So Deborah did. Then she covered him with a doll’s blanket, put the telephone book underneath, to stop him falling through, and put him up on the sill.
“Are you comfy?” she said.
“No, thank you,” said Teddy Robinson. “But at least I’m glad I’ve got a proper nightie, and don’t have to go to bed in my trousers.”
“I wonder if they can see it,” said Deborah.
“Shall we hang my trousers up?” said Teddy Robinson. “Then they’ll know I haven’t got them on.”
So Deborah found a dress hanger, and hung Teddy Robinson’s trousers up in the window for everyone to see. And Teddy Robinson lay underneath and thought how funny they looked without him inside them.
Then Deborah kissed him and got into her own bed. Usually Teddy Robinson slept there too. Sometimes he pushed his way down in the night until he was right at the bottom of the bed and as warm as toast. But tonight he was very cold. The blanket was far too small, and he couldn’t move an inch.
He had a dreadful night.
When at last Deborah came for him in the morning, he was too stiff and sleepy to sit up straight.
But Deborah was very bright. She said, “Oh, do look! The Jones bear is having breakfast now!”
Sure enough, there he sat in the window with a big packet of cornflakes in front of him.
“I’d better have eggs and bacon then, hadn’t I?” said Teddy Robinson, waking up.
“No,” said Deborah, “let’s pretend you had breakfast in bed. Then while I’m having mine, you can be thinking of something to do afterwards.”
But when she came back after breakfast Teddy Robinson was sitting all humped up, and she could tell by the look of his back that he was feeling sad.
“Haven’t you thought of anything?” she said.
“No,” said Teddy Robinson, “and I’m not going to. I’m tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses. They go too quickly for me. Look over there now.”
Deborah looked across and saw that the Jones bear was now wearing a shiny blue party dress with big puffed sleeves, and a blue satin ribbon, tied in a bow between the ears.
“Oh dear,” she said, “we haven’t anything as grand as that. Shall I put on your best purple dress?”
“No,” said Teddy Robinson sadly. “Did you see what he’s got beside him?”
Deborah looked again. “Oh! A dear little dolls’ sewing machine! Aren’t they lucky?”
“Turn me round,” said Teddy Robinson. “I shan’t look any more. I think he’s showing off. I don’t like bears who put on airs.” And he began singing, with his back to the window.
“Teddy bears
who put on airs
are not the the bears for me.
Bears are best
not over-dressed –
in pants, perhaps,
or just a vest,
but not the clothes you wear for best –
they’re better fat and free.
A friendly, free-and-easy bear,
a cosy, jolly, teasy bear
is always welcome
everywhere.
Fair and furry,
fat and free,
that’s the kind of bear to be.
Like me.”
After that he stuck his tummy out again and began to feel better.
“Lift me down,” he said to Deborah. “If that Jones bear only wants to see what things I’ve got, then he doesn’t need to see me at all. We can leave all my things in the window for him to look at, and then go off on our own to a desert island and be very happy with nothing at all. Why didn’t I think of it before?”
So quickly they arranged all his things in the window. They hung up his nightie, his best purple dress and his trousers on three little dress hangers. They hung his paper sunshade and his knitted bonnet from the window latch. Then they took a sheet of cardboard and Deborah wrote on it in big black letters,
GONE AWAY FROM IT ALL
and they propped it up in front of the window on the toy blackboard. Then they went away.
Hours later Teddy Robinson was lying on his back in the middle of a small round flower-bed in the garden. He had no clothes on at all, and a gentle breeze ruffled the fur on his tummy. He sighed happily, staring up at the lupins as they waved gently over his head, and sang to himself softly:
“Lucky bear,
lucky bear,
all alone
and free as air.
No more things
to bother me,
lucky me,
lucky me.
Free-and-easy,
fat and free,
what a lucky bear I be . . .”
“All the same,” he said to himself, “I wish I had somebody else to be all alone and lucky with. That Jones bear would have done, if only he hadn’t been so proud, showing off with all his things.”
Just then he heard Mummy calling to Deborah.
“Listen,” she said, “I’ve just met Mrs Jones who lives opposite, and what do you think she said? She asked me why Teddy Robinson had gone away! I told her he hadn’t, and she said, ‘Well, that’s funny, my Pauline said he had, and she’s so sad about it.’”
“But why is she sad?” said Deborah.
“Mrs Jones says Pauline is very shy and finds it hard to make friends,” said Mummy. “She’s often seen you two together and wanted to talk to you, but she was too shy. Then when her birthday came she asked for a teddy bear like yours. Mrs Jones thought she was too old for it now she goes to a big school. But Pauline wanted it so much that she bought her one. And she says she has been so happy playing with you and Teddy Robinson, and she’d hoped you were going to be friends. Isn’t it funny?”
Then Deborah told Mummy all about it. And a little later she went over to Pauline’s house.
Teddy Robinson said, “Fancy that!” to himself three times over, and fell asleep in the sunshine.
When he woke up again, Deborah and Pauline were peering down at him through the lupins.
“There he is,” said Deborah. “Don’t tell, but this is his desert island. Let’s put Teddy Jones down with him, then they can get to know each other.”
