Love from Paddington Page 4

  I knew it was ready to go because when I picked it up, it made a purring noise. Better still, when I put it against the back of the man’s neck, a lovely white path appeared, which was very interesting.

  Mr. Sloop had told me to make myself useful, so I took a quick look over my shoulder to see if he was anywhere around, and by the time I looked back, something dreadful had happened.

  The man had told me not to touch the top of his head, but it was too late. Whereas it had been covered by a mass of thick black curls, now there wasn’t a hair to be seen. He was completely bald!

  There was only one thing for it. I reached for my tube. Mr. Sloop had said his floor was covered with unwanted hair, so I wouldn’t be short of material to repair the damage.

  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but there were so many different kinds of hair, and so many different colors, it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for the bellow of rage that came from the man when he woke up and saw his reflection in the mirror. His eyes nearly popped out of his head, and he jumped out of the chair and made a dive for the nearest object to hand as though he intended to throw it across the room.

  “Watch out!” I cried. “That’s Mr. Gruber’s Spode.”

  He froze. “Did I hear you say it’s a Spode?”

  “From their Blue Italian Bone China Range,” I said. “Circa 1860.”

  “And you know this Gruber?”

  “He’s my best friend,” I said. “He’s an antique dealer.”

  “Take me to him,” said the man. “That’s the kind of thing I’m over here for, with all the other guys, but I wouldn’t mind getting there first. They can follow on after.”

  I did as I was bidden, and having seen Mr. Gruber’s things safely back to the shop, along with Mr. Sloop’s customer, I made myself scarce before his friends arrived.

  I didn’t see him to talk to again that day, but I went as early as possible the following day.

  “Just in time to solve a mystery,” he said. “Not much happens in the market that we don’t hear about, and it seems Mr. Sloop was sweeping out his shop this morning when he came across a big black hairpiece. I gather you were in there yesterday, and I wondered if you had any ideas.”

  “A hairpiece?” I repeated.

  “It’s another name for a wig,” said Mr. Gruber. “Some men don’t like it when they go bald, so they cover it up. He can’t think where it came from.”

  “Oh, dear . . . ,” I began.

  Mr. Gruber held up his hand. “Say no more, Mr. Brown. I can’t thank you enough for what you did yesterday. I haven’t been so busy for a long time, and lots of happy customers went on their way. Mine is not to reason how it all came about.

  “There’s another old saying that could be said to fit the bill on this occasion: least said—soonest mended.” And with that he put a finger to his lips, and we settled down to our cocoa and buns.

  32 WINDSOR GARDENS, LONDON W2

  Letter No. 14

  Dear Aunt Lucy,

  Apart from Mrs. Bird’s homemade marmalade, one of the nicest things about living with the Browns is that no two days are ever the same. That’s not to say there aren’t days when the same thing happens more than once. On days like that you don’t know whether you are coming or going, like today for example.

  It all began when I found the letterbox in the front door half open because someone had tried to push a magazine through and it was stuck, so I tried removing it; and while I had my paw under the flap, I peered through the gap to see if the postman was anywhere in sight.

  I didn’t want a repeat of what happened the other day when someone—I think it may have been Mr. Gruber—sent me an Advent calendar (it certainly wouldn’t have been Mr. Curry), and half the doors on it were wide open.

  Anyway, the postman was nowhere in sight, but I was just in time to catch a glimpse of the longest car I have ever seen in my life going past. It was black all over, including the windows, which meant that although it was going very slowly, as though the person or persons inside were looking for somebody, I couldn’t see a soul.

  In fact, the car was so long I thought it would never end, and because Jonathan and Judy were home for the Christmas holidays, I rushed to tell them.

  Judy said it sounded like a limousine, so it must be someone important, and Jonathan said he didn’t like the sound of it on account of “my circs.”

  When I asked what “my circs” were, he said, “Well, the fact is, Paddington, you were a stowaway, so you won’t have the right papers. We’re worried stiff that one day they might come and take you away. If it happens again, hide behind the curtains and leave us to do the talking.”

  Half an hour later I looked through the letter box just in case, and there it was again, only this time it had stopped outside our house, so I did as Jonathan said and dropped everything.

  I was only just in time, for there was a ring at the bell followed by the sound of voices, and for a while it seemed as though everyone in the house was talking at once. I hardly dared draw breath until at long last Judy found where I was hiding, and I was able to fill up my lungs.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “But it’s your Uncle Pastuzo. He’s going round the world, so he thought he would call in and say hullo.”

  “Uncle Pastuzo!” I said. “Come to see me?” For a moment or two I could hardly believe my ears.

  “The trouble is,” said Jonathan, “he likes doing things in style, so he hired that enormously long car yesterday. You want to look inside. It’s full of gadgets—like something out of James Bond. He’s been driving round and round ever since because he couldn’t find any gaps large enough to park near us. And, he says, we have rules in this country about which side of the road we drive on, which makes it very confusing.

