Sebastian Read Free Page A

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    SEBASTIAN ARRIVE HEALTHY AND SAFE TODAY WEATHER FINE
    LOVE GERALDINE
    Her mother put on some gold-rimmed spectacles and came to look.
    She didn’t approve of the bit about the weather. “Too many words. Too expensive,” she said.
    â€œBut Maman, you always have to talk about the weather to English people. It wouldn’t be polite to miss it out.”
    â€œAnd you need not say TODAY.”
    Géraldine crossed out the words.
    â€œIt will still cost too much,” complained her mother. “Ask Grandpère about it.”
    Géraldine fetched her grandfather out of the next room where I could hear the television playing very loudly. He was a small man with no corners. His shoulders were rounded, his elbows rounded, his legs bowed and his tummy well padded out. He was all dressed in black and had a very large nose (a hooter, some impolite people might have called it). He had a battered-looking cigarette drooping from his mouth and so much smoke was drifting up that he kept squinting to see, and his eyes almost disappeared.
    He grunted a few times, borrowed Géraldine’s pen and crossed out some more words. The telegram read:
    SEB. ARR. GER.
    I hoped Amanda would understand it, especially if the words happened to get stuck together and turned out as
    SEBARRGER
    Now if they’d asked me about the shortest telegram to send, I should just have put
    GRRRRRRRRRR
    Amanda would have known exactly who it was.
    Géraldine took some crackly money out of a little box on the shelf and dashed off to send the telegram.
    We spent most of the rest of the evening eating an enormous dinner with bottles of wine - just like Christmas. I didn’t drink any, of course: bears only drink water and cocoa. Bedtime was ten o’clock (Amanda was always in bed at nine). Géraldine gave me a big hug and tucked me in at the bottom of the bed.
    Well, I was very pleased on the whole. Here I was in a foreign country - probably the only stuffed bear ever to make the journey. I couldn’t help thinking about the animal officer at the airport. And that funny man with the saucepan on his head and little moustache. What an adventure!
    I had just started to go all dreamy when - plop! Something or somebody landed on the floor at the foot of the bed. I put on my specially fierce expression reserved for witches and burglars and looked out through the bed rails.

Chapter 3: Portrait of a Bear

    By the light that came through the window from the street lamps below, I could see Géraldine’s animals sitting in their various places around the room. Well, there were certainly some very queer-looking things. One especially was bright yellow with black spots all over it - I hoped it wasn’t suffering from measles.
    The cause of the ‘plop’ was a wooden soldier who had landed on his head next to the bed post. He had a red tunic and black trousers, and wore a little painted beard, which probably made him look rather sinister when he was the right way up.
    I was pleased to see that I was taller than any of them. There was even a little grey mouse that wasn’t much bigger than my paw. It had a very bright face though, like most mice, and sharp eyes. It was standing up on its back legs and it shouted out in a voice like a needle that went right through my head.
    â€œWhat sort of bear are you?”
    A fine way to open a conversation I thought, and said “Well, I’m a Teddy Bear.”
    â€œWhat is a Teddy Bear, please?”
    Absurd mouse, I thought. Doesn’t even know what a Teddy Bear is. “Well, I suppose you’ve heard of the President of the United States of America?”
    Yes, they all had.
    â€œWell, the President a long time ago was Mr Theodore Roosevelt - Teddy for short. He owned the very first bear in the world, and all other bears were called after him. So you see,” I went on, as modestly as possible, “we bears are all related to the President of the United