So Teddy Jones had his party dress taken off and was put down beside Teddy Robinson. Then Pauline and Deborah ran off to play.
The two teddy bears lay on their backs and looked at each other sideways.
“Nice to lie down, isn’t it?” said Teddy Robinson.
“Very nice,” said Teddy Jones, with a cosy grunt.
“I must say I got a bit stiff sitting up in that window,” said Teddy Robinson.
“So did I,” said Teddy Jones. “This is a nice little place you’ve got here.”
“Yes, it’s my desert island,” said Teddy Robinson. “Have you got one?”
“Oh, don’t start all that again!” said Teddy Jones. “I’m worn out trying to keep up with you!”
“What!” said Teddy Robinson. “You can’t be as worn out as I am. That’s why I’m lying here. I nearly broke my back in that awful little bed.”
“You may as well know I wasn’t as comfortable as I looked,” said Teddy Jones. “That cot was too small. I had a shocking night.”
“Did you?” said Teddy Robinson. “Oh, I am glad! But I bet mine was worse; my bed had no bottom to it.”
“Now I’ll tell you something,” said Teddy Jones. “That hat wasn’t mine. I borrowed it.”
“Mine wasn’t mine either,” said Teddy Robinson. “I only borrowed it to keep up with you.”
“But why?” said Teddy Jones. “Fancy a proud sort of chap like you trying to keep up with me!”
“I’m not a proud sort of chap,” said Teddy Robinson. “I thought you were. I’m only me.”
“And I’m only me,” said Teddy Jones.
“Well now, isn’t that nice?” said Teddy Robinson. “If you’re only you and I’m only me, we don’t have to bother any more.”
“And we might even come to tea with each other instead?” said Teddy Jones.
“Yes, of course!” said Teddy Robinson. “What a silly old sausage of a bear I am! I’ve been so busy trying to show off to you with all the things I haven’t got, that I quite forgot to make friends with you. You come to tea with me today, and I’ll come to tea with you tomorrow.”
So they did.
And that is the end of the story about how Teddy Robinson tried to keep up with the Joneses.
13
Teddy Robinson and the Band
One day Teddy Robinson and Deborah and Mummy all went off to spend the afternoon in the park.
When they got there Mummy found a comfortable seat to sit on and settled down to knit. Deborah and Teddy Robinson sat down on the other end of the seat and looked around to see what they could see.
Not far away some children were skipping on the grass. After she had watched them for a little while Deborah said, “I think I’d like to go and skip with those children, Teddy Robinson. You wouldn’t mind staying here with Mummy, would you?
And Teddy Robinson said, “No, I don’t mind. I don’t care about skipping myself, but you go. I’ll watch you.”
So Deborah ran off to join the other children on the grass, and Teddy Robinson and Mummy stayed sitting on the seat in the sunshine.
Soon a lady came along, holding a very little boy by the hand. As soon as she saw Mummy the lady said, “Oh, how nice to meet you here!” And she sat down beside her and started talking, because she was a friend of hers.
The very little boy, whose name was James, stared hard and said nothing.
“Look, James, this is Teddy Robinson,” said Mummy. “Perhaps you would like to sit up beside him and talk to him.”
So James climbed up on the seat, and he and Teddy Robinson sat side by side and looked at each other, but neither of them said a word. They were both rather shy.
Mummy and the lady talked and talked and were very jolly together, but James and Teddy Robinson sat and did nothing and were rather dull together.
After a while James grew tired of sitting still, so he climbed down off the seat, and when nobody was looking he lifted Teddy Robinson down too, and toddled away with him.
“I hope you aren’t going to lose us,” said Teddy Robinson. But James said nothing at all.
They hadn’t gone far before they came to some trees, and on the other side of the trees they saw a bandstand with rows of chairs all round it. It was like a little round summerhouse, with open sides and a roof on top.
James and Teddy Robinson went over to look at it, and, as there was nobody there, they were able to go right up the steps and look inside. After that they ran in and out along the rows of empty chairs, until they came to the back row, just under the trees. Then James sat Teddy Robinson down on one of the chairs, and sat himself down on the one next to him.
“I’m glad I’ve got a chair to myself,” said Teddy Robinson. “It would be a pity to share one when there are so many.”
But James didn’t like sitting still for long. A moment later he got up again, and, forgetting all about Teddy Robinson, he ran back to the seat where Mummy and the lady were still talking. He was only a very little boy.
Teddy Robinson didn’t mind at all. He felt rather grand sitting there all by himself on a chair of his own, with rows and rows of empty chairs standing all round him, and he began to think how nice it would be if someone should happen to pass by and notice him.
He looked up into the leafy branches over his head, so that people would think he was just sitting there thinking, and wouldn’t guess that he had really been left there by mistake. And then he began thinking of all the things that people might say to each other when they saw him.
“Look over there!
Look where?
Why, there.
Take care, don’t stare,
but alone on that chair
there’s a teddy bear!
I do declare!
A bear on a chair
with his head in the air!
How did he get there?”
