“My old duffel!” said Jonathan.
“Actually, it was mine first,” said Judy.
“Actually . . . it was mine,” said Henry.
The children turned to see their parents standing in the doorway.
“He wore it on his first day to school,” said Mary.
“Were you really once a child, Dad?” said Jonathan.
Henry knelt down and helped Paddington do the toggles up.
“I must say it suits you very well,” he said.
“Please don’t send him to the authorities,” begged Jonathan.
Judy stood by her brother.
“You will at least try the Geographers’ Guild first, won’t you, Dad?”
Henry looked at their hopeful faces and couldn’t bring himself to ruin the moment.
“Yes, of course I will.”
Jonathan jumped up and down and whooped.
“Yes!”
Paddington was glowing, and it wasn’t just because he’d had a warm shower.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Brown,” he said.
The next day, Paddington put one of Mrs. Bird’s best marmalade baguettes under his hat and set off with Henry to the Geographers’ Guild. He could hardly wait to find out the name of the explorer. Together, they hurried past the phone box at the corner of Windsor Gardens, without noticing that someone was lurking inside it.
Millicent raised her dart gun. She was just lining it up with the back of Paddington’s hat when Mr. Curry appeared and rapped on the window.
“Can I help you, son?” he said. “You’ve been in there for forty-seven minutes. Either that’s a very long call or you’re placing dodgy adverts in a public place.”
Millicent hid the gun in her bag, whipped off her cap, and smoothed down her short blond hair.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she purred.
Confronted by a beautiful woman instead of the hooligan he was expecting, Mr. Curry’s legs turned to jelly.
“Not a problem, young lady,” he stammered. “Apologies if I startled you, just doing my neighborly duty. We’ve had some very unsavory characters hanging around lately, not least a bear. Filthy creature, all marmalade and whiskers.”
The mere mention of marmalade made Millicent’s hackles rise.
“That bear is the reason I’m here,” she said, lowering her voice. “We may have something in common.”
“Really?” said Mr. Curry, unable to imagine what that could possibly be.
“You look like someone I could . . . trust,” cooed Millicent. “Can we talk in private?”
Wishing he’d swept his toenail clippings off the sofa, Mr. Curry let her into his flat.
“You have a beautiful home, Mr. Curry,” purred Millicent, casting her eye over the filthy furniture. “I can see how having a bear living next door might lower its value.”
Mr. Curry offered her a bowl of stale nuts and sat beside her on the sagging sofa. “I suppose I should be grateful it’s only one bear,” he said.
“Oh, it always starts with one,” said Millicent. “But before you know it, there’s a relative. Then a couple of friends who are ‘doing the garden’ but never leave. The whole street will be crawling with them. Drains clogged with fur, buns thrown at old ladies. Raucous all-night picnics . . .”
Mr. Curry turned pale.
“My god. But what can we do?”
She sidled up to him and murmured breathily, “I have connections. If I catch the bear, I can have it sent where it belongs, but I can’t do it alone. I need a strong, capable man to help me.”
Mr. Curry scratched his greasy comb-over.
“No one springs to mind.”
Millicent batted her eyelashes.
“I mean you, Mr. Curry. You could easily keep an eye on him . . . just for me?”
“Of course!” he said eagerly. “I can hear every word that goes on in that house. Sometimes I don’t even need to press a glass to the wall.”
“Well, you do that and as soon as he’s alone, we’ll pounce.”
She held out her hand.
“Partners?”
Mr. Curry gave it a limp, sweaty shake.
“Partners.”
He was putty in her hands.
Paddington was most impressed with the Geographers’ Guild. It was a grand old building, and the receptionist gave them a very warm welcome.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Are you members?” she simpered.
“No,” said Henry, “but we’re looking for one of your members. I’m afraid we don’t have his name, but we do know he went on an expedition you funded to Peru.”
“Darkest Peru,” added Paddington.
“Lovely,” she said. “Won’t keep you a moment.”
