The Wombles Go round the World (14 page)

‘
Ssss
, quite right too,' agreed Hirado. ‘You will be Orinoco, large stout Womble and you . . .' He surveyed Bungo, who gazed back, feeling happier and hardly at all homesick as he waited for the next few words.

‘You,' said Hirado, ‘are Bungo. Bungo Straits are to south of Japan. Silly sort of name. Very well, open case and take out contents slowly, please.'

With careful fingers they did as they were told, and found themselves unpacking dozens of beautifully made and very delicate paper kites. Attached to the body of each kite was a small tube.

‘Now we try experiment,' said Hirado. ‘
Sssss
. Problem. Problem. You will take string in right and left paw and when I say, you run.
OK
? One, two, three and now go.'

Down the little steps from terrace to terrace went Orinoco and Bungo, with the strings starting to tug between their fingers.

‘Now let out string,' roared Hirado.

Zip, zip, zip, the strings seemed to unwind all on their own. Up went the kites, trailing a little behind to start with and then jerking upwards and further up and up, until they were sailing into the sky.

‘Run, run,' ordered Hirado.

Up and down the steps panted the two young Wimbledon Wombles, with Orinoco wishing more than ever he hadn't had three, let along four, helpings of dinner. And up and up and up floated the kites, and very beautiful they looked, as they drifted towards the clouds. They were in all shapes and sizes. Several of them had long tails, while some of them looked like birds and others like snaky dragons.

‘
Ssss
, now!' said Hirado and, as he spoke, the little tubes attached to the kites fell to pieces and the rather yellow sky began to turn green and then blue, until it was the clean washed blue of a summer's day in the middle of the countryside.

‘Topmost high places are now clean?' enquired Honourable Cousin Tokyo.

‘Sincerely hope so,' replied Hirado. ‘Still a few problems to be ironed out, I shouldn't be surprised. That last dragon kite was a bit slow. Well, Orinoco, well, Bungo, am pleased and honoured that you could assist in experiments. You can now stop running about.'

‘Actually,' puffed Orinoco, ‘I'm quite enjoying it. Never done any kite-flying before. Flew an umbrella once, but it's not the same. Hang on, Bungo, you silly young Womble, you've got that pink boxtail of yours mixed up with my purple dragon.'

‘Can't help it,' replied Bungo breathlessly as he thumped past, his eyes fixed on the blue sky above, ‘and anyway your purple bird is getting in the way of my green – er – green . . .' Bungo rolled his eyes in the direction of Hirado, who was now writing busily on a beautifully decorated clip-board, which he had taken out of the pocket of his silk apron.

‘Green sea serpent, silly young Womble.'

‘Green sea serpent, and, Orinoco, do watch that long tail on your yellow butterfly . . .'

‘I
AM
watching . . . whoops . . .
sss
, problems, problems . . .'

Honourable Cousin Tokyo folded his paws inside the sleeves of his gown, and leant towards Hirado.

‘So,' he said gently. ‘Congratulations. Am very pleased that these London cousins of ours were here to witness your success.'

‘Um,' Hirado scratched behind his ear with his ballpoint pen and watched Orinoco and Bungo who were now running in all directions, laughing and shouting at each other while the kites circled, jerked and flew across the clean blue sky. ‘Um.
Sssss
. Not bad little cousins really.'

Honourable Cousin Tokyo agreed, and he and Hirado bowed deeply to each other.

.

Chapter Twelve

‘Ah-Roo-Ah-Roo-Ah-Roo'

‘
Ah-roo-ah-roo-ah-roo-ah-roo . . .
' sang Wellington.

‘
Ah-roo-ah-roo
,' rumbled Tomsk.

‘
Ah-roo . . .
'

‘
Ah-roo-ar-roo . . .
'

Wellington took off his spectacles, which had become quite misted up, and wiped them on his shawl. He glanced round at Tomsk who was sitting behind him in the boat.

‘
Ah-roo-ar-roo
,' roared Tomsk and dipped the paddle he was grasping too far into the blue water, and the next moment his furry little body was shooting upwards, and then there was a tremendous splash and he vanished in a great surge of bubbles.

