While Deborah was away Teddy Robinson sat and thought about how jolly it was to be put in a book without having to bother to write it. He began to feel rather important and started talking loudly to the dolls inside the toy-cupboard.
“Wait till you see me in a book,” he said. “Do you wish you were going in a book? My book is going to be the most beautiful and enormous book you ever saw. It will be made of red leather, with gold edges to the pages, and it will be as big as the garden gate.”
“Don’t be so silly,” said Deborah, coming back with the paper. “It won’t be anything of the sort, and you really mustn’t talk like that or I shall wish I’d never thought of it. After all, lots of other bears have been in books before. What about Goldilocks? She had three of them.”
“Yes,” said Teddy Robinson, “but they were only pretend bears. It’s different when you’re a real bear. You can’t help feeling proud.”
Deborah began to unroll some of the paper and cut it up into pages for the book. But because the paper had been rolled up the pages were all curly and wouldn’t lie flat. So Teddy Robinson sat on them to help flatten them out, and while he was waiting he sang a little song to himself, very quietly in case anyone should think he was showing off.
“There are books about horses,
and books about dogs,
and books about tadpoles,
and books about frogs,
and books about children;
but wait till you see
the wonderful, beautiful
Book about Me.”
When the pages were flat enough Deborah folded them together like a real book. But some of them went crooked, so she had to cut the edges. Then the pages seemed too tall, so she cut the tops off them. Then they seemed too wide, so she cut the sides off them. But whichever way she cut them they kept on coming crooked, so in the end the book got smaller and smaller, and still it didn’t look like a proper book at all.
“There’s just one sheet left,” said Teddy Robinson. “I’m sitting on it. Couldn’t you put me in a newspaper instead?”
“No,” said Deborah. “I want you in a book. I think we’d better go and ask Mummy about it.”
But Mummy was busy hanging up curtains.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you just now,” she said, “but I don’t think I should be much good at making a book anyway. Mr Vandyke Brown is the man you ought to ask. He’s made lots and lots of books.”
Teddy Robinson and Deborah both knew Mr Vandyke Brown because he lived in their road. He had white hair, and a very large black hat which he always took off whenever he met them out of doors. Teddy Robinson specially liked him because he always said, “And how are you, sir?” and shook his paw very politely after he’d finished saying “Good Morning” to Deborah.
“Let’s go and see him now,” whispered Teddy Robinson.
“Yes, I think we will,” said Deborah.
So she brushed Teddy Robinson’s fur, and off they went.
Mr Vandyke Brown opened the door himself when they rang the bell.
“Good morning,” he said to Deborah. “What can I do for you? And how are you, sir?” he said to Teddy Robinson, shaking him by the paw.
Deborah told him why they had come, and Mr Vandyke Brown looked hard at Teddy Robinson, with his head first on one side and then on the other. Then he said, “Yes, I see what you mean. He would look nice in a book. Come inside and let’s talk about it.”
So they all went indoors into Mr Vandyke Brown’s sitting-room, which was very untidy and comfortable. Teddy Robinson sat on a little stool, Deborah sat in a large armchair, and Mr Vandyke Brown sat on a table and smiled at them both.
“Am I to do the pictures or the stories?” he asked.
“Well, it would be very nice if you’d do them both,” said Deborah. “I could tell you the stories if you like.”
“Yes,” said Mr Vandyke Brown, thinking hard. “Now, what sort of pictures would you like?”
“What sort can we have?” asked Deborah.
“There are all sorts of different ways of making pictures,” said Mr Vandyke Brown. “I wonder which would be best . . .”
“Ask him what sort of ways,” whispered Teddy Robinson, leaning towards Deborah.
“Teddy Robinson wants to know what sort of ways,” said Deborah.
“Well,” said Mr Vandyke Brown, “drawing them, or painting them, or embroidering them with wool on cards, or chalking them on pavements, or sticking little coloured pieces of paper on to a bigger piece of paper—”
“I don’t think chalking them on pavements would do,” said Deborah, “because we’d never be able to lift them off. But I think any of the others might be nice.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Mr Vandyke Brown. “I’ll do one of each kind; then you can choose which you like best.”
So Mr Vandyke Brown made five little pictures of Teddy Robinson; one in wool, one in chalk, one with pen and ink, one with paint, and one with little bits of sticky paper.
Teddy Robinson didn’t like the sticky-paper one or the wool one because it made him look rather babyish, and Deborah didn’t like the chalky one because it made him look smudgy and unbrushed, and neither of them liked the painted one because the colours were so queer. But they both loved the pen-and-ink one because it looked so like him.
“I’m glad you chose that one,” said Mr Vandyke Brown. “I hoped you wouldn’t choose the painted one, because those are the only colours left in my paint box. All the others seem to have dried up. And I hoped you wouldn’t choose the chalky one, because I always get chalk all over my clothes. And I hoped you wouldn’t choose the sticky-paper one, because when I sneeze all the little bits of paper get blown away. And I am glad you didn’t choose the wool one, because I’m very bad at threading needles.”
