The Teddy Robinson Storybook

by Joan G. Robinson

  And that is the end of the story about Teddy Robinson’s concert party.

  11

  Teddy Robinson and the Beautiful Present

  One day Teddy Robinson and Deborah went to Granny’s house for the afternoon.

  After tea Granny gave Deborah a little round tin, full of soapy stuff, and a piece of bent wire, round at one end and straight at the other end.

  “What is it for?” asked Deborah.

  “It’s for blowing bubbles,” said Granny. “I’ll show you how to do it.” And she dipped the end of the wire into the tin, and then blew gently through it into the air. A whole stream of bubbles flew out into the room.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Deborah. “What a Beautiful Present!”

  “It will keep you happy till Daddy comes to fetch you,” said Granny, and she went away to tidy up the tea things.

  Teddy Robinson sat in Granny’s armchair and watched Deborah blowing the bubbles. They were very pretty.

  “Can I have one?” he asked.

  Deborah blew a bubble at him, and it landed on his arm.

  “Oh, thank you,” he said. “Can I keep it?”

  But before Deborah could say yes, the bubble had made a tiny little splutter and burst.

  “Well, I’m blowed!” said Teddy Robinson. “That one’s gone. Blow me another!”

  So Deborah blew another. This one landed on his foot. But again it spluttered and burst.

  “More!” said Teddy Robinson. So Deborah blew a whole stream of bubbles, and they landed all over him: one on his ear, one on his toe, five or six on his arms and legs, and one on the very end of his nose. But, one by one, they all spluttered and burst. Teddy Robinson’s fur was damp where the bubbles had been, and he felt rather cross.

  “The ones you give me aren’t any good,” he said. “They all burst.”

  “They are meant to burst,” said Deborah.

  “Then what’s the good of them?” said Teddy Robinson.

  “Just to look beautiful, for a minute,” said Deborah.

  “I think that’s silly,” said Teddy Robinson. “If I couldn’t look beautiful for more than a minute without bursting, I wouldn’t bother to look beautiful at all. Stop blowing bubbles and play with me instead.”

  “No, said Deborah. “I can play with you any time. I want to play with my beautiful bubbles just now. Don’t bother me, there’s a good boy.”

  So Teddy Robinson sat and sang to himself while he watched Deborah blowing bubbles.

  “The trouble

  with a bubble

  is the way it isn’t there

  the minute that you’ve blown it

  and thrown it

  in the air.

  It’s a pity,

  when you’re pretty,

  to disappear in air.

  I’m glad I’m not a bubble;

  I’d rather be a bear.”

  When it was time to go home Daddy came to fetch them on his bicycle. Deborah ran to show him the Beautiful Present.

  “Show me how it works when we get home,” said Daddy. “We must hurry now, because Mummy is waiting for us.”

  So Teddy Robinson and Deborah said goodbye to Granny, and Daddy took them out to the gate where his bicycle was waiting. He popped Teddy Robinson into the basket on the front, then he lifted Deborah up into the little seat at the back, just behind him.

  “You carry my Beautiful Present, Daddy,” said Deborah. So Daddy put it in his pocket. Then off they all went.

  Teddy Robinson loved riding in the bicycle basket. The wind whistled in his fur, and he sang to himself all the way home:

  “Head over heels,

  how nice it feels,

  a basket-y ride

  on bicycle wheels.”

  It was beginning to get dark, and the lights were going on in all the houses when at last they reached home.

  “Now run in quickly,” said Daddy, as he lifted Deborah down from her little seat. “Here are your bubbles,” he said, and he took Granny’s present out of his pocket.

  Deborah ran in at the front door where Mummy was waiting. Teddy Robinson heard her calling as she ran, “Look, Mummy – I’ve got such a Beautiful Present!” Then the front door shut behind them.

  Daddy wheeled the bicycle round the side of the house to the tool-shed. He opened the door and pushed the bicycle inside, leaning it up against the wall. Then he went out again and shut the door behind him.