The receptionist tapped busily on her computer. She found what she was looking for, and a canister emerged from one of the tubes in front of her. She opened it and pulled out a piece of paper. As she read it, her expression changed.
“We’ve never been to Peru,” she snapped.
Paddington couldn’t believe his ears.
“But you must have done!”
“I can see you’re very busy,” said Henry. “Perhaps we could go and check?”
She pursed her lips.
“There are over two million letters, diaries, and artifacts in our archive, meticulously filed, and they don’t stay that way by letting strange men and their bears go poking around. . . .”
“Now listen!” protested Henry.
The receptionist glared at him over the top of her glasses.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said sternly.
Henry was about to refuse when he noticed a security guard with enormous biceps on patrol and backed down.
“Come on, Paddington,” he grumbled. “Paddington . . . ?”
The little bear was nowhere to be seen. Henry walked toward the exit, calling his name. Suddenly, a familiar voice hissed from a cleaning cupboard just next to him.
“Psst . . . Mr. Brown? I’m here!”
Making sure no one was watching, Mr. Brown slipped inside and found Paddington sitting among the mops and buckets.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“We have to find a way in,” said Paddington.
“Paddington,” asked Henry, “please don’t take this the wrong way, but are you certain there was an explorer? You didn’t just find a hat and make up some . . .” He trailed to a halt. By now, Paddington had mastered his hard stare—and was unleashing its full force on Henry.
“What . . . why are you looking at me like that?” said Henry, loosening his collar. “Is it me or is it hot in here? Why do I feel so . . . ?”
“Uncomfortable?” supplied Paddington. “Aunt Lucy taught me to do hard stares when people forget their manners. Mr. Brown, I know you’re not sure about me—”
“It’s not that. . . .” said Henry.
“I know,” said Paddington. “When we first met, I wasn’t sure about you either. You all argued a lot and your bathroom was a death trap. But now I realize you love each other. You have a wonderful home and, if I can find the explorer, maybe I can have one too. So—I’ve had an idea, but I need your help.”
Mr. Brown felt so humbled, he could hardly refuse. Five minutes later, he found himself coming out of an elevator dressed as a cleaning lady pushing a cart.
“This is never going to work,” he said, fiddling with his floral headscarf.
“It will. You look very pretty,” whispered Paddington, hidden beneath a pile of dusters on the cart.
Henry pushed the cleaning cart toward a large research room divided into workstations. They were occupied by geographers who were busy posting and retrieving documents in canisters via two tubes that led in and out of each cubicle. Henry was about to enter when a sleazy-looking guard on the door gave him a cheeky wink.
“Morning, gorgeous.”
“Oh, hello there,” said Henry, adopting a falsetto Welsh accent. He was about to dash past when the guard stopped h
im.
“Hold up. I haven’t seen you before.”
“That’s right, I only just started,” trilled Henry.
“Thought so,” flirted the guard. “Lovely day for it.”
Henry gulped.
“A real scorcher. Just like you,” leered the guard, patting his bottom. “In you go, love.”
Henry squealed and scuttled inside. Spotting an empty workstation, he sat down and started typing on the computer.
“Right. Darkest Peru . . . well, I never . . . two hundred items!”
“I knew that lady was lying,” said Paddington, climbing out of the cart.
Henry pressed a button and a canister shot out. He read the message inside.
“All records destroyed . . . I wonder why?”
He was about to check the other canisters when the guard whistled at him.
“Oi! New girl!”
Henry’s heart sank.
“Keep your head down, Paddington,” he whispered as he went to see what the man wanted.
“Forgot to check your pass, darlin’,” leered the guard.
Henry patted the pockets in the overall he was wearing.
“My pass? Right . . . ah, this must be it.”
He pulled out the one belonging to the woman whose uniform he’d borrowed, but to his dismay and relief, he looked nothing like her. She was enormously fat, had a mole the size of a chocolate button, and only one arm.
