The Wombles to the Rescue (5 page)

‘Can't,' said Shansi. ‘Have not tidied up anything. Have failed at every job. Cannot fail at this one too.'

‘Oh, is that all that's worrying you?' said Wellington, politely ignoring the unhappy note in Shansi's small voice. ‘Well, I know where there's an absolute load of rubbish. Those men dumped it. They kept on talking about the beauties of nature and looking after wildlife and all that sort of stuff, but they still put their dirty plastic cups and plates and old newspapers and tins and magazines and bits of cardboard and paper and . . .'

‘Stop, stop, is enough!'

‘I was only just getting going. They put it all in plastic bags and then shoved them under the bushes. Funny, really, when they were talking in such a bossy way about other people doing exactly the same thing. But then Human Beings are like that. I've noticed it before. This way, and keep quiet now, do . . .'

Everybody back at the burrow was astonished when they saw the two enormous bundles of rubbish that Shansi had brought back.

‘Goodness you
HAVE
worked hard,' said Alderney, actually standing still for two seconds. ‘You must be
ever
so hungry. Have a double daisy ice cream and a spoonful of clover cream.'

‘Well done, little Beijing,' said Cousin Botany.

‘Shansi,' said Shansi. ‘Please, name is Shansi. Oh!'

‘That's right,' agreed Cousin Botany. ‘Shan-er? A very pretty name it is too. Hallo, what have you found there?'

It was a teacup without a handle. It was, or had been, a very nice cup with flowers painted all round the outside rim and inside it too. Stamped on the bottom was: WTV. C
HAIRMAN ONLY
.

‘Is lovely,' said Shansi, stroking it gently.

‘You can keep it for your own special use,' said Cousin Botany. ‘Go and wash it out carefully and then take it down to the canteen.'

Wellington was just finishing his third helping of pudding and being watched by a most respectful Orinoco.

‘Never knew you could eat as well as that,' said Orinoco. ‘Why, you're almost as good as me, young Wellington. Hallo, Shansi, coming to join us? Good, sit down. Watching Wellington has made me feel quite peckish. Think I'll have a little something just to keep me going . . .'

Off ambled Orinoco and Wellington put his spoon and fork neatly together and blew out his cheeks. Shansi leant forward and said in her quiet little voice, ‘You were hungry as wolf, yes?'

‘That's right,' said Wellington, ‘but we'd better keep quiet about it. Great Uncle Bulgaria'd have a fit if he ever found out . . . Right, young Shansi?'

‘Right!'

For the first time since she had left the Womblegarten, Shansi decided that perhaps being a working Womble wasn't going to be too bad after all. Wellington was feeling happy and contented too. He'd had a most interesting twenty-four hours as a semi-prisoner and had picked up all kinds of ideas. The two young Wombles, in fact, felt very pleased with themselves. They might have felt rather differently if they had known that seven days later Great Uncle Bulgaria, in the spacious, air-conditioned burrow which was run by Cousin Yellowstone, would be reading a certain newspaper cutting. It was headed:

.

WOLF SEEN ON WIMBLEDON COMMON

A DANGEROUS GREY WOLF OF CONSIDERABLE SIZE WAS SPOTTED ON WIMBLEDON COMMON AT DAWN YESTERDAY BY TELEVISION DIRECTOR
. . .

.

Great Uncle Bulgaria read through the cutting three times and then folded his white paws together and said, ‘How strange. How
very
strange.
I
have never heard of a wolf on the Common and if I have never heard of it, then it probably does
NOT
exist. I wonder what is going on. I think perhaps that I had better write a letter . . .'

Great Uncle Bulgaria looked at the range of pencils, biros, and pens which had been put out for his use, went ‘
tsk, tsk, tsk
' under his breath, and started to write . . .

.

Chapter 5

Great Uncle Bulgaria Sends a Letter

From:
B
ULGARIA
C
OBURG
W
OMBLE
C
/
O
C
OUSIN
Y
ELLOWSTONE
W
OMBLE
, USA

To:
T
HE
W
OMBLES
OF
W
IMBLEDON

Dear Wombles,

You will no doubt be pleased to hear that Bungo and I have arrived safe and well after a very smooth crossing.

