The Wombles Go round the World (4 page)

Cousin Botany shuffled off with his little eyes twinkling under the brim of his dreadful old hat, and Bungo returned silently to the Womblegarten where Miss Adelaide was waiting to give them their final Geography lesson.

‘Well,' she said at the end, ‘you haven't done too badly, I suppose.' Which was her way of saying she was proud of them. ‘I have prepared for each of you a small set of map cards. These show all the known burrows. Those marked with three stars are the largest. The maps also depict the terrain – the type of countryside, Tomsk – and the prevailing winds. The cards fit into these little wallets, made by Shansi. The wallets in turn clip on to the belts sewn by Alderney. That is all I have to say at the moment. Yes, Cousin Botany?'

‘Pardon me, Miss Adelaide,' said Cousin Botany from the doorway. ‘I've just remembered why I'm here. I'm giving a talk on “Survival in Difficult Places”, I believe.'

‘Yes indeed. Would you allow me to stay and listen? I should be
most
interested to hear what you have to say.'

‘Be my guest, Miss Adelaide. Now as you all know, my home country is Down Under. That is, Australia. Big country, Australia. Not too many cities, so if you do get into the Outback as we call it, you have to learn to fend for yourself. There
are
burrows, but they're few and far between because, of course, there's no great litter problem there. Although it may have changed a bit since my day, what with better roads and cars and trucks to drive on them.'

‘Yes,' said Orinoco doubtfully, ‘I expect there may be more clearing up to do now. But,' and he looked at his map card, ‘Bungo and me . . .'

‘Bungo and
I
,' corrected Miss Adelaide.

‘Um. Yes. Well,
we're
going in the other direction, to America. So I don't quite see . . .'

‘America is quite a big place too,' said Miss Adelaide. ‘Indeed, anywhere is a big place should you happen to get lost in the middle of it. Cousin Botany is about to explain what to do in such circumstances. Yes, Cousin Botany?'

‘Ta, Miss Adelaide. First off then, if you
do
get lost, it's best to lie low during the day and to travel at night, because it's cooler and you have the stars to help guide you. If it's cloudy, you stick to your compass. Second, save your grub. That is, don't eat and drink
all
your provisions.'

‘Oh dear,' groaned Orinoco, who had been wondering for some while if it was nearly supper-time yet. Now he felt more hungry than ever.

‘Third, and maybe most important of all, don't panic and
stick together
. Fourth, try and work out at least roughly where you are and then make your plans. Fifth, watch the local animals. They'll know where there's water
and
food and some of them may be quite helpful if you treat 'em polite. Sixth, if the weather turns crook . . .'

‘Mm?' said Tomsk.

‘Unpleasant. Inclement,' said Miss Adelaide.

‘Make yourself a shelter and sit it out. Seventh, good luck. Eighth, that's enough from me. Any questions?'

Both Wellington and Bungo had several, Orinoco was thinking only of food and Tomsk was slowly repeating everything he had just heard in a soft rumbling whisper. He rather hoped, in his heart of hearts, that perhaps he and Wellington might get lost, just once, because it sounded quite fun. He would like building shelters and travelling by night, not to mention tracking animals and birds.

‘Mmmmm,' said Tomsk contentedly.

‘My stomach's rumbling too,' agreed Orinoco. ‘Oh, listen. The supper bell! Hurray!'

‘Oh, and ninth,' said Cousin Botany, ‘give my fondest regards to Great-great Aunt M. Murrumbidgee.'

‘If we see her, yes of course we will,' said Wellington.

‘You'll see her,' said Cousin Botany, ‘she'll make very sure of that! Oh my word yes. Just you wait till you get to Australia, young Womble!'

.

Chapter Four

One, Two, Three, GO!

Quite suddenly the days seemed to rush past, until the date which Great Uncle Bulgaria had ringed in red on the calendar was only twenty-four hours away. The four volunteers had been given the whole day off to do exactly what they wanted. Orinoco spent most of his time having little naps and quite large snacks, since he was becoming increasingly anxious about how he was going to keep up his strength during the weeks that lay ahead.

Wellington would have liked to have given all his time to revision, but he was discovered sitting in the Womblegarten by Miss Adelaide, who didn't appear to understand Great Uncle Bulgaria's ruling that the travellers should do as
they
wished, for she only said, ‘Enough is enough. Off you go into the fresh air.'

‘But, Miss Adelaide, I'm going to get plenty of fresh air for ages.'

‘Not ages. Weeks. Off you go and do not argue.'

