Part 2 (1/2)

At which Great Uncle Bulgaria blew out his cheeks and hooked the door open with his stick and shuffled out into the cold, still air. He was glad of his shawl as he made his way through the bushes and out into the dark night. He saw the white and black face of a badger watching him from the shadows and muttered, ''Evening.'

The badger, which like the Wombles had been disturbed by the sudden silence, grunted deep in its throat and ambled back into the darkness. A couple of rats squeaked and for a second their eyes shone in the starlight and then they too were gone.

Great Uncle Bulgaria looked up at the sky and saw that the stars were vanis.h.i.+ng one by one as the clouds came rolling in from the west. He sniffed the air, turning his head from side to side and again his fur p.r.i.c.kled for he could smell rain coming. Not just a shower, or even a good soaking, but a real downpour. There were thousands of gallons of water up in that clouding sky and Great Uncle Bulgaria didn't care for the smell of it at all.

'Anything the matter?' whispered Tomsk, looming up behind him.

'Going to rain,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria, and pattered back towards the burrow, leaving Tomsk more puzzled than ever.

As always Great Uncle Bulgaria was perfectly correct. The rain started with a soft sighing sound at ten minutes past two. As the night wore on the rain grew heavier and heavier and when the first Wombles stirred just before dawn it was coming down in steady driving sheets which were so thick you could hardly see through them.

'It's raining,' announced Tomsk as Bungo came bouncing jauntily down the pa.s.sage.

'How can you tell?' said Bungo cheekily.

'Because I've seen it,' said Tomsk, 'and it was wet.'

'Oh, you are clever,' said Bungo very rudely indeed, and went to get his basket from the Workshop. Tobermory issued him with a pair of gumboots, an oilskin, and a sou'wester as well.

'I don't mind a drop of rain,' said Bungo.

'This isn't a drop, it's a flood,' said Tobermory. 'Don't argue.'

He had slept quite well, but he still wasn't in the best of tempers. Bungo made a face to himself and put on his rainclothes and went clumping off to the main door. He thought it was all a lot of fuss about nothing until he got outside, and then he blinked and choked because it was exactly like stepping into a waterfall. The rain plopped on to his hat and ran down the brim and fell on to his collar and slid down his coat and pattered on to his boots. It turned the gra.s.s into mud under his paws and it turned all the bits of paper into a horrid, pulpy mess as he tried to pick them up.

But the rain did much more than that, for it loosened the earth round the roots of the trees and gently but firmly swept it away in little rivers of mud. And the mud ran down the banks and the little rivers grew larger and they bit deeper and deeper into the ground until they made narrow valleys and everything got swept along before them. Sticks and stones and old leaves and bits of rubbish, they went tumbling downwards, leaving behind them uncovered roots which had nothing on which to take a grip. And at the same time the water in Queen's Mere began to rise; little by little and inch by inch it rose, until it lapped over on to the paths and met and mingled with the muddy streams coming down their sides.

'It's raining,' announced Bungo when he finally straggled back to the the burrow.

'Told you so,' said Tomsk. 'You do look wet.'

'I am wet,' said Bungo, taking off his rainclothes and shaking himself violently. 'Give us a paw with these boots.'

Tomsk took a good grip on them and pulled, and because he was so strong the boots came off at once, and Tomsk went staggering backwards and sat down with a thump which made his teeth rattle.

'Thanks,' said Bungo, and went off whistling, without even bothering to find out if Tomsk was hurt. Like a great many other Wombles Bungo didn't bother much about Tomsk, so Tomsk just sat still for a moment feeling rather sad for some reason. And it was while he was sitting that he noticed that a few leaves and bits of stick by the doorway were moving.

'That's funny,' said Tomsk, sitting on the ground with the boots in his lap. 'That's very funny.'

'What is?' asked Orinoco, coming in and stepping over Tomsk and shaking himself just as Bungo had done.

'The ground's moving,' said Tomsk. 'It's wobbling like a jelly.'

'Jelly?' said Orinoco, brightening up. 'Jelly, did you say? I hope it's blackberry jelly, because that's one of my favourites. Hang up my coat for me, will you? I've had a very hard morning.'

And off went Orinoco with six wet bus tickets in the bottom of his tidy-bag, and the firm belief in his head that he had been working every minute of the last three hours, instead of trying to find somewhere to shelter and have a nice forty winks.