“Whoa! You’ve changed a bit,” said the guard, looking at him suspiciously.
“I’ve lost weight,” said Henry. “And had my mole lasered.”
“Oh,” said the guard, looking unconvinced. “And the arm’s grown back?”
Henry laughed coquettishly and mimed a false limb.
“It’s prosthetic.”
“Amazing,” said the guard. “Looks almost like the real thing.”
He took off his ID badge and gave Henry’s forearm a little jab with the pin.
“So you really can’t feel a thing?”
“Nope,” lied Henry, bravely.
The guard pushed the pin all the way in.
“Nothing,” said Henry, his eyes smarting with pain.
“Modern technology, eh?” said the guard. “I’m off to the toilet. See you later.”
Henry gave him a coy wave, then pulling the pin out with a silent scream, he ducked back into the cubicle rubbing his arm.
“I’m glad you’re back, Mr. Brown,” said Paddington. “I’ve found something.”
He held up a reel of film marked TOP SECRET.
“Brilliant!” said Henry. “Let’s put all the canisters back and get out of here.”
Paddington gave him a helping paw, but Henry was in such a hurry, he pushed Mrs. Bird’s marmalade baguette into one of the tubes by mistake.
There was a strange gurgling noise as it was sucked into the system.
“Mr. Brown?” said Paddington. “I think my baguette went down the wrong hole.”
“Quick, back in the cart,” said Henry, pulling the dusters over Paddington.
As Mr. Brown steered Paddington stealthily down the corridor, he could hear the geographers grumbling behind him—the automatic tubes had broken down.
“Something’s jamming the system,” tutted the receptionist.
“Looks like a baguette,” said a geographer. “Is that peanut butter, Albert?”
“Too orange,” said the man in the next cubicle. “It’s marmalade, old boy.”
There was a sudden massive explosion of paper fluttering down over the lobby like confetti. Henry and Paddington tried to sneak out through the chaos, but just as Henry thought they’d made a clean getaway, the sleazy guard spotted him.
“Hey! Stop that woman!” he yelled.
Henry tipped the cart over. Paddington spilled out and together, they ran for the exit and escaped through the door, careering down the steps like partners in crime.
“That was exciting, wasn’t it, Mr. Brown?” said Paddington as they caught their breath in the Municipal Gardens.
And as they headed home with the top-secret film, Henry had to agree.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Paddington Comes Unstuck
That evening, the Browns sat in the back of the antique shop with Paddington while Mr. Gruber loaded the top-secret film onto his old projector.
“So you actually broke in, Dad?” said Jonathan.
“Sounds incredibly brave,” said Mary.
“Well,” said Henry, puffing himself up, “there’s a time for being boring and annoying, and there’s a time for being a man.”
Paddington leaned over confidingly to Judy.
“Mr. Brown dressed up as a lady.”
Judy’s mouth fell open.
“What?”
“Oh look, it’s starting,” said Mr. Brown, attempting to distract her. Mrs. Brown gave him a sideways glance.
“Sorry, Henry. You did what?”
“In a dress?” said Jonathan.
“No!” said Henry. “More of a housecoat. Quite liberating actually, Mary.”
Mr. Gruber cleared his throat and the chattering stopped as the screen filled with a landscape of trees, mountains, and waterfalls. A distinguished-looking explorer in a red bush hat entered and spoke to the camera.
“Darkest Peru. A vast, unexplored wilderness of strange plants and exotic animals, many of them unknown to science until now!”
Paddington’s eyes widened. He climbed down, walked over to the screen and, full of nostalgia, he pressed his nose against it. There was the tree house and there was a very young Aunt Lucy standing with Uncle Pastuzo, waving.
“Oh dear,” said Mary, dabbing her eyes as Paddington waved back longingly at the only family he had ever known.
“Thank goodness you agreed to help him, Henry,” she said.
“Can we go to Peru instead of Cornwall, Dad?” said Jonathan.
