Читать книгу Paddington Novels 1-3 - Michael Bond - Страница 10

THE MAN IN the gentlemen’s outfitting department at Barkridges held Paddington’s hat at arm’s length between thumb and forefinger. He looked at it distastefully.

“I take it the young… er, gentleman, will not be requiring this any more, Modom?” he said.

“Oh yes, I shall,” said Paddington firmly. “I’ve always had that hat – ever since I was small.”

“But wouldn’t you like a nice new one, Paddington?” said Mrs Brown hastily, “for best?”

Paddington thought for a moment. “I’ll have one for worst if you like,” he said. “That’s my best one!”

The salesman shuddered slightly and, averting his gaze, placed the offending article on the far end of the counter.

“Albert!” He beckoned to a youth who was hovering in the background. “See what we have in size 4⁷/₈.” Albert began to rummage under the counter.

“And now, while we’re about it,” said Mrs Brown, “we’d like a nice warm coat for the winter. Something like a duffel coat with toggles so that he can do it up easily, I thought. And we’d also like a plastic raincoat for the summer.”

The salesman looked at her haughtily. He wasn’t very fond of bears and this one, especially, had been giving him queer looks ever since he’d mentioned his wretched hat. “Has Modom tried the bargain basement?” he began. “Something in Government Surplus…”

“No, I haven’t,” said Mrs Brown, hotly. “Government Surplus indeed! I’ve never heard of such a thing – have you, Paddington?”

“No,” said Paddington, who had no idea what Government Surplus was. “Never!” He stared hard at the man, who looked away uneasily. Paddington had a very persistent stare when he cared to use it. It was a very powerful stare. One which his Aunt Lucy had taught him and which he kept for special occasions.

Mrs Brown pointed to a smart blue duffel coat with a red lining. “That looks the very thing,” she said.

The assistant gulped. “Yes, Modom. Certainly, Modom.” He beckoned to Paddington. “Come this way, sir.”

Paddington followed the assistant, keeping about two feet behind him, and staring very hard. The back of the man’s neck seemed to go a dull red and he fingered his collar nervously. As they passed the hat counter, Albert, who lived in constant fear of his superior, and who had been watching the events with an open mouth, gave Paddington the thumbs-up sign. Paddington waved a paw. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

He allowed the assistant to help him on with the coat and then stood admiring himself in the mirror. It was the first coat he had ever possessed. In Peru it had been very hot, and though his Aunt Lucy had made him wear a hat to prevent sunstroke, it had always been much too warm for a coat of any sort. He looked at himself in the mirror and was surprised to see not one, but a long line of bears stretching away as far as the eye could see. In fact, everywhere he looked there were bears, and they were all looking extremely smart.

“Isn’t the hood a trifle large?” asked Mrs Brown, anxiously.

“Hoods are being worn large this year, Modom,” said the assistant. “It’s the latest fashion.” He was about to add that Paddington seemed to have rather a large head anyway but he changed his mind. Bears were rather unpredictable. You never quite knew what they were thinking and this one in particular seemed to have a mind of his own.

“Do you like it, Paddington?” asked Mrs Brown.

Paddington gave up counting bears in the mirror and turned round to look at the back view. “I think it’s the nicest coat I’ve ever seen,” he said, after a moment’s thought. Mrs Brown and the assistant heaved a sigh of relief.

“Good,” said Mrs Brown. “That’s settled, then. Now there’s just the question of a hat and a plastic macintosh.”

She walked over to the hat counter, where Albert, who could still hardly take his admiring eyes off Paddington, had arranged a huge pile of hats. There were bowler hats, sun hats, trilby hats, berets, and even a very small top hat. Mrs Brown eyed them doubtfully. “It’s difficult,” she said, looking at Paddington. “It’s largely a question of his ears. They stick out rather.”

“You could cut some holes for them,” said Albert.

The assistant froze him with a glance. “Cut a hole in a Barkridge’s hat!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Paddington turned and stared at him. “I… er…” The assistant’s voice trailed off. “I’ll go and fetch my scissors,” he said, in a quiet voice.

“I don’t think that will be necessary at all,” said Mrs Brown, hurriedly. “It’s not as if he had to go to work in the city, so he doesn’t want anything too smart. I think this woollen beret is very nice. The one with the pom-pom on top. The green will go well with his new coat and it’ll stretch so that he can pull it down over his ears when it gets cold.”

Everyone agreed that Paddington looked very smart, and while Mrs Brown looked for a plastic macintosh, he trotted off to have another look at himself in the mirror. He found the beret was a little difficult to raise as his ears kept the bottom half firmly in place. But by pulling on the pom-pom he could make it stretch quite a long way, which was almost as good. It meant, too, that he could be polite without getting his ears cold.

The assistant wanted to wrap up the duffel coat for him but after a lot of fuss it was agreed that, even though it was a warm day, he should wear it. Paddington felt very proud of himself and he was anxious to see if other people noticed.

After shaking hands with Albert, Paddington gave the assistant one more long, hard stare and the unfortunate man collapsed into a chair and began mopping his brow as Mrs Brown led the way out through the door.

