’t allowed to touch anything. In the story someone accidentally killed a butterfly, and when the passengers returned home, they found the whole world had changed. I could picture it all.

  Max Masters’s book features a boy about the same age as me, whose mother sends him out to buy some chips.

  He comes across a shop called Chips with Everything. What he doesn’t realize is that they aren’t the sort of chips you eat with fish; they are computer chips.

  There are some 486s and a whole host of 283s, which are now so old I don’t even have one in my tablet. But best of all, there are a lot of Pentium chips. Imagine, all that for tenpence! The man in the shop says they fell off the back of a lorry that very morning.

  It made me laugh because in the story the boy couldn’t help trying one to see what it tasted like and it stuck in his throat. After which he began saying all kinds of weird things like: ‘Did you know that if the average man was freeze dried and then vacuum packed, he would only be a third of his normal weight?’

  He wouldn’t be much use to anyone, of course, but I think it’s interesting all the same.

  What I like most about Max Masters’s books is that they’re full of facts and figures. The sort of things that stick in your mind; not like the ones they try and teach you at school. I bet people remember King Alfred because he burned the cakes long after they’ve forgotten what date it was.

  However, it started me thinking. I mean, suppose someone who didn’t know anything about computers ate a whole packet of Pentium chips by mistake. And then, supposing, just supposing, they all joined up inside and made one ginormous computer. Think of all the problems he would be able to solve. Imagine being able to walk in the front door one day and say something like: ‘What’s two thousand, seven hundred and thirty-four multiplied by two million, five hundred and thirty-two?’ and come up with the right answer.

  I know what my dad would say. ‘Go and wash your mouth out,’ or ‘Do be quiet. It’s Arsenal playing.’

  My Big Sister’s lips would go all pursed. Especially if Dad came running in with a pencil and paper, having woken up to the fact that I’d got the answer right after all.

  That would set
Mum off. First of all she would take my temperature and then she would send for the doctor – just in case I was sickening for something.

  Lying back on my bed, I closed my eyes so that I could picture it better. I bet they would soon be sorry they’d grumbled at me. I imagined the doctor telling me to say ‘Aaah’ like he always does. Dad says it’s so that he can check up in his Home Doctor while you’re not looking, but my Big Sister reckons it’s to stop me talking. She would!

  Anyway, that’s when I showed him. Instead of saying ‘Aaah’, I came out with Einstein’s formula for relativity.

  ‘Would you mind repeating that?’ said the doctor.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘I’ll go through it backwards if you like.’ I wouldn’t mind betting the same sort of thing happened to Einstein himself. That’s how things get discovered. I think a lot of things get discovered by accident.

  Mrs Einstein probably called out, ‘Dinner’s ready, Albert . . . Don’t let yours get cold.’ And he came out with his formula without thinking. Mum often says that if I’d been born a few years earlier, I would most likely have discovered penicillin. I’m not sure what she means by that.

  ‘I think I may have got pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,’ I said to the doctor.

  Well, you could have heard a pin drop. (I first came across the word when I was looking up how to spell pneumatic. It had taken me half the morning. I’d been looking through the ‘n’s. Well, how was I to know it started with a ‘p’? I think they should have special dictionaries showing words the way they look as though should be spelled. Otherwise how are you supposed to look them up?)

  The doctor gave me a hard look, then turned to Dad. ‘I’ll write out a prescription for some tablets,’ he said. ‘Tell him to take them three times a day before meals. If it doesn’t go away in three days, call me again.’

  From that moment on a sort of chain reaction set in. I think he must have told some of his other patients about it while he was doing his rounds, because the news spread like wildfire.

  The very next day there was a phone call from a newspaper. And before you could say ‘om-bom-stiggy-woggles’ or, as my sister would say, ‘awesome’, there I was, all over the front page of the Sun.

  Mum had palpitations and Dad couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘I’ve fathered a genius!’ he said, taking the credit.

  ‘And who mothered it?’ asked Mum. ‘Who brought it up? Washed it? Fed it? Read to it? Listened to it whining for hours on end, day in, day out?

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said as she tucked me in. ‘Sleep tight.’

  ‘In Shakespeare’s time,’ I said, ‘mattresses were secured to the bed-frames by a rope. When the rope was pulled, it tightened everything up. That’s where the saying comes from.’

  ‘There he goes again!’ groaned Dad.

  I closed my eyes as tight as possible and took a deep breath, holding it as long as I could.

  I won’t bore you with all that happened after that: the television and radio appearances; the quiz shows (Jeremy Paxman wanted my autograph!); an interview with the Prime Minister – he came to see me, and the chauffeur parked his car right outside the house (or rather, he tried to, but Dad’s old Rover was in the way); articles in all the newspapers – and not just English ones – WORLDWIDE! An American magazine called Time even had my picture on its front cover.

  And then it happened.

  I got kidnapped by three men from a FOREIGN POWER. I knew they were from a foreign power because they had beards and spoke in a funny way.

  It was when I came across this strange-looking car parked in our road. I stopped to have a closer look because I’d never seen one quite like it before. One of the men asked me if I would like to see in the boot. The next thing I knew I was locked inside it.

  We drove for 2.32 miles. I knew it was 2.32 miles because I counted the number of bumps. We live on one of those concrete roads in the suburbs of London with bumps between the sections. If you know the distance between them, it’s easy peasy to work out.