  “Oh, dear!” said Teddy Robinson. “They’ve forgotten I’m still in the basket. I expect they’ll come back and fetch me later.”

  But they didn’t come back and fetch him, because Daddy had quite forgotten that he had put Teddy Robinson in the basket, and Deborah thought she must have left him at Granny’s house. So she went to bed thinking that Granny would be bringing him back tomorrow.

  It was very dark in the tool-shed, and very quiet.

  Teddy Robinson smoothed his fur and pulled up his braces, and sang a little song to keep himself company:

  “Oh, my fur and braces!

  How dark it is at night

  sitting in the tool-shed

  without electric light!

  Sitting in the tool-shed,

  with no one here but me.

  Oh, my fur and braces,

  what a funny place to be!”

  He rather liked the bit about the fur and braces, so he sang it again. Then he stopped singing and listened to the quietness instead. And after a while he found that it wasn’t really quiet at all in the tool-shed. All sorts of little noises and rustlings were going on, very tiny little noises that he wouldn’t have noticed if everything else hadn’t been so quiet.

  First he heard the bustling of a lot of little earwigs running to and fro under a pile of logs in the corner. Then he heard the panting of a crowd of tiny ants who were struggling across the floor with a long twig they were carrying. Then he heard the sigh of a little moth as it shook its wings and fluttered about the windowpane. Teddy Robinson was glad to think he wasn’t all by himself in the tool-shed after all.

  Suddenly something came dropping down from the ceiling on a long, thin thread and hung just in front of his nose. It made one or two funny faces at him, then pulled itself up again and disappeared out of sight. Teddy Robinson was so frightened that he nearly fell out of the bicycle basket. But then he realized that it was only a spider.

  What a pity, he thought. I’d have said Good Evening if I’d known it was coming.

  A moment later he felt a gentle plop on top of his head and knew that the spider had come down again. This time he wasn’t frightened, only surprised.

  It seemed rather silly to say Good Evening to someone who was sitting on top of his head, so Teddy Robinson began singing again, in his smallest voice, just to let the spider know he was there.

  “Oh, my fur and braces!

  You did give me a fright,

  making funny faces

  in the middle of the night!

  Hanging from the ceiling

  by a tiny silver thread,

  what a funny feeling

  when you landed on my head!”

  The spider crawled across the front of Teddy Robinson’s head and looked down into one of his eyes.

  “I say,” he said. “I do beg your pardon. I didn’t know it was your head I’d landed on. And when I came down the first time I’d no idea I was making faces at you. I was simply looking for somewhere to spin a web. I’m sorry I frightened you.”

  “That’s all right,” said Teddy Robinson.

  “I believe I do make funny faces when I’m thinking,” said the spider. “I often seem to frighten people without meaning to. Have you heard about Miss Muffet? Well, I gave her such a fright that they’ve been making a song about it ever since; but it was quite by mistake, you know.”

  Teddy Robinson began to feel rather sorry for the spider who was always frightening people without meaning to, so he said, “Well, I’m not frightened of you. I’m pleased to see you.”

  “Have you com
e to live here?” asked the spider.

  “Oh, I hope not,” said Teddy Robinson. “I mean I’m really only here by mistake. Deborah’s sure to come and find me in the morning. She wouldn’t have forgotten me tonight if she hadn’t been given a Beautiful Present.”

  “What was it?” asked the spider.

  “Bubbles,” said Teddy Robinson. “They were very pretty, but they kept bursting.”

  “And did you have a Beautiful Present too?”

  “No,” said Teddy Robinson sadly.

  “What a shame,” said the spider. “You know, I could make you a Beautiful Present myself. It wouldn’t last very long, but it would last longer than a bubble.”

  “Could you really?” said Teddy Robinson.

  “Yes,” said the spider. “I could spin a web for you. I make rather beautiful webs, and they look lovely with the light shining on them.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said Teddy Robinson. “I should like that. Will I be able to take it away with me?”

  “Yes,” said the spider. “But I must be careful not to join it to the wall or it will break when you move.”