He said this to himself several times over, and then he went on:
“You can see that he’s thinking
(not preening or prinking,
or winking or blinking,
or prowling or slinking,
or eating or drinking),
but just sitting thinking . . .”
But he didn’t think this was very good, and anyway he was getting into rather a muddle with so much thinking about thinking. So he was quite pleased when suddenly there was a rustling in the leaves over his head, and a sparrow hopped along the branch nearest to him and stared down at him with bright, beady eyes.
“Good afternoon,” chirped the sparrow. “Are you waiting for the music?”
“Good afternoon,” said Teddy Robinson. “What music?”
“The band,” said the sparrow. “I thought perhaps you had come to sing with the band. It always plays here in the afternoons.”
“Oh,” said Teddy Robinson, “how very nice that will be! I love singing.”
“So do I,” chirped the sparrow. “We all do. There are quite a lot of us up in this tree, and we sing with the band every afternoon. I really don’t know how they would manage without us. I’m sure people would miss us if we didn’t join in.”
“How very jolly!” said Teddy Robinson. “When will the music begin?”
“Oh, very soon now,” said the sparrow. “You’ll see the chairs will soon begin to fill up, and then the band will arrive. Have you paid for your chair?”
“Oh, no,” said Teddy Robinson. “Do I have to pay? I don’t want to buy it, only to sit in it for a little while.”
“Yes, but you have to pay just to sit in it,” said the sparrow. “The ticket-man will be along in a minute. You’d better pretend to be asleep.”
But Teddy Robinson was far too excited to pretend to be asleep. He was longing for the band to come and for the music to begin.
Before long one or two people came along and sat down in chairs near by; then two or three more people came, and after that more and more, until nearly all the rows of chairs were full. Several people looked as if they were just going to sit down in Teddy Robinson’s chair, but they saw him just in time and moved on.
Then along came the ticket-man. Teddy Robinson began to feel rather worried when he saw all the people giving him money for their seats. But it was quite all right; the man came up to where he was sitting and stopped for a moment, then he smiled at Teddy Robinson and said, “I suppose it’s no use asking you to buy a ticket,” and went away.
Teddy Robinson was very glad.
“Was it all right?” asked the sparrow, peeping through the leaves.
“Yes,” said Teddy Robinson. “I don’t know how he knew I hadn’t any money, but it’s very nice for me, because now everyone will think I paid for my chair.”
He sat up straighter than ever, and started to have a little think about how nice it was, to be sitting in a chair and looking as though you’d paid for it:
“Look at that bear!
He’s paid for a chair;
no wonder he looks so grand;
with his paws in his lap,
what a sensible chap!
He’s waiting to hear the band.”
And then the band arrived. The men wore red and gold uniforms, and they climbed up the steps to the bandstand, carrying their trumpets and flutes and a great big drum.
“Here they come!” chirped the sparrow from the tree. “I must go and make sure the birds are all ready to start singing. Don’t forget to join in yourself if you feel like it. Do you sing bass?”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Teddy Robinson.
“Rather deep and growly,” said the sparrow.
“Oh, yes, I think perhaps I do,” said Teddy Robinson.
“Good,” said the sparrow. “We birds all sing soprano (that means rather high and twittery). We could do with a good bass voice.” And he flew back into the tree again.
Then the b
and began to play.
The music went so fast that at first Teddy Robinson hadn’t time to think of any words for it, so he just hummed happily to himself, and felt as if both he and the chair were jigging up and down in time to the music. Even the flies and bees began buzzing, and the birds were chirping so merrily, and the band was playing so loudly, that soon Teddy Robinson found some words to sing after all. They went like this:
“Trill-trill-trill
goes the man with the flute,
and the man with the trumpet
goes toot-toot-toot.
Cheep-cheep-cheep
go the birds in the trees,
and buzz-buzz-buzz
go the flies and the bees.
Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm
goes the teddy bear’s hum,
and boom-boom-boom
goes the big bass drum.”
When the music stopped everyone clapped hard; but Teddy Robinson didn’t clap, because, as he had been singing with the band, he was afraid it might look as if he were clapping himself.
He was just wondering whether he ought to get up and bow, as the leader of the band was doing, when he suddenly saw Deborah walking along between the rows of chairs.
She was surprised when she saw Teddy Robinson sitting among all the grown-up people.
“However did you get here?” she said. “And why didn’t I know? And fancy you having a chair all to yourself!”
“What a pity you didn’t come before!” said Teddy Robinson. “I’ve just been singing with the band. Did you hear everyone clapping?”
“Yes,” said Deborah, “but I’d no idea they were clapping for you. I thought it was for the band.”
“Me and the band,” said Teddy Robinson, “and the sparrows as well. They’ve been singing quite beautifully.”
“I am sorry I missed it,” said Deborah. “I was skipping with the other children when somebody said the band had come, and I came over to see. I thought you were still sitting on the seat with Mummy.”
“James and I got tired of it,” said Teddy Robinson, “so we came over here, and then James went back, so I stayed by myself. But you haven’t missed all of it. Let’s stay together and hear some more.”
The Teddy Robinson Storybook Page 9