The Wombles Go round the World (6 page)

‘If it's that strudel whatsit that's worrying you, I've got a touch of colly-wombles myself,' said Wellington. ‘Golly, what a burrow!'

‘Mm,' said Tomsk, gently rubbing his stomach. ‘Mm. Orinoco would have enjoyed that.'

‘Mind you, I don't think I'd like to live there. There was too much of everything somehow and it was too quiet. I can't imagine those Wombles ever having a really good, noisy game of Wombles and Ladders . . .'

‘Mm.'

Wellington looked anxiously at his silent friend.

‘You're not going to be sick, are you?' he asked.

Tomsk roused himself slightly and shook his head. He tried to think of the words which would describe what he felt about the Black Forest Burrow. He settled on one.

‘Cor,' said Tomsk. ‘Cor!'

‘Yes, I know what you mean. And I'll tell you something else, we never found out the name of that old, old Womble. He's so old, it didn't seem polite to ask somehow. Perhaps he's put his name on this present for Great Uncle Bulgaria. I'm sure it wouldn't matter if I unwrapped it and had a look.'

Wellington undid the paper and discovered the most beautifully bound book. Stamped on the front in gold letters were the words A S
HORT
H
ISTORY
OF
THE
B
LACK
F
OREST
B
URROW
.

And underneath this, C
OMPILED
AND
WRITTEN
BY
H
APSBURG
V
ON
H
OHENZOLLERN
W
OMBLE
. 52
COLOUR
PLATES
, 200
ETCHINGS
.

Wellington got his breath back slowly. Thank goodness he hadn't known at the time that they were being entertained by one of the most illustrious and scholarly Wombles of all time. If he had known he wouldn't have been able to get out one word without stuttering. Wellington put the book back into its wrappings very, very carefully and reached for the small envelope marked ‘Clover-root indigestion tablets.' He handed one to Tomsk and began to suck one himself.

‘Cor,' Wellington said to no one in particular. ‘Coo-er, cor!'

.

Chapter Six

Yellow Sky at
Night
*

It seemed to Bungo that several hours went past before the hand was removed from his mouth and he was able to breathe more or less properly again. More or less, because the air had rather a nasty taste to it.

‘Don't move or make a sound,' the voice whispered. ‘We find ourselves in a difficult situation territory-wise. Kindly inform your colleague of this.'

Bungo nodded violently and whispered in Orinoco's ear.

‘Oi,
psst
, wake up, but please be quiet. I think we've been napped nabbed.'

Orinoco's eyes blinked open and he made a smacking noise with his tongue and did a bit of gentle scratching. He didn't seem to be very alarmed by this information, but then it takes a great deal to upset Orinoco, who is by nature extremely placid.

‘Napped nabbed, nothing,' said the voice and out of the yellow murkiness above their heads emerged a strange figure. It was short and fat and distinctly round and wearing a shiny yellow coat, and an odd-looking hat, goggles and a mask.

‘You two,' said this apparition, ‘are the dirty laundry and I am about to take you to the laundromat. Hold still.'

Orinoco and Bungo looked at each other and Orinoco shrugged and patted Bungo on the shoulder. He didn't much care for being called ‘dirty laundry', but on the other hand it didn't sound as if they were being napped nabbed. Orinoco reached for a biscuit, munched it as quietly as he could and slid back into his sleeping bag. Bungo remained sitting bolt upright.

There was a faint scuffling sound and the trolley appeared to be lifted slightly off the ground. Voices whispered softly, there was a squeaking noise and then the trolley jolted slightly and began to move bumpily forwards, lurching from side to side. A light flickered on somewhere close by, and in its beam they could see that the air was full of little yellow wisps of fog.

A voice called out something from a distance.

‘OK, Mac, it's the laundromat,' was the reply.

The distant voice made a grumbling sound and a door was banged shut. The jolting went on and Orinoco actually dozed off, but Bungo continued to sit bolt upright with his eyes and his stomach going round and round. Suddenly they stopped moving and Bungo, his ears strained to catch every sound, realised that they were surrounded by whispering voices.

