Free The Wombles to the Rescue by Elisabeth Beresford Page A

half starved that he was almost embarrassingly grateful.
    â€˜Oh, all right, all right,’ said Botany, swiping at the beaming Orinoco with his awful hat, ‘no need to go on so. We’re not out of the wood yet. First off we’ve got to start tunnelling . . .’
    â€˜Tunnelling!’
    â€˜â€™Sright. Tobermory’s worked out the lay of the land round the burrow so that we can see which way the water flows when it rains. They’re called cul-something or other, but to me they’re little valleys and so I shall call ’em. Now what we has to do is to work out which little valleys we pipes the water from back to here. See?’
    â€˜Sort of. Do you mean there’ll be digging work?’
    â€˜Ah.’
    â€˜I’m not very strong, you know,’ said Orinoco, backing towards the door. ‘In fact, I’m really rather a delicate sort of Womble and . . .’
    â€˜Nothing like a bit of digging to make you strong then,’ said Botany. ‘Collect your spade at six o’clock sharp!’
    â€˜Oh dear,’ mumbled Orinoco. ‘No sooner is one difficulty all nicely finished with when along comes another. I think I’ll have a double helping of breakfast to get my strength up.’
    Alderney too had asked to work on underwater farming and to her surprise found this meant that she had to help Madame Cholet clear out the larders, so as to find new containers for all these exciting foods which would soon, they hoped, be coming into the burrow.
    â€˜ Alors ,’ said Madame Cholet. ‘We have so few nice little jars and plastic boxes left. The Human Beings don’t throw them away like they used to,’ and she almost sighed for the Bad Old Days when there had been almost too much dumped rubbish for the Wombles to tidy away and make use of again.
    â€˜They still dump bottles,’ said Alderney, who was swishing away with a mop in a bowl of soapy water. ‘I mean lemonade bottles and milk bottles and things like that. And tins . . .’
    â€˜True, my little one, true. Gently, please, you are washing the jars not the floor. Tobermory has asked for every tin that is tidied to be sent straight to the Workshop. He says it is because of the Emergency. He says.’ And Madame Cholet gave a loud sniff to show what she thought of this idea.
    â€˜Couldn’t we use lemonade bottles?’ asked Alderney.
    â€˜Of course, we do so. For bracken juice, dandelion cough mixture, fizzy buttercup and so on and so on. But also one needs the jars for dried this and that and so forth. It is very difficult for a cook, especially a good cook, to have to work without the proper equipment! Now when I was young . . .’
    And off went Madame Cholet but, as she was quite interesting to listen to, Alderney didn’t mind too much. Also she wanted to learn to be a good cook herself one day, so she was keen to pick up any tips that were going.
    The young Wombles were let off work at dusk and met for a few rounds of ‘Great Uncle Bulgaria’s Footsteps’ which is a very skilful, rather scary game that Tomsk won easily.
    â€˜Let’s have some more,’ he suggested.
    â€˜No fear, I’m far too tired,’ said Orinoco, who had anyway sat out, or rather dozed out, the last few rounds. ‘I’ve had an awful day. Nothing but work. I’m exhausted .’
    â€˜I bet your day wasn’t as bad as mine . . .’
    â€˜Or mine . . .’
    â€˜Or mine . . .’
    â€˜Me too,’ echoed Shansi.
    â€˜ You’re all right,’ grumbled Orinoco, ‘all you do is writing. Anyone can write. That’s not work. I dare say I could write a whole book if I wanted to. A jolly good book it’d be too.’
    â€˜Am not writing book,’ said Shansi. ‘Am writing out many notes for Tobermory. Am using much paper too.’
    She sounded a bit worried and Wellington, who had been sitting thinking about his beautiful