Part 8 (1/2)

'M-m-me?' said Bungo. 'But, but, but, but . . .'

'You've got some brains when you care to use 'em,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria, 'and you're strong and healthy and you're Orinoco's best friend. Tobermory the map of London, the Underground map, something warm to wear, and what money we can spare.'

'At once,' said Tobermory, and was out of the room before he'd finished speaking. Bungo, for once, didn't say a word, but continued to stand and stare silently at Great Uncle Bulgaria, who was rocking backwards and forwards very fast.

'You've only been off the Common three times,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria. 'Twice to the building site and once when you took Mr D. Smith home, so this'll be a great adventure for you. Here's some good advice, so listen carefully. One: don't speak to more Human Beings than you have to. The chances are they'll never notice you're a Womble, but there's no necessity to take risks. Two: take things slowly. Don't rush round in circles and get in a panic. Three: count your change carefully. Four: don't argue with Orinoco. Tell him he's to come back with you and that's an order from ME. Five: should anything go very wrong then you may ask a policeman for help. Six: remember your manners. Seven: always look both ways before crossing a road. Got all that?'

'Yes,' said Bungo, whose head was spinning. He went rapidly through Great Uncle Bulgaria's good advice in his mind, and had just reached number seven when Tobermory came back into the room laden with objects.

'Flat cap, one,' he said, starting to lay the things down in a neat pile. 'Sheepskin coat, fully lined lovely piece of material mittens and boots ditto. Twenty-five pence, please count it. Map of the Underground, one. Large map of London, one.'

'Give it here,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria.

They spread the map out on the floor and the old Womble pointed out the Common with his stick while Bungo watched him, his heart pounding furiously with excitement.

'That's us,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria. 'You will proceed . . .'

Bungo glanced at Tobermory who whispered, 'He means walk.'

'Proceed,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria with a quelling look, 'across the Common in a south-easterly direction, crossing the road at the building site. You will then go due south until you reach the High Street. Follow this road until you come to Wimbledon Station. See, there, that red circle.'

'Um, um,' said Bungo, nodding.

'Where you will catch a District Line train to Earl's Court Station. There. It's the only train you can catch as it happens, so you shouldn't find it too difficult. At Earl's Court you will change trains and take the Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus. There. See, it's marked in blue.'

'Um, um.'

'You will get out at Piccadilly Circus and walk down Piccadilly until you see Fortune and Bason on your left-paw side. There you will find Orinoco. Now, please repeat your instructions.'

'Oh my, oh my,' muttered Bungo to himself, and then in a somewhat hoa.r.s.e voice he did as he was asked with hardly a stumble.

'Not bad, not bad,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria. 'You will take the Underground map with you in your pocket. Now then, put on your clothes and count your money.'

Bungo could hardly dress himself he was shaking so much, and the sheepskin coat was so hot he had to start panting.

'You'll do,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria as Bungo slowly turned round. He got stiffly to his feet and put out his snow-white paw. 'Good luck, young Womble. This is the greatest adventure of your life, and also the most important and responsible thing you've ever had to do. I'm depending on you to do it properly, and what's more,' added Great Uncle Bulgaria with rather less solemnity, 'you can tell Orinoco from me not to be more of a fool than he can help.'

'Um, um,' said Bungo.

He marched out a little stiffly, owing to the boots, and Great Uncle Bulgaria sat down again and shook his head and then glanced at Tobermory.

'Do you think he will be able to manage?' he asked in a low voice. 'After all, he's never been into London proper on his own before.'

'Of course he will,' said Tobermory gruffly. 'Grown up a lot lately, Bungo has. Noticed it several times. I'll just see him off.'

And he hurried after Bungo and caught him up by the back door of the burrow.

'Steady up, young Womble,' Tobermory said. 'Got a little bit more for you here.' And from his large ap.r.o.n pocket he produced a compa.s.s, half a bar of chocolate and a tidy-bag. 'That's to make sure you're going in the right direction, that's to keep you going, and this is for just in case you happen to see anything in the food line along the way.'

And Tobermory put his paw on Bungo's shoulder for a moment and then opened the door on to the outside world. If he hadn't been in such a state Bungo might have noticed that it had actually stopped snowing and that the air was just that little bit warmer. However, his mind was firmly fixed on trying to remember all Great Uncle Bulgaria's instructions, and as he crunched (rather flat-footedly) through the snow, he kept repeating them under his breath. It was of course, an enormous honour to be trusted with the quest for Orinoco and it made him feel proud, frightened and anxious by turns. He found the black and white path, consulted the compa.s.s and set off down the deserted pavement.

It was quite a long walk to get to the Underground station, but he pa.s.sed very few people for it was a nasty afternoon and the ground was extremely slippery. Bungo paid for his ticket and the inspector at the gate hardly glanced at him as he marched past and down on to the platform. However, when the train came roaring and rattling towards him, for two pins he would have turned and run for it. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that he was a great deal more scared of what Great Uncle Bulgaria and Tobermory would say to him if he did go back.

The carriage was nearly empty and Bungo sat huddled up at one end, counting the stations, reading his map and saying over and over to himself: 'Change at Earl's Court on to the Piccadilly Line. Change at Earl's Court . . .'

Which, as it turned out, was a great deal easier said than done, for Earl's Court Station was full of people shoving and pus.h.i.+ng and Bungo nearly got swept backwards into the carriage which he was trying rather timidly to leave. So he had to forget his usual good manners and he shoved and pushed with everybody else and somehow he managed to find the right train. And then he was off again, wedged up against the doors by a very fat Human Being who was reading an evening paper. Bungo read the headlines which said, 'Thaw Coming', but he didn't take the words in at all and only wondered briefly who Thaw could be. And then he forgot all about it as he saw a thin woman quite deliberately push a paper bag with half a loaf in it down the side of the seat.