  “And don’t join it to the bicycle basket either, will you?” said Teddy Robinson. “I don’t usually live in that.”

  “I see,” said the spider. “Well, I will start at your ear, and go down here, and along here, and I’ll catch the thread to your foot if you’re sure that doesn’t tickle you?”

  “Yes, that will be very nice,” said Teddy Robinson. “Shall I sing to you while you work?”

  “Oh, do,” said the spider. “I love music while I work.”

  So Teddy Robinson began singing:

  “Spin, little spider, spin,

  in and out and in.”

  And as he sang he heard a gentle whirring noise quite close to his ear, and knew that the spider had started spinning the web that was to be his Beautiful Present.

  Soon the gentle noise of the spider spinning made Teddy Robinson so drowsy that he forgot to sing any more, and a little while afterwards he fell fast asleep.

  It was morning when he woke up again. Someone was just opening the tool-shed door, and as the sunshine came streaming in Teddy Robinson could see the silver thread of the spider’s web reaching right down to his toes. He kept very still so as not to break it.

  Daddy had come to fetch his bicycle. As soon as he saw Teddy Robinson he called Deborah. She was surprised to see him.

  “I thought we’d left you at Granny’s!” she said. “Oh, you poor boy!”

  “Yes, but look what he’s got!” said Daddy.

  “Oh, how lovely!” said Deborah, and she called Mummy to come and see. And Mummy and Daddy and Deborah all crowded round the bicycle to look at Teddy Robinson and admire his beautiful web.

  “A spider must have made it in the night,” said Daddy.

  “Look how it sparkles in the sun!” said Mummy.

  “And Teddy Robinson has got a Beautiful Present all of his own!” said Deborah.

  Then Teddy Robinson was lifted very carefully out of the bicycle basket, and Deborah carried him into the house, holding him in front of her with both hands, so as not to break a single thread of the web.

  “What happened to your Beautiful Present?” asked Teddy Robinson.

  “It’s finished. I threw away the tin,” said Deborah.

  “And where are all the bubbles?”

  “Gone,” said Deborah. “They all burst. Your web won’t last for ever either. Nothing does.”

  “Except me,” said Teddy Robinson. “It’s a good thing I don’t burst, isn’t it?”

  And that is the end of the story about Teddy Robinson and the Beautiful Present.

  12

  Teddy Robinson Tries to Keep Up

  One day Teddy Robinson was sitting in Deborah’s window, looking across the road, when he suddenly saw something very odd. In the window of the house opposite he saw himself looking out.

  “Fancy that,” said Teddy Robinson, “I never knew I was reflected in that window.” And he sat up a little straighter and began to admire himself quietly.

  “My fur looks better than I thought,” he said to himself. “The part that’s been kissed away all round my nose hardly shows from here. And my trousers aren’t too shabby at all. I’m really quite a handsome bear from a distance.” And he was pleased to think the people over the road had such a fine view of him.

  But a little later, when he looked across again, he had another surprise. He could see quite clearly in the reflection of the window opposite that he had a hat on. A large, round, red beret with a bobble on top.

  “That’s funny,” he said to himself. “I don’t remember Deborah putting my hat on. Anyway my hat doesn’t look like that. Can she have bought me a new one, and put it on my head when I wasn’t looking?” Just then Deborah came running in.

  “Hallo,” said Teddy Robinson. “Why have I got this hat on?”

  “What hat?” said Deborah, surprised.

  “Haven’t I got a hat on?” said Teddy Robinson. “A large, round, red beret with a bobble on top?”

  “No, of course you haven’t,” said Deborah, and she came over and looked at him closely.

  “Look over there, then,” said Teddy Robinson. “Isn’t that me? And haven’t I got a hat on?”

  Deborah looked. “Oh, that’s funny!” she said. “They’ve got a teddy bear just like you! He’s even got the same sort of trousers. I wonder why they put him up in the window.”

  “Was it to show off that hat?” said Teddy Robinson.

  “Yes, perhaps it was,” said Deborah. “That big girl, Pauline Jones, lives there. The one who goes to school and wears a uniform. That’s her hat.”

