The Pen King

The Pen King is the sixth chapter in the Wombles Two. If you were looking for the character, see David Keel.

Peter and Emma had now recovered from the lie drug and Peter was showing Emma his glass cabinets which now had names of Avengers rather than wombles in them.  The one that had said Bungo now said Venus, the one that had said Orinoco now said Dr King, the one that had said Tomsk now said One Ten, the one that had said Shansi now said nothing, because no others didn’t turn evil apart from Steed, and they already had one for him.  Mrs Peel said, “Can we make that one Tara?  She only actually turned on Venus and she’s the one that caused you to get stuffed the first time.”  “Ok.” Said Peter and wrote, “Tara Keel” in that cabinet.  They suddenly came across two cabinets with stuffed wombles in.  “I thought that was all over!” said Mrs Peel.  “It is, I…I’ll unstuff them.”  And he did. The two wombles who were Not-So-Well Uncle Bulgaria and Miss Adelaide immediately leapt out of the cabinets and attacked Peter.  Mrs Peel attacked the wombles because of this.  They were confused.  “Why are you attacking us?” they asked.  “Because you attacked him.” Replied Mrs Peel.  “What?  Of course we did!” said Miss Adelaide.  They were so busy being confused that Peter and Emma could just knock them out with Peter’s bowler and stuff them again.  And they did.

Steed and Super Womble were eating at Joes.  Joe turned out to be the Postitve Negative man’s real name.  His full name was Joe Steed.  “Steed can I be your brother?” asked Joe.  “Of course!” answer Steed.  He made a quick call to One Ten and all the legal documents were sorted out. Joe Steed was now John’s brother. “Would you like to be repaired?” asked John.  “Would I!” replied Joe.  So they all headed back to HQ.  Mr Class and the milk man knew a bit about robots and another bit about Steed.  They fixed up Joe and he looked just like Steed again.  He also had one of Steed’s suits to replace the damaged one with matching hat and umbrella. Both John and Joe were now carrying sword umbrellas with extra tough bowler hats.  “Mr Class” said Joe.  “Yes” he replied.  “How do feel about refitting the café and basing your Classy Glass company there?” “Well yes!” Mr Class said with joy “but you won’t fit all of them there with the café.”  “Don’t worry” said the Milk man.  “It’s just me at the dairy.  You could refit the café and spent a bit of time there but live with me at DreemyKreem.  I have plenty of room!”

The cloud monster had just realised that Dr Keel was not a pickle.  He was upset.  He cried by making rain come out of his cloud.  The Scottish wombles were rather wet, all except for one who had found a nice umbrella in good condition.  That was the one who had taken Steed’s umbrella.  Dr Keel was let out of the glass box and he immediately took the umbrella, as he wasn’t keen on getting wet.  He accidentally dropped his cigarette.  “Would you like a cigarette holder?” asked one of the wombles.  “Yes please.” Replied Dr Keel, so they gave him one. He suddenly sneezed loudly, and it was such a hard sneeze that it made his nose long and pointy.

On his way back home, he bumped into the man with the tall hat that had previously taken Bungo to the village.  He accidentally knocked the tall hat onto his on head.  “Hey!  Give me my hat back!” said the man, but Dr Keel had already headed off, not noticing that he had accidentally knocked all the man’s pens into his own pocket.  When the man realised his pens were gone he said, “He seems to think that he’s some kind of Pen King!”

As Dr Keel walked back towards his surgery he tripped over.  Now he couldn’t walk normally!  He did a kind of waddle.  He decided to go through Hyde Park to avoid hurting himself any more.  In the park he bumped into a small boy with a duck caller. Somehow he swallowed it.  Now he could only talk with quack coming out each time!

Back at the womblation, Mrs Peel and Steed had just come in and were fighting.  First they had to play their fighting tune.  Dr Keel waddled in and bumped into the CD player, causing it to go faster and add another note into.  “Quack!  That can be my tune!  Quack quack quack!” said Dr Keel.  “I’ll just write that down for you” said Tobermory.  He found some paper then scratched his ear with his screwdriver. “Where did I leave my pen?  It was here a minute ago.”  Just as he said the tune played again.  Da Daa, Da Daa, Da Da-Da Da Daa.  Tobermory was going to apologise to Dr Keel but he had already gone.

“Emma” said Peter. “Yes” replied Emma.  “Have you seen my pen?”  “No” replied Peter.  Just then they heard an odd tune.  Da Daa, Da Daa, Da Da-Da Da Daa.

“Can take you order sir?” asked a waiter at Eat At Joe’s.  “No” replied the customer “you don’t have a pen!”  A tune played.  Da Daa, Da Daa, Da Da-Da Da Daa.  Pens everywhere were disappearing except for one place.

In lair of the Pen King there was a giant pile of pens.  “Quack! Quack!  Biro!  Fountain!” he called.  Two wombles dressed in black trousers, jumpers and bowler hats came into the room. They had their names on their jumpers in big white letters.  The womble with the Biro jumper was Miss Adelaide.  The womble with the Fountain jumper was Henchman Uncle Bulgaria.