  The men were a bit upset when I told them. ‘I suppose you know vhere ve hov taken you?’ said the leader.

  ‘Just behind the brewery,’ I said. ‘You can smell the malt fumes from a mile away.’

  ‘You vant to vatch people don’t smell you a mile away,’ he said. ‘It can be arranged. It’s like I say. You vant to mind your Ps and Qs.’

  ‘It’s interesting you should say that when we’re near a brewery,’ I said, ‘because that’s how the saying came about. In the old days, people drank their beer out of pint glasses and quart tankards, and when they got noisy the landlord used to shout out: “Watch your Ps and Qs!”’

  After that they put some sticking plaster over my mouth and went into the next room, so I kept myself occupied by pretending I was still at home and carried on making myself useful, as usual.

  I retuned the television set for them, but somehow it ended up with all the buttons getting the same channel, so I tried out the sound system. Then that got stuck at FULL BLAST. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t anywhere near it. The trouble was, the volume-control knob fell off and rolled out of sight. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ I asked as the men came rushing into the room and the chief one pulled off my sticking plaster. It was the first time I noticed he had a twitch in one eye.

  ‘Vy! Vy! Vy!’ he said. ‘Vy do you keep asking vy?’

  ‘Vy do you vant to know?’ I asked.

  He couldn’t answer that.

  Instead, he put the sticking plaster back on and left it there until next morning at breakfast. I had a lot bottled up by then and it all came pouring out, until one of them pushed something called a cross ant into my mouth. To my surprise it was made of flaky pastry and was surprisingly tasty. But then again, when you’re hungry you’ll eat anything.

  Now, I don’t know about you, but I like strawberry jam, and there was this big jar of it on the other side of the table. All three of the men let out a shout as I made a grab for it. But they weren’t quick enough. I beat them to it by a mile.

  ‘That tablecloth was fresh on this morning,’ grumbled the leader.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I said. ‘How was I supposed to know the lid wasn’t screwed on?’

  ‘The jam fell out all by itself, I suppose,’ said one of the others. He reminded me a bit of my dad.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said as I tried to put it back in the jar.

  ‘Do you have to do it with your fingers?’ asked the big one. ‘Can’t you use a spoon?’

  ‘God gave us fingers to use,’ I said.

  ‘That’s all we need,’ he said. ‘A religious maniac!’

  Now, you may not believe this, but with that he buried his face in his hands and began to cry. A grown man! I felt really sorry for him and patted him on the back, but that only seemed to make matters worse.

  ‘My best suit!’ he shouted. ‘Now you’ve got jam all over it!’ Well, it wasn’t so much a shout; it was a sort of wail, like the noise a dog makes when you tread on its tail by mistake.

  Soon after that they let me go. I wasn’t sorry, I can tell you. It was worse than being at home. Still, I shook hands with the leader before I left.

  All he said was: ‘Ugh!’ Just like people do when they come into my bedroom . . .

  As I opened my eyes, I realized that it was my Big Sister. I thought he had sounded a bit girlish.

  ‘You’ve been having one of your dreams again,’ she said. ‘And what’s that empty jam jar doing in your bed? It’s gone everywhere!’

  ‘What have you been up to?’ said Mum when I went downstairs. ‘We were beginning to get worried.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

  As luck would have it, just at that moment a big black Mercedes with tinted windows drew up outside.

  ‘I wonder who that can be,’ said Mum.

  ‘It might be the Prime Ministe
r,’ I said carelessly. ‘He probably wants to seek my advice about something or other.’ I tapped the side of my nose like they do in films. ‘It may be TOP SECRET. I’d better see him in the front room.’

  ‘If it is the Prime Minister,’ said my Big Sister sarcastically as she peered through a gap in the curtains, ‘he must be hungry after his long drive from Downing Street. He’s eating his sandwiches.’

  That’s typical of her. She’s got no imagination. ‘He’s probably come from his country home in the Chilterns,’ I said. ‘It’s no wonder he needs a bite to eat.’

  ‘At least we shall have a bit of peace and quiet,’ said Dad, picking up his paper. ‘When I was your age, boys were meant to be seen and not heard.’

  Can you believe it? I bet if I was struck dumb one day he’d be sorry. Mind you, I tried it once, just to see what happened. I said to him: ‘I’ve been pretending to be struck dumb for three whole days and you didn’t even notice.’

  All he said was: ‘I thought it was too good to be true.’

  Well, see if I care. I don’t mind if nobody believes me. I’ve got pictures in my head to prove it. One day someone will invent a machine so that I can plug myself in and print them all out. Then they’ll be sorry.

  In the meantime, have I ever told you how I was given the nickname Fingers Galore? If you’d like to know, read on.

  2

  The Spirit of Christmas

  MY BIG SISTER has had it in for me ever since the day when she was small and Mum asked her if she would like a new brother or sister to play with, or whether she would prefer it if they bought a second television.

  She was into dolls at the time, so she said ‘Yes’ straight away to the first choice. Now she wishes she’d voted for a new television, especially when I’m watching something like Top Gear and there’s a fashion programme on the other channel.

  She’s the one who came up with her own nickname for me – ‘Fingers Galore’. It was just before Christmas last year. ‘Fingers for short,’ she said, ‘but hopefully not for long.’