  “Then he saw Mr. Curry going out, so he’s parked across his driveway too.”

  But my mind was still in such a whirl all I could say was “I hope he hasn’t overlapped too much. You know what Mr. Curry’s like. He’ll blame me.”

  “I shouldn’t worry on that score,” said Judy. “Your uncle won’t stand for any nonsense. Apparently he made his fortune high up in the Peruvian Andes looking after miners digging for gold and other precious metals. They are a tough lot, but when they come up for air at the end of their shift, they pay anything for an ice-cold mineral, so he has built up a thriving business.”

  “Perhaps he’ll give Mr. Curry a bottle of lemonade,” said Jonathan.

  “I can’t wait to see him,” I said. “What’s he like?”

  “Well,” said Judy. “He’s a funny mixture. When he arrived, he threw his hat across the room, and as it landed on top of a standard lamp, he said, ‘Home is where you hang your hat.’ Which made us think he was staying a long time.

  “Then when Mum wanted to show him to his room, he said he didn’t mean to be a nuisance, so could he sleep in the summerhouse?”

  “He wouldn’t hear of anything else,” said Jonathan. “He has his own folding bed, so Dad’s helping to remove the lawn mower while Mrs. Bird gets his breakfast. Listen to what happened next. . . .”

  “Mercy me, Signor Pastuzo!” said Judy, imitating Mrs. Bird’s voice when she heard he hadn’t had anything to eat that morning. “You can have anything you like. Bacon and eggs . . . kippers . . . sausages . . . kedgeree . . . fried potato . . . black pudding . . . toast and marmalade. . . .”

  “Guess what he said?” broke in Jonathan. “Sounds great to me, señorita!”

  “Mrs. Bird went quite pink when he kissed her hand,” said Judy. “She said, ‘Good manners run in the family,’ and disappeared into the kitchen. We haven’t seen her since.”

  Now, here’s where the great mystery begins, Aunt Lucy. I was talking to Uncle Pastuzo this evening, and I asked him about my circs and what important documents I need and where they might be, so he said, “Leave it with me, sobrino,” and went out to his car.

  When he came back, he told me you
had said all I had to do was look in the secret compartment of my suitcase. Everything I need is in there.

  Now, what I don’t know is how Uncle Pastuzo was able to speak to you when there isn’t a telephone in the Home for Retired Bears.

  I asked Jonathan, and he said there is a computer in the car and that perhaps he knows someone connected with the Home who has one, and they sent each other messages.

  I couldn’t picture a car having a computer, but Jonathan said it isn’t a big one like Mr. Brown’s. It’s what is called a “laptop.”

  I said it can’t belong to one of the bears then because bears don’t have laps; they have knees.

  “In that case,” he said, “it might be someone with a knee-top computer—we shall probably never know.”

  Anyway, I looked in my secret compartment, and there they all were: passport and everything!

  The best thing about it was the look on Mrs. Bird’s face when she set eyes on them. She said she always knew you wouldn’t let me down over such an important matter, Aunt Lucy, and to thank you very much.

  That night we had a party to celebrate the occasion, so I didn’t go to bed until after nine o’clock.

  P. S. Uncle Pastuzo says he is planning an outing for all of us tomorrow. I will tell you about it in my next letter.

  32 WINDSOR GARDENS, LONDON W2

  Letter No. 15

  Dear Aunt Lucy,

  Uncle Pastuzo’s outing must have taken longer to organize than he expected because he was out all the morning, and he didn’t reappear until the middle of the afternoon, when it was already beginning to get dark.

  If you ask me, that made it all the more exciting because, as Jonathan said, we were all on tenderhooks by then, although Mr. Brown, who doesn’t like to be kept waiting, pointed out that the word is tenterhooks, which is a device manufacturers use to stretch cloth, whereas, big though the car was, now there were eight of us in the party, each with a window seat, there wasn’t that much room for stretching.

  The extra numbers came about because Uncle Pastuzo had engaged a chauffeur, and he had very kindly invited Mr. Gruber along too. I think he was hoping he might provide a running commentary.

  Mrs. Bird took against the curtains, which she said didn’t match the carpet and anyway they were far too grand, while Mrs. Brown wanted them drawn for fear of what the neighbors might think if they saw us setting off in such style.

  But finally we all settled down and were on our way.

  I asked Mr. Gruber if he knew where we were going, but he wasn’t letting on. “It is something I have always wanted to do, Mr. Brown” was all he would say.

  By then we had come to a complete stop on a pedestrian crossing in Notting Hill Gate, and with a sea of faces pressed against the windows on both sides, everybody went quiet.

  Uncle Pastuzo looked at his watch. “We are due for takeoff in thirty minutes,” he said to the chauffeur. Which had us all thinking we were heading for an airport, and we were going to be late. We couldn’t have been more wrong.

  However, by general consent he pressed a button, and all the curtains slid together. They stayed that way, shutting us off from the outside world, for the next twenty minutes or so when we eventually came to a halt and the chauffeur switched the engine off.