  “It’s a very nice hat,” said Teddy Robinson.

  “Yes,” said Deborah, “but I wish the girl was nice too. She’s not a bit friendly. Once when I took you out in the dolls’ pram she stared hard, but she never even smiled at us. When I go to a big school with a uniform I shan’t be like that. I’ll say hallo to everybody, no matter how young they are.”

  Teddy Robinson stared across at the other bear.

  “I’d better have my hat on,” he said.

  “Yes, they may as well see you’ve got one too,” said Deborah, and she fetched his knitted bonnet.

  “Where are my other hats?” said Teddy Robinson.

  “You haven’t any, you know that,” said Deborah. “But this is lovely, it’s a real baby’s bonnet.”

  “Yes, I was afraid it was,” said Teddy Robinson. “Can’t you lend me one of yours?”

  So Deborah fetched one of her own hats. It had poppies and corn round it, and ribbon streamers.

  “That’s much better!” said Teddy Robinson. “Now, haven’t I got a paper sunshade as well?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Deborah. “What fun!”

  And a few minutes later Teddy Robinson was sitting proudly in the window, with Deborah’s best hat on and his paper sunshade over his head.

  Deborah was just having tea when she heard Teddy Robinson shouting, “Can I have something to eat? That bear over the road has got an orange!”

  She ran in with her slice of bread and butter. It had a big bite taken out of it. She propped it up on Teddy Robinson’s paw against the window, then went back to finish her tea. But a moment later Teddy Robinson called out again.

  “Hey! That Jones bear has got a bun now!”

  Deborah ran in again, this time with a slice of cake in her hand. She propped it up on his other paw.

  “Now are you happy?” she said.

  “Oh, yes, thank you,” said Teddy Robinson.

  But when Deborah came back again after tea, Teddy Robinson was looking gloomy.

  “Now what’s the matter?” she said.

  “I don’t like tea with nothing to drink,” said Teddy Robinson.

  Deborah looked across at the other window and saw that the Jones bear now had a bottle of milk in front of him, with a straw sticking out of it.

  “Oh dear,” she sai
d, “poor Teddy Robinson! I’d better get the dolls’ tea set out.”

  And soon Teddy Robinson was sitting with his tea nicely laid out in front of him on a tray.

  “This is fun!” said Deborah. “I do wonder who is doing it. Surely it can’t be that girl, Pauline, who never even says hallo?”

  Teddy Robinson didn’t know who it was either. He tried to keep watch to see if he could see anyone moving about, but somehow he always just missed it.

  Next time he looked he saw that the milk bottle had gone, and the bear was now reading a book.

  “Bring me a book, Deborah!” he shouted. “A big book. The biggest you can find!”

  Deborah came running in with the telephone book and propped it up in front of him on the toy blackboard. It was very dull, with nothing but long lists of names in it, but luckily Teddy Robinson couldn’t read, so he didn’t know how bored he was. And it was fun trying to keep up with the other bear.

  “He doesn’t even know I can’t read,” he said, and chuckled to himself.

  But by bedtime he was getting quite stiff.

  “Thank goodness I can get down now,” he said. Then he looked across at the other house. A big dolls’ cot had just been put on the window-sill!

  “Oh, my goodness!” he said, “whatever next?” Then he shouted loudly, “A bed! Bring me a bed!”

  Deborah came running. “What is it now?”

  “I must have a bed!” said Teddy Robinson. “A bed all to myself. At once!”

  “That’s not a very nice way to ask,” said Deborah.

  “Please, dear Deborah, may I have a bed all of my own?” said Teddy Robinson. “I can’t possibly let that Jones bear know I haven’t got one.”

  Deborah rummmaged in the toy-cupboard and pulled out an old dolls’ bed. “It’s too small,” she said.

  “And the bottom’s fallen out,” said Teddy Robinson.

  “But it’s all we’ve got,” said Deborah.

  “Then it’ll have to do,” said Teddy Robinson. “Put my nightie on quickly and squeeze me in.”