‘Get 'em in back . . .'

‘. . . steady . . .'

‘One, two, three, we have lift-off . . .'

The trolley tilted alarmingly, was propelled up a small slope, then levelled out and came to a full stop. Something clicked shut and finally, most surprising of all, there was a soft
tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
, and they were on the move again.

Bungo let out a small whimper and the strange voice whispered, ‘Hold it. Not long now and we'll all be OK.'

The ‘not long now' seemed to be rather an understatement, but finally the
tick-tocking
slowed down and then stopped, the trolley went rattling backwards down the slope and was bounced along the ground which suddenly became much smoother and there was a faint purring noise and a click.

‘Well, well, well, and what do we have here?' said a deep voice.

Bungo, who had shut his eyes very tightly for the last five minutes, opened them reluctantly and looked up. The very next second he was out of the trolley and shivering with relief and excitement.

‘It's you,' said Bungo. ‘Oh, it's
you
.'

‘'Course it's me,' said Cousin Yellowstone, cuffing him gently round the head. ‘Who else do you think it'd be? Huh? Come on, Orinoco, I know you're in there some place.'

Orinoco climbed out stiffly, politely hid a yawn and shook Cousin Yellowstone by the paw.

‘Morning,' said Orinoco. ‘Very nice to see you again. Been a long time. I take it we're in the right place?'

‘Just about. But only just, which is largely thanks to young Idaho here. He was the one who rescued you.'

‘Rescued?'

‘Uh huh. Something must have gone wrong with your calculations, young Womble. You came down in the backyard of a motel.'

‘It wasn't him, it was me,' said Bungo who was feeling quite faint from relief. ‘I didn't do the sums right. Oh, I
am
glad to see you.'

‘I'm sure it's mutual,' replied Cousin Yellowstone. ‘I have to admit we were a little anxious when we lost contact with you. Things were rather busy hereabouts at the time, as we were on full Yellow Alert.'

‘Full Yellow . . .'

‘Smog. We had a lot of young Wombles out and about on their duties and they all had to be brought back fast. So we had them to worry over as well as you. It was a case of every Womble to his or her post. Even our cook, Ms Atlanta, had to abandon her stove.'

‘Talking of which . . .' murmured Orinoco.

‘You don't change,' said Cousin Yellowstone, starting to laugh. ‘I guess that if you had to crashland in the middle of nowhere you'd think about food first.'

‘Well, I wouldn't say that. Well, maybe . . .'

‘Still, before we go along to the Wombletaria, let me introduce you to Idaho here.'

Idaho, a rather serious young Womble, had taken off his strange yellow clothes, goggles and mask and was now looking thoughtfully at his Wimbledon cousins. They all shook paws and Orinoco and Bungo thanked him for rescuing them.

‘That's OK,' said Idaho. ‘Sorry I had to call you dirty laundry, but it was too late in the day to say you were garbage and too early for you to be mail.'

‘I don't care
what
you called us,' said Bungo, ‘the important thing is that you got us out. It would have been awful if we'd woken up in the morning and found ourselves surrounded by Human Beings. I don't know what we'd have done. I say, this is a smashing burrow, isn't it, Orinoco?'

‘Streamlined,' said Cousin Yellowstone. ‘I'll take you on a tour round later on. But first the Wombletaria.'

As they had never heard of anything of that name before, Orinoco and Bungo didn't know what to expect; but their eyes were as round as they could be by the time they arrived there. They had never before seen a burrow like this, where everything was so neat and tidy and where lights flashed on and off in different colours at every corner.

‘It's our communications system,' said Cousin Yellowstone. ‘Just by looking at those lights a Womble can tell which storehouse has its full load of trash. It saves time and energy. Then, as I've already told you, all lights at yellow means full alert. That is, drop what you're doing and assemble in the main hall. If any one Womble in particular is needed, we flash his signal and he reports instantly to me. It's faster and more efficient than inter-burrow-telephone. Well, here we are.'