“No,” said Henry. “Cornwall’s lovely, while seventeen percent of South American fauna is deadly poisonous.”
“Shh,” hissed Judy, “I’m trying to listen.”
Twenty minutes later, the wonders of the Amazon came to an end, with Paddington’s aunt and uncle giving the explorer a bear hug.
“And now, I, Montgomery Clyde, must leave my new friends and return to my human family,” said the explorer’s voiceover. In the film he called, “Good-bye, Lucy. Good-bye, Pastuzo. If you ever make it to London, you can be sure of a very . . .”
“. . . warm welcome,” echoed Paddington as the explorer threw his hat to Uncle Pastuzo and headed back into the jungle. Paddington returned to the sofa.
“Montgomery Clyde! We’ve got his name!”
“It’s a huge step forward,” said Mr. Brown excitedly. “We’ll start looking for him tomorrow morning.”
That night, Paddington sat up in bed comforted by the thought that Montgomery Clyde might adopt him as his own. There was just one thing that bothered him: despite all their funny little ways, he had become extremely fond of the Browns. It was going to be hard to say good-bye.
The next day, breakfast at the Browns’ household was nothing like it used to be. Instead of the usual arguments, everyone was working toward the same mission.
“Paddington, here are the names and addresses of everyone in London,” said Henry, plonking a pile of telephone books on the table. “I suggest you spend the morning noting down all the M. Clydes, then we’ll pay them all a visit.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” said Paddington gratefully as Henry grabbed his briefcase and hustled the children to the door.
“Can’t we bunk off school to help Paddington?” said Jonathan.
Normally, Henry would have spouted statistics about the percentage of schoolboys who became dropouts after missing school just once, but part of him very much wanted to phone the office, pretend he had the flu, and find the explorer too. Luckily, Mrs. Bird answered on his behalf.
“I’ve made your packed lunches now,” she said. “Be off with you.”
M
ary grabbed her coat.
“Wait for me. I’m going to the library to check the electoral roll.”
Paddington was very fond of rolls, especially crusty ones, and asked if he could come.
“It’s not that sort of roll,” explained Mary. “It’s a list of people’s details. Montgomery Clyde might be on it.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Mrs. Bird. “We’re almost out of marmalade.”
They were about to leave when Henry had second thoughts about leaving Paddington home alone.
“It’s only for a couple of hours, Henry,” said Mary.
“Don’t worry about me, Mr. Brown,” said Paddington. “I’ll be fine.”
Henry was more worried about the possible damage to his house—the bathroom had only just been fixed.
“Well, try not to break anything,” he said.
“I won’t, Mr. Brown. Have a nice day.”
Paddington settled down with the phone books, happily unaware that Mr. Curry had just seen the Browns leave with Mrs. Bird and had got straight on the phone to Millicent.
“Honeypot, this is Fierce Eagle.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“I beg your pardon?” she said.
“It’s Mr. Curry. We gave ourselves code names, remember?”
On the other end of the line, Millicent pretended to stick two fingers down her throat.
“Of course,” she said, smoothly.
“The Furry Menace is home alone,” said Mr. Curry urgently. “I repeat: the Furry Menace is home alone.”
“On my way,” she said, rolling her eyes.
By the time Millicent arrived, Mr. Curry had glued the few remaining strands of his hair down with a whole pot of Brylcreem and was wearing a moth-eaten dinner jacket with a dead carnation in the buttonhole.
“I need to get on the roof,” said Millicent, pushing past him.
“Yes, and after, I wondered if you’d like to celebrate by dining with me?” said Mr. Curry. “I’ve got meat paste sandwiches and pickles. They went off on Tuesday, but I’ve given them a sniff and they should be all right.”
“Mr. Curry! The roof?” said Millicent.
He took her up to his attic and, climbing up a ladder, he opened the hatch.
“And if you feel all sweaty after wrestling that bear into a cage, you can have a soak in my tub,” he said.
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