‘He can swim,' shouted Wellington. ‘
Ah-roo
. . .'

The long canoe fairly scudded through the water and when Tomsk finally emerged he was quite a long way away, so he took a deep breath and then began to do his own special Womble-paddle crawl after it. Everybody paddled as hard as they could but, even so, the long canoe and Tomsk reached the shore in a dead heat.

Uncle Dunedin bustled out to meet them. He was a comfortable-looking Womble with light-grey fur and a very pleasant expression. He was wearing a kilt made of grass, and he had a large necklace of seashells round his neck.

‘Good day, good day,' he said. ‘That was a very good race. You both won. My goodness, Tomsk, you're a fine swimmer.'

‘I like swimming quite a lot,' said Tomsk, shaking himself so violently that drops of water went in every direction.

‘And I like it here,' said Wellington, climbing out of the canoe. ‘It's a very peaceful sort of place, New Zealand.'

‘Agreed,' said Uncle Dunedin. ‘Come on back to the burrow. Yes, we don't have too many problems here, I have to admit. Sit down, sit down. Our Human Beings are a tidy lot, but I dare say you may have noticed that.'

Wellington took off his shawl, wiped his paws on it and nodded. Of all the countries he had visited so far, he had to admit that he felt most at home in New Zealand; which was strange really, as it was about as far as he and Tomsk had travelled from Wimbledon. And yet, from the very first moment that he had set paw here, he had felt happy and unworried. Which, as Wellington is a terrible worrier, was quite extraordinary.

Tomsk looked round the long, rather low burrow and sighed contentedly.

‘You've got skiing and swimming and walking and golfing and cricket and football and rugger,' he said, ‘and not much tidying-up work or pollution, so what do you do?'

‘Nothing much – we just enjoy ourselves. We sing, we dance, we make carvings, we keep an eye on the tourists and we go out in our boats.'

‘It sounds awfully nice,' said Wellington, who felt that, as he had chosen a New Zealand name for himself, he had to be extra-polite, ‘but don't you ever get bored?'

‘Well, maybe sometimes a little bit,' agreed Uncle Dunedin, ‘which is why I've written a few notes for Great Uncle Bulgaria. I expect you'd like to see them. I've got 'em here, somewhere . . .'

He opened and shut all the drawers in his desk, and in the last drawer of all he found what he was looking for. It was an enormous sheaf of notes.

‘It's the whole history of the New Zealand Wombles, North and South Islands, over the last few hundred years. I dare say there's a little too much there at the moment, but you, Wellington, will be able to get 'em into shape, I expect?'

‘Lumme,' said Wellington before he could stop himself. ‘Sorry, I mean it looks like rather a long job, you know.'

‘Mmm,' agreed Tomsk. As it takes him about half an hour to read one page in a book (even his favourite book which is called
Putting and The
Advanced
Golfer
), he knew quite well that he, at least, would never be able to get through all those notes; so he very wisely kept quiet and left it to Wellington to deal with the situation.

Uncle Dunedin's face fell, he sighed a little and began to gather up the great stack of papers. It was quite obvious that his feelings had been rather hurt, although he was trying not to show it.

‘I'm sure it's all very interesting,' said Wellington, ‘and I do hope you won't think I'm being rude . . .'

What is he going to say?
thought Tomsk, swallowing with embarrassment and shuffling his paws.

‘But,' went on Wellington calmly, ‘I know that Tomsk and I would find it even nicer and more exciting if you could
tell
the story to us. It's been smashing listening to you telling stories round the fire at night. So could you? Would you?'

‘Yes, do!' agreed Tomsk, beaming at this brilliant idea of Wellington's. Remarkable sort of Womble, Wellington. Always came up with the right answer in the nick of time.

‘You don't really mean it,' said Uncle Dunedin, looking quite shy himself, ‘do you?'

‘Y
ES
. Please.'

‘OK then. Tonight after supper, all right?'

So that evening after a simply sumptuous supper, which included Rotorua moss casserole and Wanaka waterweed cream ices, every single Womble of the North Island Burrow sat round in a circle. They were all wearing their best cloaks and shell necklaces and they swayed from side to side, gently clapping their paws and singing softly.

