Read Online Sebastian by Alan Field - Free Book Online Page A

yourself.”
    Géraldine went on arguing and then I heard the voices of officials saying soothing things like ‘perhaps the young lady was mistaken’ and eventually it all went quiet. Everybody left and the lights were switched out.
    Some little mice came out to play and I went all sad inside.

Chapter 9: Bear For Sale

    The morning couldn’t find its way to where I was lying but I knew it had come because I heard the clanking of dust-pans and swish of brooms on the stage. The traffic began grumbling again in the distance. All of a sudden a snake thing with a flattened head appeared and hissed at me. It made a lunge, and then retreated; and then another lunge. This time it grabbed me by the foot and before I could think of what Amanda did about snake bites in the Brownies I was hauled off, with my head bumping up and down.
    When the thing had dragged me into the gangway, I could see it was really only a vacuum cleaner.
    â€œAh!” said the lady with the flowered apron, looking at me as though I were a fish she had caught. “Someone’s little toy - but he’s very dusty.”
    She vacuumed me all over and it was very tickly. I wanted to explain who I was and demand to see the British Ambassador like they do in books, but she stuffed me into a shopping bag - head first next to a long loaf of bread. Napoleon said - according to Toots - that an army marched on its stomach, but I seemed to spend most of my time marching on my head.
    Off I went again, jogging up and down in the bag, with lots of stops on the way while the lady talked to friends. I was pulled out occasionally and waved about and then put back again.
    Eventually we went through a door that said ‘Ting’ and I guessed it was a shop.
    â€œLook what I found this morning in the theatre. It was under the stairs by the orchestra pit. What do you think it is?”
    A man with a papery face and tired eyes looked at me.
    â€œIt’s not a giraffe,” he said, and then went into a fit of wheezing and giggling.
    The lady gave him a stony look so he stopped and put me on a pair of scales. “Just 900 grammes,” he said. “Now, how much would you like?”
    â€œBe serious, Henri,” said the lady. “How can we sell him if we don’t know what he is?”
    The man scratched his nose and said, “Well, I suppose he must be a sort of bear - a sloth bear, I’d say.”
    â€œVery well then, sloth bear,” said the lady. “Make out a ticket and say ten francs.”
    The man took a piece of white cardboard and wrote:
    SLOTH BEAR 10 francs
    â€œPut ‘cheap’,” said the lady.
    He wrote:
    CHEAP SLOTH BEAR 10 francs
    and hung the ticket around my neck with string and put me in the window of his shop.
    Well, I could see what sort of place it was. There were old prams, gramophones, faded paintings of cows dabbling their hooves in rivers, and a stuffed head. It had a morose expression and judging by the dust on its nose had been there for a very long time. A kind of buffalo I suppose it was. It was no good trying to talk to it. You had to be born stuffed, and not have stuffing put into you later on. It wasn’t the same thing at all.
    Outside it had started to rain, and the drops were chasing one another down the window. It was like being on the stage in a way - except there was no audience. Nobody looked my way. They were too busy hurrying along.
    All the days seemed the same sitting in the window. A spider made a web between my paws and came to live in my left ear. It reminded me of the Sleeping Beauty, except she had Prince Charming to look forward to. Hardly anyone came into the shop, and the lady went off every morning to clean at the theatre. Once I thought I saw Géraldine’s grandfather shuffling down the street, but he never turned and looked in my direction.
    Never give up hope, Diddy used to say when he hadn’t been for a ride in Amanda’s bicycle basket