Barkridges was a large shop and it even had its own escalator as well as several lifts. Mrs Brown hesitated at the door and then took Paddington’s paw firmly in her hand and led him towards the lift. She’d had enough of escalators for one day.

But to Paddington everything was new, or almost everything, and he liked trying strange things. After a few seconds he decided quite definitely that he preferred riding on an escalator. They were nice and smooth. But lifts! To start with, it was full of people carrying parcels and all so busy they had not time to notice a small bear – one woman even rested her shopping bag on his head and seemed quite surprised when Paddington pushed it off. Then suddenly half of him seemed to fall away while the other half stayed where it was. Just as he had got used to that feeling the second half of him caught up again and even overtook the first half before the doors opened. It did that four times on the way down and Paddington was glad when the man in charge said it was the ground floor and Mrs Brown led him out.

She looked at him closely. “Oh dear, Paddington, you look quite pale,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I feel sick,” said Paddington. “I don’t like lifts. And I wish I hadn’t had such a big breakfast!”

“Oh dear!” Mrs Brown looked around. Judy, who had gone off to do some shopping on her own, was nowhere to be seen. “Will you be all right sitting here for a few minutes while I go off to find Judy?” she asked.

Paddington sank down on to his case looking very mournful. Even the pom-pom on his hat seemed limp.

“I don’t know whether I shall be all right,” he said. “But I’ll do my best.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” said Mrs Brown. “Then we can take a taxi home for lunch.”

Paddington groaned. “Poor Paddington,” said Mrs Brown, “you must be feeling bad if you don’t want any lunch.” At the word lunch again, Paddington closed his eyes and gave an even louder groan. Mrs Brown tiptoed away.

Paddington kept his eyes closed for several minutes and then, as he began to feel better, he gradually became aware that every now and then a nice cool draught of air blew over his face. He opened one eye carefully to see where it was coming from and noticed for the first time that he was sitting near the main entrance to the shop. He opened his other eye and decided to investigate. If he stayed just outside the glass door he could still see Mrs Brown and Judy when they came.

And then, as he bent down to pick up his suitcase, everything suddenly went black. “Oh dear,” thought Paddington, “now all the lights have gone out.”

He began groping his way with outstretched paws towards the door. He gave a push where he thought it ought to be but nothing happened. He tried moving along the wall a little way and gave another push. This time it did move. The door seemed to have a strong spring on it and he had to push hard to make it open but eventually there was a gap big enough for him to squeeze through. It clanged shut behind him and Paddington was disappointed to find it was just as dark outside as it had been in the shop. He began to wish he’d stayed where he was. He turned round and tried to find the door but it seemed to have disappeared.

He decided it might be easier if he got down on his paws and crawled. He went a little way like this and then his head came up against something hard. He tried to push it to one side with his paw and it moved slightly so he pushed again.

Suddenly, there was a noise like thunder, and before he knew where he was a whole mountain of things began to fall on him. It felt as if the whole sky had fallen in. Everything went quiet and he lay where he was for a few minutes with his eyes tightly shut, hardly daring to breathe. From a long way away he could hear voices and once or twice it sounded as if someone was banging on a window. He opened one eye carefully and was surprised to find the light had come on again. At least… Sheepishly he pushed the hood of his duffel coat up over his head. They hadn’t gone out at all! His hood must have fallen over his head when he bent down inside the shop to pick up his case.

Paddington sat up and looked around to see where he was. He felt much better now. Somewhat to his astonishment, he found he was sitting in a small room in the middle of which was a great pile of tins and basins and bowls. He rubbed his eyes and stared, round-eyed, at the sight.

Behind him there was a wall with a door in it, and in front of him there was a large window. On the other side of the window there was a large crowd of people pushing one another and pointing in his direction. Paddington decided with pleasure that they must be pointing at him. He stood up with difficulty, because it was hard standing up straight on top of a lot of tins, and pulled the pom-pom on his hat as high as it would go. A cheer went up from the crowd. Paddington gave a bow, waved several times, and then started to examine the damage all around him.

For a moment he wasn’t quite sure where he was, and then it came to him. Instead of going out into the street he must have opened a door leading to one of the shop windows!

Paddington was an observant bear, and since he had arrived in London he’d noticed lots of these shop windows. They were very interesting. They always had so many things inside them to look at. Once, he’d seen a man working in one, piling tin cans and boxes on top of each other to make a pyramid. He remembered deciding at the time what a nice job it must be.

He looked round thoughtfully. “Oh dear,” he said to the world in general, “I’m in trouble again.” If he’d knocked all these things down, as he supposed he must have done, someone was going to be cross. In fact, lots of people were going to be cross. People weren’t very good at having things explained to them and it was going to be difficult explaining how his duffel coat hood had fallen over his head.

He bent down and began to pick up the things. There were some glass shelves lying on the floor where they had fallen. It was getting warm inside the window so he took off his duffel coat and hung it carefully on a nail. Then he picked up a glass shelf and tried balancing it on top of some tins. It seemed to work so he put some more tins and a washing-up bowl on top of that. It was rather wobbly but… he stood back and examined it… yes, it looked quite nice. There was an encouraging round of applause from outside. Paddington waved a paw at the crowd and picked up another shelf.

