Free The Wombles by Elizabeth Beresford

wriggling into the hole and reappearing a few moments later with two chocolate bars, a bag of buns and a packet of chewing gum. Orinoco looked from the food to the other two Wombles and heaved an enormous sigh. Then without a word he got to his paws, dusted the leaves off his coat and set out for the burrow with Tomsk and Bungo following him.
    ‘I don’t think we’d better tell on him, do you?’ asked Bungo, who had been turning matters over in his mind. He was sure that Orinoco had learnt his lesson, for it must have been extremely nasty to be stuck down a rabbit hole.
    ‘Tell what?’ asked Tomsk, who had been thinking about golf and the slice he was getting in his swing.
    ‘Nothing really,’ said Bungo and followed Orinoco into the burrow. Orinoco looked anxiously at his friend and when Bungo shook his head slightly Orinoco blew out his cheeks with relief and went to hand in his food to Tobermory. He stayed in the Workshop for a very long time and when he came out he had a rather smug expression on his round face.
    ‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said, laying his paw against one side of his nose. ‘Meet me tomorrow morning by Queen’s Mere.’
    Bungo hadn’t the faintest idea what he was up to, but Orinoco refused to say another word and went back into the Workshop and shut the door. Bungo stayed outside and heard a lot of banging and hammering and a great deal of whispering which made him more curious than ever, but Tobermory had hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, so he had to swallow his curiosity and go off and have a game of Wombles and Ladders with Alderney instead.
    This is really a teaching game for very young Wombles and it was designed by Great Uncle Bulgaria and built by Tobermory. It’s played in a large room where a great many ladders of all shapes and sizes are joined together with bars, planks and branches. You have to start at one end of the room, climb up the first ladder to the top, scramble along a pole and down the next ladder and then up the one next to it and so on. While all this is going on, an older Womble squeezes away at an accordion and the moment he stops you have to stop too. If you’re halfway up a ladder then you have to go right back to the beginning and start again. The first Womble to reach the bottom of the last ladder is the winner.
    This is how very young Wombles are taught to climb and although Bungo considered himself rather old for the game he soon joined in and enjoyed himself very much.
    Early the next morning he picked up his basket and went off to Queen’s Mere. It was going to be another lovely, clear but cold day and the ducks were out swimming up and down and the sparrows were pecking at the hard ground looking hopefully for worms. And it was then that Bungo saw a very curious sight.
    It was Orinoco taking some exercise. But he wasn’t playing golf or running or doing press-ups. He was riding a bicycle. A bicycle with a very low saddle because he had such short fat legs, so he and Tobermory had fitted a special saddle to make pedalling easier.
    ‘Look at me,’ called out Orinoco. ‘This is the way to take some exercise. Splendid for the muscles. Wonderful for the constitution. Much better than silly old golf.’
    And he sailed past Bungo ringing his bell and pedalling with all his might. So if any Human Being should be up on the Common early enough one morning they too might see a very strange sight. A round, not-quite-so-fat-as-before creature seated on a most extraordinary bicycle and riding across the grass for all he’s worth. Orinoco doesn’t do it every day of course, but he does cycle fairly often.
    Getting stuck in a rabbit hole can be a very upsetting experience.

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    Chapter 7
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    The Christmas Party and Mr D. Smith
     
    The Christmas party was an enormous success. Madame Cholet cooked a better dinner than ever before, Great Uncle Bulgaria made a very funny speech, and Tobermory did conjuring tricks that were really quite astounding. How he made a