'Fantastic,' muttered Bungo and edged over, and when she got out at Green Park he picked up the bag and put it into his tidy-bag. By the time he got to Piccadilly he had also acquired a pair of gloves, a scarf, a baby's rattle and a copy of that morning's Times, which he knew Great Uncle Bulgaria would be delighted to have.

Bungo was so overcome by all this untidiness that he nearly missed Piccadilly altogether and if he hadn't lost so much weight recently he would have been nipped by the doors as they slid shut.

The escalator was a bit of a worry and Bungo travelled up with his eyes fixed to the ground, as he was frightened he would be swept away and down a crack if he didn't watch out. It was very hot in the Underground and what with his sheepskin coat and his own fur Bungo was very warm indeed, but he knew he was far safer if he stayed dressed up like everybody else, so he just put out his tongue and panted. It was a relief to discover that, as Great Uncle Bulgaria had predicted, the Human Beings all about him took no notice of the fact that he was a Womble. They were all far too busy about their own affairs and Bungo, who had never before been so close to so many people, decided that beside being dreadfully wasteful they were also remarkably un.o.bservant.

'Funny creatures,' he muttered to himself.

Piccadilly Station is very muddling for those who don't know it and Bungo walked round it three times before he found the right exit. It was wonderful to get out into the air again and he took in several deep breaths and then gulped in astonishment as he looked about him. Bungo was, after all, used to the quiet orderly life of the Common and he had been too young to start working until the autumn so he had never seen his own home territory when it was crowded. He would never have believed that there were so many Human Beings in the world. Or so many cars and vans and lorries and taxis and buses. Or such bright lights, for all about him there were enormous brilliantly coloured signs, blinking on and off, making patterns and forming pictures. Bungo turned round and round with his head back and his mouth wide open.

This would indeed be something to tell the other Wombles. Only how could he ever describe it to them? It was like nothing he had ever imagined, not even from the books in the library. Added to which there was such a tremendous noise.

'Mind where you're going, can't you?' shouted somebody, almost pus.h.i.+ng the slowly revolving Bungo off the pavement and in front of a Number 19 bus. That brought him back to his senses and he swallowed and took a grip on himself, consulted the map and the compa.s.s and began to walk slowly along Piccadilly, searching for Fortune and Bason. There were a number of brightly coloured shops, and when Bungo saw food in one of the windows he just couldn't help stopping for a moment. There was a box of chocolates as large as a bicycle wheel and dozens of boxes of other sweets as well as little pyramids of nougat and fudge and Turkish delight and sugared almonds and candied fruits and toffees and mints and liquorice and chocolate drops and rows and rows of bottles of boiled sweets.

Unlike Orinoco Bungo hadn't got a very sweet tooth, but on the other hand he hadn't had much to eat for nearly three weeks and his knees went weak at the sight of all this delicious, chewy, melting goodness.

It also made him think of Orinoco, and he leant against the brightly lit gla.s.s for a moment and tried to control a sudden rush of hunger, homesickness and fright at the enormity of his quest and the terror of this great adventure. How could he possibly hope to find his friend in this large, noisy, hurrying, bad-tempered crowd of Human Beings?

With trembling paws Bungo took out his half bar of chocolate and ate it slowly to recover his nerve. He was made of stern stuff and he had been well taught by Great Uncle Bulgaria, but he was also one small, almost lost Womble in the centre of a teeming, uncaring city. Excitement had carried him along this far, but the sight of all that food had weakened him and also dulled his instincts, which should have warned him that for the last hundred yards he had been followed!

'Come on,' Bungo whispered to himself. 'Are you a Womble or a mouse?'

He straightened his shoulders and marched on, the tidy-bag banging against his side. The snow had been swept off the pavements and piled into dirty grey banks on the kerb, and every now and again Bungo got pushed into the slush, and once he was showered with wet, sticky mush by a bus as it went roaring past.

Bungo's head began to spin and there's no doubt that he was more than a little light-headed when at last he saw before him the elegant shape of Fortune and Bason. There was food in the windows here too, but it was all done up in smart little packets, tins and boxes, and when Bungo actually saw one small carton with the words CREAM CHOCLATE RASPBERRY TRUFFLES on the side, it was almost like meeting an old friend.

Bungo pressed his nose to the gla.s.s for a moment and then moved hesitantly towards the doors, but as he reached them he saw a man in a very smart green uniform bolt them shut from the inside. Fortune and Bason were closing for the night.

'Let me in, let me in,' cried Bungo, knocking frantically on the gla.s.s, for he was now convinced that Orinoco must be inside there somewhere, looking for spilt Cream Chocolate Raspberry Truffles or Sugared Mice at the very least. But the man took no notice and at the same moment someone tapped on Bungo's shoulder and a voice said politely in his ear, 'Can I be of any a.s.sistance, sir?'

Bungo spun round and found himself face to face with a strange Womble . . .

g*

Chapter 11.

g*Yellowstone Womble Bungo shut his eyes tight and counted up to ten and then opened them again, but the strange Womble was still there watching him with polite interest. He was most beautifully dressed in a narrow brimmed hat of pale grey, a long Crombie overcoat of the same colour, tan gloves and highly polished shoes. He was quite old, for his fur was turning a lovely, silky grey.

'May I introduce myself?' he said, and took a wallet from his pocket and produced a card.