Inside the shop, Mrs Brown was having an earnest conversation with the store detective.

“You say you left him here, Madam?” the detective was saying.

“That’s right,” said Mrs Brown. “He was feeling ill and I told him not to go away. His name’s Paddington.”

“Paddington.” The detective wrote it carefully in his notebook. “What sort of bear is he?”

“Oh, he’s sort of golden,” said Mrs Brown. “He was wearing a blue duffel coat and carrying a suitcase.”

“And he has black ears,” said Judy. “You can’t mistake him.”

“Black ears,” the detective repeated, licking his pencil.

“I don’t expect that’ll help much,” said Mrs Brown. “He was wearing his beret.”

The detective cupped his hand over his ear. “His what?” he shouted. There really was a terrible noise coming from somewhere. It seemed to be getting worse every minute. Every now and then there was a round of applause and several times he distinctly heard the sound of people cheering.

“His beret,” shouted Mrs Brown in return. “A green woollen one that came down over his ears. With a pom-pom.”

The detective shut his notebook with a snap. The noise outside was definitely getting worse. “Pardon me,” he said, sternly. “There’s something strange going on that needs investigating.”

Mrs Brown and Judy exchanged glances. The same thought was running through both their minds. They both said “Paddington!” and rushed after the detective. Mrs Brown clung to the detective’s coat and Judy clung to Mrs Brown’s as they forced their way through the crowd on the pavement. Just as they reached the window a tremendous cheer went up.

“I might have known,” said Mrs Brown.

“Paddington!” exclaimed Judy.

Paddington had just reached the top of his pyramid. At least, it had started off to be a pyramid, but it wasn’t really. It wasn’t any particular shape at all and it was very rickety. Having placed the last tin on the top Paddington was in trouble. He wanted to get down but he couldn’t. He reached out a paw and the mountain began to wobble. Paddington clung helplessly to the tins, swaying to and fro, watched by a fascinated audience. And then, without any warning, the whole lot collapsed again, only this time Paddington was on top and not underneath. A groan of disappointment went up from the crowd.

“Best thing I’ve seen in years,” said a man in the crowd to Mrs Brown. “Blessed if I know how they think these things up.”

“Will he do it again, Mummy?” asked a small boy.

“I don’t think so, dear,” said his mother. “I think he’s finished for the day.” She pointed to the window where the detective was removing a sorry-looking Paddington. Mrs Brown hurried back to the entrance followed by Judy.

Inside the shop the detective looked at Paddington and then at his notebook. “Blue duffel coat,” he said. “Green woollen beret!” He pulled the beret off. “Black ears! I know who you are,” he said grimly; “you’re Paddington!”

Paddington nearly fell backwards with astonishment.

“However did you know that?” he said.

“I’m a detective,” said the man. “It’s my job to know these things. We’re always on the look-out for criminals.”

“But I’m not a criminal,” said Paddington hotly. “I’m a bear! Besides, I was only tidying up the window…”

“Tidying up the window,” the detective spluttered. “I don’t know what Mr Perkins will have to say. He only dressed it this morning.”

Paddington looked round uneasily. He could see Mrs Brown and Judy hurrying towards him. In fact, there were several people coming his way, including an important-looking man in a black coat and striped trousers. They all reached him at the same time and all began talking together.

Paddington sat down on his case and watched them. There were times when it was much better to keep quiet, and this was one of them. In the end it was the important-looking man who won, because he had the loudest voice and kept on talking when everyone else had finished.

To Paddington’s surprise he reached down, took hold of his paw, and started to shake it so hard he thought it was going to drop off.

“Delighted to know you, bear,” he boomed. “Delighted to know you. And congratulations.”

“That’s all right,” said Paddington, doubtfully. He didn’t know why, but the man seemed very pleased.

The man turned to Mrs Brown. “You say his name’s Paddington?”

“That’s right,” said Mrs Brown. “And I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm.”

“Harm?” The man looked at Mrs Brown in amazement. “Did you say harm? My dear lady, through the action of this bear we’ve had the biggest crowd in years. Our telephone hasn’t stopped ringing.” He waved towards the entrance to the store. “And still they come!”

He placed his hand on Paddington’s head. “Barkridges,” he said, “Barkridges is grateful!” He waved his other hand for silence. “We would like to show our gratitude. If there is anything… anything in the store you would like…?”

Paddington’s eyes gleamed. He knew just what he wanted. He’d seen it on their way up to the outfitting department. It had been standing all by itself on a counter in the food store. The biggest one he’d ever seen. Almost as big as himself.

“Please,” he said. “I’d like one of those jars of marmalade. One of the big ones.”

If the manager of Barkridges felt surprised he didn’t show it. He stood respectfully to one side, by the entrance to the lift.

“Marmalade it shall be,” he said, pressing the button.

“I think,” said Paddington, “if you don’t mind, I’d rather use the stairs.”