Orinoco looked round the Wombletaria and breathed deeply. Madame Cholet's kitchen was quite his favourite place in the Wimbledon burrow, but this was like at least four kitchens made into one. Instead of just one table, there were dozens of small ones, while at one end there was a long counter. To the side of this was a stack of small drawers, each with a card on the front of it.

Orinoco, like a Womble in a trance, read out what was printed on the cards, ‘Daisy cream with hot grass sauce. Bracken buns and clover spread. Redwood triple-decker sandwiches. Toadstool takeaways. Moss crackers. Bluegrass-brunch . . .'

‘That's our Eleven-taria,' said Cousin Yellowstone. ‘Any working Womble who returns to the burrow for an early break helps himself – or herself – from there.'

‘What a
very
good idea,' said Orinoco. ‘I think I'll suggest it to Madame Cholet.'

‘Well, bless me,' said a delighted voice. ‘Are you talking of Madame Cholet?
The
Madame Cholet?'

.

.

And Ms Atlanta came hurrying into the Wombletaria with her front paws held out. She was wearing a very smart little white cap and a white overall which crackled as she walked. She held first Orinoco's paws and then Bungo's, as she went on, ‘I am so glad and honoured to meet you. I've heard so much about you. I was meaning to come and greet you just the moment you arrived, but I had to go out on the Yellow Alert. Madame Cholet is just the best Womble cook in the whole world. Now do you have any recipes of hers that you could let me have? It would be just marvellous.'

Orinoco, with a speed which was remarkable in a Womble of his rather sleepy character, made a very quick decision.

‘I think I
might
be able to help,' he said in a very serious voice, ‘but that would mean spending a lot of time here in the – er – Wombletaria, you know. So somebody else . . .' he glanced sideways at Bungo, ‘would have to go out and about being brave and adventurous and taking notes for
Vol. Ten
. And I really don't think it's fair to ask . . .'

Bungo glanced at Idaho, who was watching him stolidly with his arms folded, and then at Cousin Yellowstone who was cleaning his spectacles on a large silk handkerchief.

‘I think I could just about manage that,' said Bungo. ‘I mean I like doing brave and adventurous things really.'

‘That's settled then,' said Orinoco. ‘Good. I say, Ms Atlanta, how about breakfast? I'm
starving
!'

‘Coming right up,' said Ms Atlanta.

It really was a glorious meal and it was followed by a nice forty winks in a most luxurious dormitory, after which Orinoco made his way, without any help at all, to Ms Atlanta's cold store where she was deep-freezing all kinds of pies, casseroles, snacks, burgers and brunches.

‘OK, let's go,' Bungo said to Idaho. ‘I'll tell you what. I bet you don't have to pick up half as much rubbish as we do.'

‘Rubbish?'

‘Er – trash.'

‘I'll tell you what. We do. Here just about everything is thrown away. But everything. We'll take the pickup truck, OK?'

‘Yes, of course. OK, I mean.'

Bungo lost quite a bit of his bounce as Idaho led the way out of the burrow to where a small, clockwork van was waiting.

‘This here is my pickup truck,' said Idaho. ‘Last week I tidied up three washing-up machines, two iceboxes and four crates of trash.'

‘Goodness,' said Bungo in a stunned voice. His biggest haul on Wimbledon Common had been three tidy-bags full of waste paper, tin cans and milk bottles in one day. Great Uncle Bulgaria had actually made a little speech about it and everybody had sung
For he's a jolly good Womble
after supper, and it had made Bungo feel very experienced and important at the time; but, compared with Idaho's tidying-up, it felt like nothing at all.

So Bungo didn't speak a word as they bounced away from the burrow, across the grass and finally to the edge of a very wide road on which cars and lorries were speeding along in both directions.

‘The freeway,' said Idaho. ‘Come dusk and they'll start dumping things in the back of the motels – just you see.'