Our American cousins are most kindly and considerate, if a trifle talkative, and their burrow is very efficiently run, although I could wish for a little less ice with every cold drink. Many other senior Wombles have already arrived and the Conference on World Shortages is due to start soon. I have no doubt that it will be most instructive and, we trust,
PRODUCTIVE
! I hope most sincerely that all my Wombles of Wimbledon are also thinking up ideas which may help the problem of shortages. Before I close I would like to say two things. First, that Bungo wishes to send his warmest regards to you all, especially he informs me, to Tomsk, Orinoco and Wellington. And secondly, that I should be most interested to learn more about the Common's latest newcomer. I refer to the Grey Wolf. May I remind you, young Wombles, you can cry wolf once too often if you're not careful!

Kindest best wishes to you all.

G
REAT
U
NCLE
B
ULGARIA
.

.

After this remarkable letter had been read aloud to everybody by Tobermory, Wellington had the distinct feeling that, although he was thousands of miles away, Great Uncle Bulgaria was looking directly at
him
, so he slipped out of the playroom and went off to do something nice and ordinary like swimming in Queen's Mere with Tomsk.

‘Funny about that wolf,' said Tomsk, doing a perfect running dive. He went smoothly into the water and emerged halfway down the Mere, shaking the water out of his round little eyes as he went on, ‘I didn't know there was a wolf on the Common.'

‘Mmmmmm,' said Wellington, in a voice which could have meant anything.

‘Perhaps there never was a wolf,' remarked Orinoco, who had found a comfortable spot beside the Mere for a snooze. He looked out from under the brim of his hat and stared very hard at Wellington, who had begun to whistle in an offhand sort of way. ‘I bet it's never heard of again anyway,' went on Orinoco with a fat wheezy chuckle as he pulled the hat down over his face and settled back for a nice thirty winks. It was only thirty that he really felt he wanted as he hadn't been working all that hard recently. Human Beings were still dumping rubbish on the Common, but there wasn't quite so much of it these days and, what was really a bit worrying, they were getting almost mean about the food that they were throwing away.

Orinoco scratched his stomach and sighed as he recalled the Good Old Days when an alert Womble might find an almost complete picnic meal left behind on a bench. Or half a packet of toffees. Or perhaps two or three bananas. Or a tin of biscuits. Or . . .

‘Oh dear,' said Orinoco and rolled over on to his stomach to try and stop it rumbling. Now, up to this particular moment, Orinoco hadn't really thought one little bit about all the things Great Uncle Bulgaria had said about shortages of this and that, but now it suddenly came into his mind that the ‘this and that' might refer to food. It was as if a thick grey cloud had floated across the sun.

‘Oh my,' said Orinoco, sitting bolt upright, ‘surely we could never run out of
FOOD
? Not like we nearly did in that very bad winter!
*
No, we're quite safe now since Cousin Yellowstone showed Tobermory how to build a Deep Freeze. All the same perhaps I will just stroll back to the burrow and have a word with Madame Cholet . . .'

It started as a stroll, then it became a walk and then a trot and finally a scamper.

‘Whatsermatter with Orinoco?' asked Tomsk, flipping head over paws in a perfect somersault.

‘Probably being chased by a bee,' replied Wellington, spluttering and thrashing about, because he wasn't half as good at swimming as Tomsk was. ‘I say, Tomsk, old Womble, I've just had a smashing idea. Those men I met . . .'

‘What men?'

‘Oh, just men. They were sort of working on the Common. Don't interrupt, there's a good Womble, or I'll forget what my idea is. These men were saying that there isn't enough oil to go round.'

Tomsk was about to ask ‘go round what?' but he decided it was probably better to keep quiet.

‘So I think we should drill for oil,' said Wellington. ‘These men said . . .'

‘They seem to talk a lot. Have they got names? It's easier when people have names. Don't you remember how difficult it was sometimes in the Womblegarten before we'd chosen our names out of Great Uncle Bulgaria's atlas? Miss Adelaide would say, “Stand up that young Womble who was talking” and we'd
all
stand up. Or at least nearly all . . .'