‘
Ah – roo-ah-roo-ah-roo-er-roo . . .
'

A full moon rose slowly, dimming the lights of the sparkling stars. There was the very faintest breeze off the sea and some night birds were calling to each other.

‘I don't wonder this is marked as a three-star burrow,' said Tomsk. ‘I think it should be three and a half stars, myself.'

.

.

‘
Shh
, sorry, but here comes Uncle Dunedin. I say, doesn't he look splendid!'

The singing grew louder and louder and then ended suddenly in a kind of shout, as Uncle Dunedin, wearing his very best outfit, walked into the centre of the ring. He nodded politely to everybody and then sat down on a carved stool. For a moment you could have heard a shell drop, and then he began to talk.

‘Once long, long ago there were the two islands, the great mountains, the great lakes and many strange wonderful birds such as the kiwi and the moa. The mysterious thing about these birds was that they had no wings, so of course they couldn't fly. They were very large and they roamed where they pleased, sometimes stopping to pass the time of day with the Wombles.

‘Now the Wombles of those long ago days had no tidying-up work to do at all. This was because there were no Human Beings either in the North Island or the South Island. So they spent part of their time caring for animals or birds that were in trouble, and occasionally helping a stranded fish out to sea again. And the rest of the day they swam and climbed and played games and cooked delicious meals. And of course they talked and told stories. It was a very beautiful life.'

‘It must have been,' said Wellington with a sigh.

‘Then suddenly everything changed. One day the seabirds rose up in great clouds and began to fly round and round. The Wombles hurried to see what was the matter, and at first they didn't understand what was happening at all, for the seabirds were too frightened to explain themselves. But the Old Womble Chief felt his fur begin to rise up, and he knew that something dreadful was about to take place. He looked out to sea and there on the horizon was a sight which even he, wise though he was, didn't understand. It was as if a great tide of hollow tree trunks was moving over the water and towards the land. Sitting inside the hollow trees were funny-looking creatures. They had no fur and they were long and thin, and they had pieces of wood in their front paws.

‘The old Womble Chief didn't like the look of these creatures at all, and he ordered all his Wombles to go and warn the moas and the kiwis and the animals to take cover. But the animals and the birds didn't understand because, you see, they had never been frightened in their lives. They had always lived together quite happily and in peace. So, instead of taking the Wombles' warning many of them went down to the seashore. The seabirds, who already knew better, because some of them had travelled great distances and been to other lands where they had seen these fur-less, thin creatures, tried to sound the alarm too. But already it was too late. One of the creatures stood up in his tree trunk and threw a piece of wood at a moa. It pierced the great bird to the heart and it fell dead.

‘So the first Human Beings came to this country. They were fierce and cruel and they slaughtered the wingless birds until there were hardly any left. They even killed many of the birds which could fly, and they hunted the animals as well. It was then, for the first time in their history, that our Wombles started to build burrows and to live underground.

‘A long time later more Human Beings, also travelling by canoes, came from the sea to the north. They were much more peaceful by nature and they danced and sang a great deal, but by then all the remaining birds and animals were frightened of Human Beings and the Wombles had decided to keep themselves to themselves.

‘This was just as well for, as the years passed, there was a third invasion and this time the Human Beings came in big ships, bringing not only their own animals with them, but guns and gunpowder as well. It was these Human Beings who built the towns and harbours, the roads and finally the airports. They were untidy and wasteful, and the Wombles were so upset at seeing what was happening to their beautiful country that they decided to begin tidying-up work, and to make good use of bad rubbish. This is the story of our two islands.'

‘It's still a very beautiful country,' said Wellington. ‘I think it's the most beautiful one I've seen.'

‘Thank you,' said Uncle Dunedin. ‘You must tell Great Uncle Bulgaria that we shall do our best to keep it as beautiful as we can. But now, before we go to sleep for the night, my Wombles are going to do a dance for you, which they learnt from watching the Human Beings who came in great canoes from the north . . .'

Uncle Dunedin clapped his paws and all the Wombles, even the very small ones, got up and formed themselves into lines. They began to sway backwards and forwards and to hum softly and in a few minutes, without quite knowing how it happened, Wellington and Tomsk were joining in.