Wellington went.

‘
There
you are!' said Tomsk. ‘Been looking for you everywhere. Come and have a run. Won't be able to run sitting in a balloon all day.'

‘That's true. I hadn't thought of that. OK,' said Wellington, brightening up.

They trotted off, passing Orinoco as he was dozing under a bramble bush with a large pile of his favourite buttercup-and-daisy-spread sandwiches beside him.

‘Come and have a run,' puffed Wellington.

‘Can't, having eighty winks,' said Orinoco and reached for a sandwich.

Round the next bush they came upon Bungo, who was standing as stiff as a poker with his fur all up in prickles.

‘Come and join us,' said Tomsk, running on the spot. Bungo didn't answer. Tomsk ran round him and reported back to Wellington. ‘Got his eyes closed. Looks very funny.' The two Wombles circled their friend. He certainly did look extremely odd.

‘Sorry, but are you all right?' asked Wellington. Bungo opened one eye, swallowed and then shook his head.

‘Got the colly-wombles,' he said huskily.

‘If you . . . you mean you're scared – Ah-
HEM
– nervous and all that, so am I,' said Wellington. ‘So is Orinoco – that's why he's eating so much. Bet Tomsk is too, aren't you, Tomsk?'

‘Mm,' said Tomsk, who hadn't really thought about it much. ‘Best thing for colly-wombles is running. Come on.'

Bungo looked at his friends, sighed, swallowed and joined them. As they pounded past the burrow they could hear the distant ‘chatter-chatter' of the Womblex machine in the Workshop.

‘Tobermory's been getting dozens of messages from Wombles everywhere, saying they're looking forward to seeing us,' puffed Wellington. ‘I must say it is rather an exciting adventure, isn't it?'

They glanced at each other, pushed each other and then thumped off across the Common with all their nervousness forgotten.

That evening, after supper, Great Uncle Bulgaria made (for him) a very, very, short speech.

‘Good luck to our four young Wombles, Orinoco, Tomsk, Wellington and Bungo. We shall all be thinking of you and looking forward to your return and the many stories you will have to tell us.'

Everybody said ‘Hear, hear' and ‘Rather' and ‘Good luck' and clapped and Great Uncle Bulgaria said, ‘Bedtime. Tomorrow is a busy day.'

And that was that.

The morning was bright and chilly and there was a slight breeze as the two balloons, now delicately painted blue and grey so that they wouldn't show up too much against the sky, were inflated. The four young Wombles, fairly trembling with excitement, lined up and were checked first of all by Tobermory to make quite sure that they were wearing the right equipment. This was a zip-up jacket with four zip pockets apiece. Crash helmets. Belts with more pockets. Travel bags, which contained tools, a compass, pads and pencils and, in the case of Orinoco, three acorn buns. Then Madame Cholet checked their picnic bags which held delicious-looking packets of food and hot drinks. And finally, Great Uncle Bulgaria shook each of them by the hand, then looked at Tobermory who nodded.

‘Right,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria briskly, ‘off you go and behave yourselves. Remember – you are Wombles of Wimbledon.'

Orinoco and Bungo shook hands with Wellington and Tomsk. They then climbed into their two separate balloons and went through the take-off procedure.

‘Start Prop One.'

‘Start Prop One.'

‘Start Prop Two.'

‘Start Prop Two.'

‘Set course.'

‘Set course.'

‘Let go anchor.'

‘Let go anchor.'

‘We have lift-off.'

‘We have lift-off.'

And they had. Up and up and up went the two balloons, one moving to the left, the other to the right, and the only sound on the Common – apart from the first sleepy
cheep-cheep-cheeeep
of the birds – was a faint
clickety-click
-
CLACK
which slowly faded away as the balloons too seemed to disappear into the sky.

‘Breakfast,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria loudly.

‘I'll tell you what,' said Bungo.

‘Breakfast?' said Orinoco hopefully.

‘You've had breakfast.'

‘Second breakfast, then.'

‘No. I'll tell you what – this is fun. You'd better have first sleep and I'll carry on steering until it's your turn.'

‘OK.'

Orinoco took a look at the green countryside far below, yawned, had a bit of a stretch and then wriggled into the neat little sleeping bag in the bottom of the trolley and in five seconds flat he was snoring happily. If this adventure was going to be just sitting, sleeping and eating perhaps it wasn't going to be too bad after all.