'It is moving,' said Tomsk, who once he had got hold of an idea stuck to it very firmly. But all the other Wombles were too busy about their own affairs to take any notice of him, so Tomsk put the boots in a nice neat line and hung up the raincoats and hats, and then went back to watch the leaves and twigs creeping down the track towards the main door. It was really quite a frightening thing to see, but Tomsk was not a nervous Womble so his fur didn't p.r.i.c.kle as Great Uncle Bulgaria's would have done if he had been there.

The small tide of mud lapped over the doorstep and when Tomsk put his paw there the mud just went round the sides of it. Tomsk didn't care for the feeling very much and after thinking about it he decided to go and get a broom from the Workshop.

'What do you want?' growled Tobermory, whose fur was now covered with so many mushy pieces of white paper that he looked as if he had been making pastry.

'A broom,' said Tomsk.

'You don't need a broom,' said Tobermory. 'There now, you've made me lose count of these dratted baskets and you've left dirty pawmarks right across my floor.'

'It's only one paw that's dirty,' said Tomsk, holding it up to show Tobermory. 'And I want a broom to stop the ground moving.'

'Don't come here with your nonsense,' said Tobermory, seizing Tomsk by the shoulders and pus.h.i.+ng him towards the door. 'The ground doesn't move unless it's an earthquake, you silly great gormless Womble.'

'But . . .' said Tomsk.

However the door had been firmly shut in his face, so Tomsk gave an enormous sigh and went back to his post only to discover that his neat row of boots had all been pushed out of line by the moving mud. And, what was more, the hooks on which he had hung the dripping raincoats were all bulging out from the wall. Tomsk put one of his large paws against the wall and a crack appeared and ran right from the ceiling to the floor.

'It wasn't my fault,' said Tomsk, but there was no one round about to hear him, and Tomsk s.h.i.+fted from paw to paw wondering what on earth to do next. He knew he wasn't very clever, and everyone had told him that the ground couldn't move (except in an earthquake), but on the other hand even as he watched it the floor under his feet seemed to s.h.i.+mmer and shake and very slowly and gently Tomsk started to sink. It was such a nasty feeling that Tomsk decided there and then that he had better do something about it. If he couldn't get hold of a broom then a piece of brushwood would be the next best thing. He knew he wasn't supposed to desert his post until it was meal time, but the mud sliding down the pa.s.sage was more important than anything else.

Tomsk put on the nearest hat and edged round the door and out into the driving rain. He had nearly to close his eyes to see properly, and each time he touched a branch or a bush he got another showerbath, but he only shook himself and went on searching for a nice large piece of brushwood. His paws had just closed on a st.u.r.dy branch when, as well as the steady roar of the rain, Tomsk heard something else. It was a sound that he had never heard before, even on this day of surprises, and although he was so wet it made his fur stand up in little p.r.i.c.kly bunches. It was a deep and terrible sigh.

Tomsk put back his head and looked up, and there above him was a tall, thin tree which was moving too. Not one breath of wind was there and yet, although he had to keep blinking to keep the rain out of his eyes, Tomsk could see that the tree was slowly, but deliberately bending over.

'Stop, don't do that,' shouted Tomsk.

The tree sighed and s.h.i.+vered and creaked and two squirrels ran along its topmost branches and leapt for the safety of a nearby neighbour.

'Don't, don't, don't!' implored Tomsk, jumping up and down and banging his paws together.

'Whooooo,' sighed the tree and leant over even further. Tomsk looked round in a distracted fas.h.i.+on but there wasn't another Womble in sight, so without stopping to think any more, Tomsk launched himself through the brambles and the bushes and wrapped his strong arms round the trunk of the tree, scrabbling with his back paws to get a firm grip on the muddy ground.

'Help,' shouted Tomsk through the roar of the rain. 'Help! Wombles! Help!'

But there was no answer except from the tree, which sighed yet again, and despite Tomsk's enormous efforts began to tilt slowly towards the roof of the Womble burrow. Tomsk dug his paws still deeper into the mud, closed his eyes and hung on with all his strength.

g*

Chapter 4.

g*Tomsk Hangs On 'I thought Tomsk said it was jelly today,' said Orinoco, wiping his mouth and pus.h.i.+ng back his chair with a contented sigh. 'But chocolate pudding is even nicer. I don't believe I could eat another mouthful.'

'You've had three helpings already,' said Bungo.

'I need it to keep up my strength,' said Orinoco. 'I've been working so hard.'

'That's what I like to hear,' said Tobermory, who was just walking past. 'A Womble who's keen to work hard.'

'Oh, I am,' said Orinoco. 'In fact, I did such a lot this morning that I thought I'd just go and have forty . . .'