Paddington At Large. Michael Bond

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       Chapter One PADDINGTON BREAKS THE PEACE

      “I know I keep on saying it,” exclaimed Mrs Brown, as she placed an extremely large vegetable marrow on the kitchen scales, “but I’m sure Paddington must have been born with green paws. Have you seen this one? He’s beaten his best by over half a pound.”

      “Hmm,” said Mrs Bird. “Well, I’ll grant you one thing, green paws are better than idle ones and at least gardening keeps him busy. We haven’t had an upset for weeks now.”

      The Browns’ housekeeper hastily touched wood as her eyes followed the progress of a small brown figure clad in a shapeless hat and an equally disreputable-looking duffle coat as it made its way down the garden path before disappearing into a potting shed behind the raspberry canes.

      Mrs Bird was never very happy about any of Paddington’s activities which took him out of her sight for too long a time, and Paddington’s interest in gardening had lasted much too long for her peace of mind.

      All the same, even Mrs Bird had to admit that for some time past things had been remarkably peaceful at number thirty-two Windsor Gardens.

      It had all started when Paddington arrived home from the market one day carrying a giant packet of assorted seeds which he’d bought for the bargain price of five pence. At the time it had seemed such good value for money that Mr Brown had been only too pleased to let him have a corner of the garden, and for several evenings afterwards Paddington had been kept very busy counting the seeds, making sure none of them were stuck to his paws as he sorted them into separate piles in order of size before he planted them.

      Only Mrs Bird had been full of forebodings. “Woe betide the man in the shop if they don’t all come up,” she remarked when she noticed the seed packet had been marked down from fifteen pence. “I can see there’ll be some nasty scenes.”

      But despite Mrs Bird’s misgivings, within a week or two the first of the seeds began to sprout and in no time at all ‘Paddington’s Patch’ was such a blaze of colour it soon put the rest of the garden to shame.