The Wombles (15 page)

By the time they were all thoroughly exhausted, Madame Cholet had collected up all their parcels of food and had arranged them beside the boating pool, and as every Womble was ravenously hungry they sat down and ate and ate and ate until even Orinoco couldn’t manage one crumb more.

It was indeed, as even the older Wombles agreed, the very best Midsummer party they had ever enjoyed. Perhaps the terrible winter which they had been through made them all, even the smallest, appreciate this golden Midsummer’s Eve more than usual. But be that as it may, as they sat round the pool which reflected the stars and the now slowly sinking yellow moon, they were all very happy and extremely contented.

‘It’s been a jolly good party,’ said Tomsk.

‘Lovely,’ agreed Alderney.

‘Grub was good,’ said Orinoco.

‘Wasn’t that slide fun?’ said Bungo, hiding a yawn.

‘Time to go home,’ said Great Uncle Bulgaria, who had seen the first faint streaks of pink dawn showing in the eastern sky. Sleepily and slowly the Wombles collected everything up and stuffed their paper bags into the wastebins. There wasn’t any food left to collect. And then one by one, yawning and stretching, they lined up to be driven back to Wimbledon Common.

Bungo was one of the last to leave and as they travelled through the rapidly lightening streets he thought sleepily about the last year. About the Dalmatian dog and the first day’s work on the Common and Orinoco and the big black umbrella. About the dreadful rain and the even more frightening snow and the great famine and the affair of the snow Womble. About Orinoco running away and the finding of Cousin Yellowstone, and Tomsk and the toppling tree and his passion for golf. About the Deep Freeze and Tobermory’s Silver Womble, and last of all about the wonderful party and Great Uncle Bulgaria getting his picture in
The Times
.

What a lot had happened and what a very
young
Womble he had been when he first started work.

‘Home,’ said Tobermory’s voice in Bungo’s ear, and he scrambled out more asleep than awake and stood blinking in the rose-coloured dawn. The Common looked very beautiful and rather mysterious in this fragile pink light and Bungo blinked at it and rubbed his paws in his eyes while the other Wombles walked past him whispering and laughing as they made for their beds.

‘Well, young Womble,’ said Great Uncle Bulgaria, coming up behind Bungo. ‘Enjoy yourself, eh?’

‘Oh
yes
,’ said Bungo fervently.

‘Good.’

Great Uncle Bulgaria put one snow-white paw on his shoulder and for a time both of them watched the pink light stretching across the grass and making the shadows grow shorter and shorter. In the distance the roar and rumble of the never-ending traffic was growing louder and an airliner hummed overhead with its landing lights flashing.

‘It’s a funny sort of world,’ said Great Uncle Bulgaria, pulling his tartan shawl more closely round his shoulders, for although it was going to be another hot day there is always a sudden cool wind that springs up at dawn.

He turned to look at the young Womble at his side.

‘Bungo,’ said Great Uncle Bulgaria musingly. ‘Bungo – not a
bad
sort of name really. Quite
sensible
, in fact. Give me your arm.’

And side by side the two of them went down into the burrow and Tomsk shut and bolted the door behind them and ticked the last names off his list, and went yawning and stretching off his to bed. Outside the sun came up as red as a new penny over the horizon and turned the grass of Wimbledon Common to gold for a few fleeting moments. But not a single Womble was there to see, for as Orinoco said afterwards, ‘They were all having a nice
eighty
winks.’

g

g

The Wombles Who’s Who

MADAME CHOLET . . .

. . . is a brilliant Womble cook and her blackberry and apple pie is famous throughout Wombledom. She is very inventive and can turn her paw to any recipe, using ingredients the young Wombles gather on the Common. She is very kind but can get cross when young Wombles interrupt her cooking, especially Orinoco!

TOMSK . . .

. . . is the largest of the young Wombles and is very good at sport. He may not be good at reading or writing but he is brilliant at getting Wombles out of tight spots when a bit of strength is called for.

ORINOCO . . .

. . . is the fattest, greediest and laziest of the young Wombles. His favourite job is ‘helping’ Madame Cholet to taste recipes in the kitchen. He doesn’t like tidying-up duties on the Common and usually finds a bush to hide behind and have a nap, saying, ‘I’ll just have a nice forty winks’. Quite often he is woken up by another Womble’s adventure.

BUNGO . . .

. . . is the youngest of the working Wombles. Even though he has not been on tidying-up duties as long as the other young Wombles, he is rather bossy and thinks he knows the answer to everything. He’s usually wrong! Great Uncle Bulgaria sometimes looks at him over the top of his spectacles and says, ‘Bungo! Silly sort of name, but it suits him’.

TOBERMORY . . .

. . . is extremely clever with his paws and runs the Womble Workshop. The young Wombles bring him all kinds of rubbish and broken objects that they find on the Common. Tobermory takes off his bowler hat, scratches his head for a moment, and then mutters, ‘Problems, problems’, before turning the rubbish into something very useful.

GREAT UNCLE BULGARIA . . .

. . . is over 300 years old and is the wisest of the Wimbledon Wombles. To keep warm he wears a MacWomble tartan shawl, and his favourite newspaper is
The Times
. Great Uncle Bulgaria can be strict and turn a young Womble into jelly when he looks at them over the top of his spectacles and says, ‘
Tsk
,
tsk
,
tsk
, young Womble’. However, he is also very kind and it is to him that the Wombles turn for help and guidance.

ALDERNEY . . .

. . . is a pretty young Womble who is in charge of the burrow’s tea trolley. As the Wombles love their food this is an important job which she enjoys. Alderney is also a bit headstrong and can lead other young Wombles into scrapes.

COUSIN YELLOWSTONE . . .

. . . lives in the Yellowstone Park burrow in the USA. His full name is Yellowstone Boston Womble and he’s very well dressed, kind-hearted and quite old, with silky grey fur. He left the Wimbledon burrow when he was young and sailed all over the world until he settled in the USA.

WELLINGTON . . .

. . . is rather shy, very clever and he is the smallest of the Wombles. He loves reading, inventing things and helping Tobermory in his Workshop. Some of Wellington’s inventions are really very good but he always apologises for them!

CAIRNGORM, THE MACWOMBLE THE TERRIBLE . . .

. . . lives in the Scottish burrow by Loch Ness in Scotland, where he helps to look after Nessie the Water-Womble. He often visits the Wimbledon burrow, where he drives everyone mad by playing the bagpipes. Cairngorm can be quite gruff and even bossier than Bungo!

g

Wonderful Wombling Facts

Wombles choose their names from places, cities and rivers found in Great Uncle Bulgaria’s atlas of the world.

Young Wombles spend their time in the Womblegarten, run by Miss Adelaide Womble, until they are old enough to tidy up outside.

Midsummer’s Eve is the most important night in the Wombles’ year. They have a big party and eat far too much.

There are Womble burrows all over the world, including Hyde Park in London, Loch Ness in Scotland, Yellowstone Park in the USA, and the Khyber Pass on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The main burrow is underneath Wimbledon Common, South-west London.

Fortune and Bason is Orinoco’s favourite shop.

Great Uncle Bulgaria’s middle name is Coburg.