Teddy Robinson didn’t understand a word of all this, but he knew it was his very own book that was being talked about, so he sat quite still and tried to look ordinary. Really he was feeling rather shy. He kept wondering how he ought to look when Mr Vandyke Brown started drawing him.
“Shall I look fierce?” he said to himself. “Or shall I do something clever, like standing on my head? Or shall I just pretend I don’t know he’s drawing me?”
“I do want a picture of him with his party face on,” said Deborah.
“Very well,” said Mr Vandyke Brown. “And while I’m drawing him, suppose you do some drawing too.”
So he gave Deborah a piece of paper and a pencil, and Deborah drew a picture of Mr Vandyke Brown while Mr Vandyke Brown drew a picture of Teddy Robinson. And Teddy Robinson did nothing at all. He decided it would be better if he just went on looking ordinary.
For a whole week after that Teddy Robinson and Deborah went every day to Mr Vandyke Brown’s house, and by the end of the week there were pictures of Teddy Robinson lying all over the room, and pages and pages of stories.
“I think we’ve got enough now to fill a book,” said Mr Vandyke Brown, picking up the pages off the chairs and tables.
“But they’re all on different-sized pieces of paper,” said Deborah. “How shall we sew them together to make a book?”
“I don’t think we’ll bother,” said Mr Vandyke Brown. “I hate sewing. And, anyway, I’ve got a better idea. Tomorrow I’ll take them all to my friend, the Publisher. He is a very clever man who knows all about how to make proper books. If he likes these he will make them into a real book, so that anyone who wants it can buy it.”
“Can we come too?” asked Deborah.
“I don’t see why not,” said Mr Vandyke Brown, “if Mummy says so. But you’ll have to be very quiet and wait downstairs.”
So the very next day Teddy Robinson and Deborah went on a bus with Mr Vandyke Brown all the way to town to see the Publisher. At least Mr Vandyke Brown went to see the Publisher, and Teddy Robinson and Deborah sat downstairs in a large room where a lady was busy packing up big parcels of books.
They were so quiet that they never said a word
to each other all the time they were waiting, and it seemed a very long time indeed. But at last Mr Vandyke Brown came leaping down the stairs, smiling all over his face, and hustled them out into the street.
“What happened?” asked Deborah as they hurried along.
“Let’s go and eat some ices,” said Mr Vandyke Brown, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
So they went into a teashop and ate ices with chocolate sauce while Mr Vandyke Brown told them what had happened.
“The Publisher was very kind,” he said. “He likes the book very much. He laughed in all the right places, and he hopes you didn’t hurt yourself, Teddy Robinson, when you fell off the piano.”
“But where is the book?” asked Deborah.
“Oh, it won’t be ready for a long while yet,” said Mr Vandyke Brown. “I’m afraid we shall have to wait weeks and weeks before it is ready. It always takes a long time to make a real book. Is Teddy Robinson disappointed?”
“I think he is rather,” said Deborah. “But never mind.”
“Dear me,” said Mr Vandyke Brown, “how silly of me not to have thought of it before! Did he think I should come down with the finished book in my hand?”
“He did really,” said Deborah. “But never mind.”
“Excuse me just a minute,” said Mr Vandyke Brown, and he jumped up and ran to the door. Just outside, a lady was selling bunches of violets. Mr Vandyke Brown bought one and came hurrying back. Then he took off his large black hat, bowed low to Teddy Robinson, and gave him the bunch of violets.
“Please accept these with my most grateful thanks,” he said.
Teddy Robinson didn’t know what he was talking about, but he was very pleased indeed, because he had never been given a bunch of flowers all of his own, and nobody had ever bowed to him before in quite such an important way.
Weeks and weeks later, when they had nearly forgotten all about it, a parcel came addressed to Master Teddy Robinson, and there inside was his book. It wasn’t made of red leather, and it wasn’t nearly as big as the garden gate, but Teddy Robinson thought it was the nicest book he had ever seen, because it had his very own name on the cover.
And that is the end of the story about how Teddy Robinson was put in a book.
Joan G. Robinson was trained as an illustrator and began writing her own stories in 1939. Over thirty of her books were published before her death in 1988. Her most enduring character, Teddy Robinson, first appeared in 1953. This collection of stories has been selected by the author’s daughter Deborah – star of the books and owner of the real Teddy Robinson.
The stories in this collection were first published by George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd
This collection first published by Kingfisher 1997
This edition published 2015 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2015 by Macmillan Children’s Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5098-1560-9
Text and illustrations copyright © Joan G. Robinson 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1964
This selection copyright © Deborah Sheppard 1997
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Typeset by Kate Warren
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The Teddy Robinson Storybook Page 11