  “It is the only way in this kind of car,” said Uncle Pastuzo.

  Jonathan and Judy gave a gasp as they looked out, but as I joined them, expecting to see rows of airplanes, all I could make out was what looked like a giant bicycle wheel in the sky.

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

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

  Mrs. Brown looked as though she wished she’d brought her smelling salts, and I must say, I was worried we might get a puncture.

  “No fear of either,” said Jonathan. “It hasn’t fallen over yet, and there’s nothing to get a puncture.”

  “Those pods with people inside them may look as though they are made of glass,” said Judy. “But they aren’t of course, and it does mean you can see everything as you go round.”

  “There are thirty-two of them,” said Uncle Pastuzo, reading from a sheet of paper. “Each pod holds up to twenty-five passengers, and you know what? I have booked one all to ourselves.

  “I fix everything,” he continued as a hostess came forward to greet us. “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 saw us all safely on the first empty pod when it arrived, and as the doors closed behind us, we moved ever so slowly on our way.

  The sun disappeared behind the Houses of Parliament, and Mr. Gruber came into his own, pointing out the important landmarks not just to Uncle Pastuzo, but to all of us: Buckingham Palace and other places we had been to on our outings, Big Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the many parks and green spaces that were not generally to be seen at ground level.

  As we rose higher and higher and lights began to appear all over London, the streets looked as though they were peopled by ants, and the buildings became tiny models of the real thing. Christmas lights twinkled in the night sky.

  They were never-to-be-repeated magical moments, and we all agreed Uncle Pastuzo’s timing couldn’t have been better. As the hostess began handing out refreshments, Mr. Brown made a little speech apologizing if we had been a trifle impatient earlier and thanking Uncle Pastuzo for providing us with such a wonderful experience. We are very lucky people.

  Uncle Pastuzo beamed with pleasure. “Amigos,” he said. “It is the only way to see the world. From on high and away from the crowds. Have another chocolate éclair.”

  It was during the journey home that he broke the news he would be moving on the next day, and everyone in the car became downcast.

  It took me a while before I realized why they were quite so gloomy. It was something I overheard Judy say. They wondered if I might be leaving with him, and that decided me.

  When we got back to Windsor Gardens, I hurried upstairs and put a large nail in the back of my bedroom door. It was a souvenir of my decorating, and I knew it might come in useful one day.

  I went to bed extra-early that night, and when everyone else crept in one by one to say good night, I waited until they were all there before I removed my hat.

  “Don’t worry,” I said as I threw it towards the nail as Uncle Pastuzo might have done. “Home is where you hang your hat.”

  Unfortunately it landed on my own head, and everybody laughed.

  “Never mind, Paddington,” said Mrs. Bird, amid general agreement and sighs of relief all round. “As your good friend Mr. Gruber would have it, ‘There is a lot of truth in the old sayings and never more so than it’s the thought that counts.’”

  A Letter from Aunt Lucy

  HOME FOR RETIRED BEARS, LIMA

  Dear Readers,

  Having reached the end of this book, it struck me that some of you must be wondering why, when I sent Paddington off on a voyage of discovery (and I can’t tell you what a wrench that was), I chose to put him on a boat bound for England, hoping he might end up in London.

  Well! Thereby hangs a tale, as the saying goes.

  In the highlands of Peru, some 12,500 feet above sea level, there is a huge lake called Lake Titicaca. It is the largest stretch of inland water in the whole of South America. So large, in fact, the powers that be decided they needed a boat to get from one end of it to the other, so they ordered one to be built for them in England.

  I don’t think they had really thought the whole thing through, though, because it turned out to be so big—over 200 tons—the makers couldn’t send it all at once. It began to arrive in bits and pieces with instructions for putting it together on Lake Titicaca itself. Worse still, the last 350 kilometers of the journey was by means of mules. They could only cope with a small amount at a time, so the whole thing took
place over a number of years rather than months. You can picture what an upheaval that meant to the countryside while it was happening.

  All that took place some one hundred and fifty years or so ago, but while the work was going on, a wealthy English explorer happened to be in the area; and he was so upset at the way bears were being uprooted from their normal habitat, he set up a fund for them. At the same time he bought a huge empty house on Lima’s seafront to take care of the older ones who had nowhere to go. So you will understand why we have a soft spot for anything British. Nobody ever treated us like that before.

  We have a small lending library in our Rest Room at the Home for Retired Bears. (When I say small, at the last count there were only five books.) They are really meant for the oldest inhabitants when they are at a loose end. But since most of them can’t read, they make use of them for “other purposes”—like doorstops when there is a gale blowing.

  Anyway, among the books still available, there is one with a list of famous sayings, and in it there is one by a Mr. Boswell, who said, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

  I thought he must know what he is talking about, and if London is good enough for him, it probably applies to bears as well. It seems to be working out very well, so I have written to him to say thank you, but I am still waiting for a reply.

  Yours truly,

  Aunt Lucy

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