‘Perhaps that's
why
she did it,' said Wellington. ‘Oh, please,
PLEASE
do keep quiet a sec. Yes, the men called each other John and Terry, and they were talking about there not being enough petrol and oil and yes, I do know that
WOM I
doesn't run on petrol, but Tobermory was saying we needed oil in the burrow for oiling all those squeaking hinges and things. So you and me are going to build an oil rig and we're going to drill for oil under Queen's Mere. What do you think of that?'

But Tomsk was beyond saying anything. He just stood in the shallow water at the side of Queen's Mere with his mouth slightly open and with a drip on the end of his nose. And then he did a perfect sideways dive and vanished with hardly a ripple.

‘I knew you'd agree,' said Wellington happily. ‘Now I wonder how
exactly
one builds an oil rig . . .'

Back at the burrow Orinoco was following Madame Cholet round the kitchen, almost treading on her heels as he said anxiously, ‘But I say, look here, Madame Cholet, do you really mean that we might
RUN OUT OF FOOD
?'

‘Not run out, young Womble, but regard this if you please,' and Madame Cholet led the way into one of the larders and threw open a cupboard door. It was a very clean and neat cupboard with just one line of small plastic pots in it. ‘Bramble jelly,' announced Madame Cholet.

‘Lovely. Um. D
EE
-licious. Quite my favourite next to dock or perhaps oak apple. Although I must admit I'm quite partial to sweet acorn and then there's . . .'

‘It's
all
the bramble jelly that is left,' said Madame Cholet and shut the door with a click which sent a shiver straight up Orinoco's back.

‘Why?' he asked in a very small voice.

‘Because a lot of the brambles were cut back last year to provide more open space for the Human Beings. Regard further, young Womble.' And Madame Cholet, who had been worrying away at the back of her own mind about food, suddenly began to talk very fast. It was such a relief to be able to put all her fears into words, and Orinoco was quite old enough now to face up to some of the real difficulties of the world.

.

.

And off went Madame Cholet to the next larder to show Orinoco that there were only two bins of chopped dried nettles.

‘Those were cut back last year too,' she said, ‘and it's not only us Wombles who will miss the nettles. The butterflies do too. Have you noticed that there are fewer butterflies about this year? No, I don't suppose you have. But when I was a young Womble there used to be hundreds of them, like flying flowers all over the Common. Then Human Beings started filling the air with nasty fumes and using those horrid sprays in their gardens and the butterflies began to vanish. It is very sad.
Oui?
'

‘
Oui
, yes, rather,' said Orinoco miserably. He was wishing very much that he had never begun asking questions because everything was turning out so much nastier than he had imagined. In fact he was now starting to imagine himself, and all the other Wombles, just fading away and becoming as thin as Human Beings. And a thin Womble is very nearly impossible to imagine, which goes to show how upset Orinoco was becoming.

However, Madame Cholet was now fairly into her stride and she took hold of Orinoco by one ear and made him come with her on a grand inspection of all the larders and even the Deep Freeze which was humming away quietly to itself at the far end of the burrow.

‘Well, that's not too bad,' said Orinoco, brightening up just a tiny bit as he gazed down through the icy misty atmosphere at the heaps of small plastic packets of this and that.

‘It's all last year's stock,' said Madame Cholet. ‘And where, I ask myself, will next year's food come from, hm?'

‘The Common?'

‘Foolish one! All the time Human Beings cut back, cut down, uproot all kinds of bushes and trees and plants. And why? Because they seem to think they need more grass. And for what do they use the grass? For walking on, sunbathing on, bicycling on. All these things are very well in their way, but the ground should be fed and dug and fed and planted and used for growing. If matters continue like this we Wombles will be living on nothing but grass. And what can I – a cook of some distinction, I think you will agree –'

‘Rather!'

‘
Merci
. What can I do with merely grass? Bread, pancakes, a few puddings and mixes, perhaps a little ice cream and sauce, but nothing more. And Wombles are not sheep. To live on a diet of grass will be very bad for us. We shall all get falling fur, mark my words.'

‘What – what,' said Orinoco, swallowing painfully, ‘what's to be done, Madame Cholet?'

Madame Cholet's shoulders rose to her ears and she spread her front paws wide in a gesture of ‘I don't know, you tell me'.

‘Oh lor,' muttered Orinoco. ‘I say, look here, Madame Cholet, don't get too upset, please. I – I'll think of something to help. I promise.'