At a secret location Cathy was gloating.  She was gloating at the Queen.  Her Majesty was tied to a chair in a big room.  There was a giant fan at one end and deadly spikes at the other.  Thick glass separated Cathy from Her Majesty. Cathy addressed her prisoner using a microphone.  “Your Majesty!  I’m glad you’re awake.  Observer in front of you.  What is it?” Her Majesty didn’t answer because her mouth was taped shut.  “It is” Cathy continued “you’re biggest fan!”  Cathy now laughed at her own joke  “But this fan will blow a gale!  Ha ha ha ha! You will be swept back to the deadly spikes you can’t see behind you.”  She paused. “Unless that is I get Steed and Venus!”

Tara was looking for Venus.

Steed suddenly realised that the Queen had gone so went off to the rescue.  “I am the Fiddler!” he said as he got into his car.  He drove off and somehow managed to find a place with a great big sign that said, “Cathy’s secret lair.  Cathy’s in here!”  He went in.  Unfortunately it was a trap.  As soon as he went in, he was sprayed with a gas that knocked him out, and he woke up on a stage.  He heard a Cathy’s voice around him.  “Hello Steed!” she said, but not in a friendly way.  “Now you will be tested!  You are going to perform a spelling bee!  Otherwise you will die!  Now spell my name!”  Steed just shrugged and said, “My name.  M, y, n, a, m, e.  My name.” “Wrong!” said Cathy.  “It is C, a, t, h, e, r, I, n, e, m, o, t, h, e , r. Seriously!  You will die because you failed!”

“You don’t die because of a spelling test!” Steed shouted whilst stalling.  He looked around for anything to help.  There was curtain behind him.  Lots of dusty chairs for an audience.  An old organ just below the stage and a distinctive style of stalls. They had Alice in Wonderland designs on them.  Suddenly Steed knew where he was!  He recalled the old days when he tried to be a song and dance man.  “My Jolly John audition!” he remembered.  He also remember Fiery Frederick’s audition when he put swords through a cabinet with his lovely assistant inside.

He started singing to delay. “S T E E D, S T E E D, S T E E D, Steed was his namo!”  Cathy fell for it and Steed edged backwards.  “Steed you are a RUBBISH singer!”.  However Steed wasn’t listening because he had just gone down Fiery Frederick’s old trap door.  “Steed!” said a voice.  Steed was very surprised.  “Fred?” he said confused.  “Of it’s me! I miss this old theatre so I hide in my old tunnel every now and then.  Nobody comes here anymore but me.  Oh and now you!”

They rushed away to the burrow.  Fiery Frederick was confused.  “Why did we go in a burrow?”  Bungo came up to him and said, “Whose side are you on?”  Frederick was even more confused now.  “That would be telling?”  Bungo was annoyed.  “Tell me! I want information! Information!  Information!  Information!” “Who actually are you?” asked Frederick. “Mrs Peel’s new number two!” replied Bungo.  “Is Mrs Peel number one?” asked Frederick.  “Yes.” Replied Bungo.  “Would you like to be number seven?  There’s six of us at the moment.”  Frederick shrugged and said “Ok.”  “No! Don’t!” burst out Steed.  “Why?” asked Frederick.  “They’re my enemies!  If you join them, you’ll also be my enemy!” replied Steed.  “Oh.” Said Frederick and decided to join Steed instead.

Quite a few wombles hadn’t picked who’s side they were on yet.  The only ones that weren’t the womblets that had decided to side with Steed were Alderney and Tobermory (Pretending to be Wombat).  Alderney had sided with him because she didn’t like Bungo very much.  That was quite unfortunate for Bungo because he loved her.  Tobermory had sided with Steed because he admired the fact that he wore a bowler hat.  And the reasons for the ones who sided with Mrs Peel?  Bungo because he wanted to be admired by the leader of the wombles, and, of course, Mrs Peel was the leader of the wombles.  Orinoco because he was too lazy to decide and just got dragged to be on her side.  Shansi because she loved Orinoco and wanted to be on the same side as him.  Madame Cholet because she liked the food that Mrs Peel made better than the food that Steed made.  Tomsk because he remembered something in the past, which will be explained to you later.  However, Wellington was still extremely busy calculating which side was best to be on. “Well,” he thought, “If I side with Mrs Peel, it means siding with Peter Peel.  He wants to stuff us.  However if I side with Steed, then…”  But I shan’t tell you the rest, or I shall tell you the thing that Tomsk remembered, and it is too early in the story to tell you that.

China hadn’t decided because she had forgotten all about it.  How? She got distracted.  By what?  By fashion. She was most likely the girliest womble in the whole wide world, so that was quite a common thing to happen.  She couldn’t decide whether to get a dress like Mrs Peel’s or a pink outfit which was just like general clothing, except that it was probably the most girly outfit in the world, especially with the sparkles all over it.  Then she would get distracted by make-up as well as clothing.  Some of the others wondered if she was even a womble!  She was, but she certainly didn’t act like it.