‘
I'm a Womble of the Universe, a Womble of the skies
,' Bungo sang softly to himself. He had never felt so important in all his life before, and his fur fairly tingled with excitement as in the far distance he saw a faint, blue blur.

‘Irish Channel,' said Bungo to Bungo, checking the instruments and then his first map card. ‘A Woooomble of the Uniiiverse, de dum de dum de dum . . .'

However, even Bungo's enthusiasm began to flag after a while, as it's not much fun showing off for long periods if there is nobody to show off
to
. Besides which, all the excitement had begun to make him feel extremely hungry, so he carefully marked their position on the map, put the balloon on to automatic clockwork pilot and shook Orinoco.

‘Whassamatta?' said Orinoco. ‘Are we there?'

‘'Course not. Not for ages yet. It's second breakfast time.'

The two young Wombles opened up the packet marked ‘Elevenses' and ate in silence until Orinoco, rubbing his stomach, remarked, ‘All right, isn't it, this flying?'

‘Bit boring. Once you've looked at one bit of sea all the rest looks the same. Just waves really. And a few boats.'

‘Ah. Have another bracken bun; that'll cheer you up.'

Bungo shook his head and sniffed.

Orinoco looked at his friend and remembered that, after all, Bungo hadn't been a working Womble for all
that
long, and so he said in a voice which was really rather like Great Uncle Bulgaria's, ‘Have a nap then. Do you good. Next to a nice bite of this or that there's nothing like a little forty winks to set you up.'

Which is how it came about that it was Orinoco, yawning and stretching and having an occasional hazelnut biscuit, who navigated the balloon for much of the journey; and even he began to feel a trifle restless until the moment when, through the haze, the coast of America was sighted.

‘Cor,' said Orinoco, feeling absolutely wide awake for once.

‘Cor,' echoed Bungo. ‘Big, isn't it? E
VER
so big.'

They got out the binoculars and took it in turns to look through them, both of them talking at the same time as, thanks to Miss Adelaide, they recognised all kinds of places.

‘What a lot of buildings,' said Bungo. ‘Buildings everywhere! America must be covered in Human Beings. There don't seem to be many green bits . . .' And his voice shook nervously.

‘It's just towns and things along the coast. There's a lot of green bits in the middle. Miss Adelaide showed us that on our maps and she's
NEVER
wrong, you know that. Or, when you are back in Wimbledon, are you going to tell her she made a mistake?'

‘No fear,' replied Bungo, cheering up. ‘I wouldn't dare. I shouldn't think any Womble in the whole world has ever told Miss Adelaide she was wrong about anything! Well, I suppose we'd better check we're on the right course and all that.'

It was a great tribute to Tobermory's skill that Balloon One ever got anywhere, because hardly had Bungo spoken than everything about them seemed to vanish in a choking yellow fog.

‘Smog!' said Orinoco. ‘Masks, one, two, three,
ON
.'

The two Wombles pulled on the masks which the Womblegarten had made, and very strange it made them look, but neither of them noticed this, as quite suddenly ballooning stopped being fun and became rather serious.

‘Automatic pilot,' snapped Orinoco.

‘Automatic pilot,' echoed Bungo.

‘Reading one, two, three.'

‘Reading one, two, three.'

‘On course.'

‘On course. I say, Orinoco.'

‘Shut up,' said Orinoco in a voice quite unlike his usually sleepy tones. ‘We are going down. Release valve.'

‘We are going down. Release valve. I say, Orinoco.'

‘Shut
UP
. Fasten seat belts.'

Bungo gave Orinoco a hurt look from behind his mask and actually did as he was told without arguing.

There were a few moments of silence during which both Orinoco and Bungo held their breath and then there was a very faint bump as the trolley hit the ground. Orinoco pushed up his mask and leant out carefully and looked down.

‘We're there,' he said. ‘It's the ground. We've landed. Cousin Yellowstone should be here any minute now.'

Bungo took a very deep breath and then said, ‘I don't think he will be. You see, Orinoco, I hadn't, that is,
I
– er – well, I did sort of forget to reset the compass for landing. I did try to tell you. But . . .'

Orinoco shut his eyes very tight and counted up to ten and then to twenty and then to fifty.

‘I'm ever so sorry,' said Bungo waveringly. And quite suddenly, he wished more than anything else in the world that he wasn't a Womble of the Universe or even a Womble of the Skies, but home and safe on Wimbledon Common. He would have given anything at the moment to have heard Great Uncle Bulgaria telling him that Bungo was a silly sort of name, but that it suited
him
.