He decided it might be easier if he got down on his paws and crawled. He went a little way like this and then his head came up against something hard. He tried to push it to one side with his paw and it moved slightly so he pushed again.
Suddenly, there was a noise like thunder, and before he knew where he was a whole mountain of things began to fall on him. It felt as if the whole sky had fallen in. Everything went quiet and he lay where he was for a few minutes with his eyes tightly shut, hardly daring to breathe. From a long way away he could hear voices and once or twice it sounded as if someone was banging on a window. He opened one eye carefully and was surprised to find the light had come on again. At least… Sheepishly he pushed the hood of his duffle coat up over his head. They hadn’t gone out at all! His hood must have fallen over his head when he bent down inside the shop to pick up his case.
Paddington sat up and looked around to see where he was. He felt much better now. Somewhat to his astonishment, he found he was sitting in a small room in the middle of which was a great pile of tins and basins and bowls. He rubbed his eyes and stared, round-eyed, at the sight.
Behind him there was a wall with a door in it, and in front of him there was a large window. On the other side of the window there was a large crowd of people pushing one another and pointing in his direction. Paddington decided with pleasure that they must be pointing at him. He stood up with difficulty, because it was hard standing up straight on top of a lot of tins, and pulled the pom-pom on his hat as high as it would go. A cheer went up from the crowd. Paddington gave a bow, waved several times, and then started to examine the damage all around him.
For a moment he wasn’t quite sure where he was, and then it came to him. Instead of going out into the street he must have opened a door leading to one of the shop windows!
Paddington was an observant bear, and since he had arrived in London he’d noticed lots of these shop windows. They were very interesting. They always had so many things inside them to look at. Once, he’d seen a man working in one, piling tin cans and boxes on top of each other to make a pyramid. He remembered deciding at the time what a nice job it must be.
He looked round thoughtfully. “Oh dear,” he said to the world in general, “I’m in trouble again.” If he’d knocked all these things down, as he supposed he must have done, someone was going to be cross. In fact, lots of people were going to be cross. People weren’t very good at having things explained to them and it was going to be difficult explaining how his duffle coat hood had fallen over his head.
He bent down and began to pick up the things. There were some glass shelves lying on the floor where they had fallen. It was getting warm inside the window so he took off his duffle coat and hung it carefully on a nail. Then he picked up a glass shelf and tried balancing it on top of some tins. It seemed to work so he put some more tins and a washing-up bowl on top of that. It was rather wobbly but… he stood back and examined it… yes, it looked quite nice. There was an encouraging round of applause from outside. Paddington waved a paw at the crowd and picked up another shelf.
Inside the shop, Mrs Brown was having an earnest conversation with the store detective.
“You say you left him here, Madam?” the detective was saying.
“That’s right,” said Mrs Brown. “He was feeling ill and I told him not to go away. His name’s Paddington.”
“Paddington.” The detective wrote it carefully in his notebook. “What sort of bear is he?”
“Oh, he’s sort of golden,” said Mrs Brown. “He was wearing a blue duffle coat and carrying a suitcase.”
“And he has black ears,” said Judy. “You can’t mistake him.”
“Black ears,” the detective repeated, licking his pencil.
“I don’t expect that’ll help much,” said Mrs Brown. “He was wearing his beret.”
The detective cupped his hand over his ear. “His what?” he shouted. There really was a terrible noise coming from somewhere. It seemed to be getting worse every minute. Every now and then there was a round of applause and several times he distinctly heard the sound of people cheering.
“His beret,” shouted Mrs Brown in return. “A green woollen one that came down over his ears. With a pom-pom.”
The detective shut his notebook with a snap. The noise outside was definitely getting worse. “Pardon me,” he said, sternly. “There’s something strange going on that needs investigating.”