LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

       MR CURRY’S BIRTHDAY TREAT

      EARLY ONE SPRING morning Paddington hurried into the garden as soon as he had finished breakfast in order to inspect his rockery. He was an optimistic bear at heart, and having planted some seeds the day before, he was looking forward to seeing the results.

      The seeds had been a free gift in one of Mrs Brown’s magazines, and the picture on the side of the packet was a blaze of bright yellow flowers. Some of them were almost as tall as the magazine’s gardening expert, Alf Greenways.

      Mr Greenways was known to his many friends in the trade as ‘Beanpole Greenways’, so it was as good a recommendation for success as anyone could possibly wish for.

      He also owned the nursery supplying the sunflower seeds, so it was no wonder he was beaming all over his face as he held a watering can aloft, spurring his blooms to even greater heights.

      Paddington got down on all fours and peered at the freshly-raked soil in his patch of garden, but apart from a disconsolate-looking caterpillar, there wasn’t so much as the tiniest of green shoots to be seen. Everything was exactly as he had left it the night before when he had gone outside with a torch before going to bed.

      Mr Greenway’s seeds were rather large and he couldn’t help wondering if he had planted them upside down by mistake.

      A robin redbreast landed on a nearby rock to take a closer look at what was going on, but having spotted Paddington’s network of cotton threads protecting the patch, it flew off in disgust.

      Mr Brown was right. Gardens were a good example of life in the raw; a constant battle between good and evil. Slugs, for example, were given very short shrift, often ending up with the contents of a salt cellar upended over them, whereas worms were always welcome – unless of course they happened to come up for air in the middle of the lawn.

      All the same, it was disappointing, and for a moment or two Paddington toyed with the idea of going indoors and fetching his binoculars in case the caterpillar had a hearty appetite and he could see traces of green on its lips.

      He was in the middle of weighing up the pros and cons when he heard an all-too-familiar voice calling out to him.

      His heart sank as he looked up and saw the Browns’ neighbour peering at him over the top of the fence. Not that there was anything new in that; Mr Curry was a notorious busybody and he spent his life poking his nose into other people’s affairs.

      Because his patch of garden coincided with some higher ground on Mr Curry’s side, Paddington often bore the brunt.

      It was most disappointing. Mr Brown had spent half of the weekend raising the fence at that particular point, with the express intention of putting a stop to their neighbour’s spying.

      At the time Mrs Bird had said ‘the chance would be a fine thing’ and it looked as though her worst fears were being realised.

      “What are you doing, bear?” growled Mr Curry suspiciously. “Up to no good as usual, I suppose.”

      “Oh, no, Mr Curry,” said Paddington. “I was just checking my blooms – except I haven’t got any yet. Mrs Bird was right. She said you would be bound to find a box to stand on. I mean…”

      “What was that, bear?” barked Mr Curry.

      “Mrs Bird saw a fox in our garden the other day,” said Paddington hastily. “She thinks it came over here because it couldn’t find anything interesting in yours.”

      Paddington was normally the most truthful of bears and he stayed where he was for a moment or two in case the proverbial thunderbolt landed on his head, but nothing happened, so he breathed a sigh of relief and carried on looking for new plant shoots.

      “I don’t see any point in having flowers,” growled Mr Curry. “Nasty things. They make the place untidy – dropping their petals everywhere. Just you wait.”

      “I was hoping Mr Brown might take a photograph of mine when they are ready,” explained Paddington. “It’s my Aunt Lucy’s birthday in August

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