Escape?

Escape? is the sixteenth and penultimate chapter in the Wombles One.

Meanwhile Bungo had been taken back to the village by Rover.  “You are back very early eh?” said Madame Cholet.  “Got caught again” replied Bungo.  “Tiens” she replied and gave him dandelion pie with nettle cream and blackberry crunch topping.  He was just going to eat it when Orinoco came in and gulped it in one bite.  Orinoco went to walk straight out but was too fat. Madame Cholet belted him over the head with a rolling pin and knocked him out.  She handed the red and white scarf to Bungo.   “Go little one! “ she urged.

Bungo headed to number two outwardly confident but inwardly scared.  He braced himself and boomed to Not-so-Great Uncle Bulgaria “I am the new number two!  You are number 6!  Information! We want information!”  The real number two was quite taken aback. “Information!” he said “I am number two! That is all you need to know young Bun, I mean number 6!”

Bungo shouted again “You are number 6! “ .  Bulgaria was now having doubts.  He checked his badge on this scarf.  It read “I AM SIX” (Madame Cholet had swapped his badge for Bungo’s).  “Oh!” he said “It seems that you are right.  I am number six!  Give me a pen and paper then.”  Bungo replied “They are at your cottage number six.”  Off went Bulgaria to the cottage and started to write the Womble History of the World volume 11.

Madame Cholet joined Bungo when Bulgaria left.  They found a silver button on the wall. Bungo pressed it and a lift door opened.  They got in and pressed the surface level button. The lift started going up quite rapidly.

Cathy was struggling to get out of the trap, but she just couldn’t!  Eventually she gave up, and muttered under her breath, “I’ll need to tell Mother that this isn’t true.”  Then she shouted over the noise, “FINE!  I’LL REJOIN YOU!  I’LL STOP BEING YOUR ENEMY!  SO WILL MOTHER!  BUT CAN I STILL RUN THE CAFEEEE?  PEOPLE RATHER LIKE THE FOOD THERE!”  Miss Peel looked at Steed, shrugged, and sang to the tune of Remember You’re A Womble, “Ok Cathy that’s fine!”  So they built some new keys, unlocked the cell, smashed the concrete with a hammer, they removed the strait jacket, took her out of the glass cylinder, turned off remember you’re a womble, and took MacWomble’s bagpipes away from him.  Then he started singing really badly, so they gave them back but told him to play them quietly.  Then Cathy said, “I’ll show you the Cafeeee.  It’s a rather good café if I do say so myself.  And I do.”

When they got there, Cathy gave them both (MacWomble hadn’t come.) a salad and some fish.  They both took a bite, and passed out.  It was poisoned!

Mother and Cathy dragged the unconscious Avengers into the giant deep freeze.  Cathy and Mother were laughing evilly when they saw water on the floor.  They followed it to the door of the deep freeze.  Inside Dr Keel was smoking and had accidentally set light to most of the food. “Quite hot in here” said Steed. “Yes Jo, er Steed, it is.” Replied Miss Peel.  She used Karate to open the door.  It swung open and they faced up to a shocked looking Cathy and Mother.

Miss Peel got out some hand-cuffs, and was just about to put then on Cathy and Mother, when all of a sudden Cathy threw her into a London bus which drove off to a beach, where she fell off and into a boat, which sailed away as she was putting all her weight on one side of it, then crashed at a beach in America, hurdling her into a coach, which stopped and its door was opened, then she fell out and down a hole. And she had brought the handcuffs with her, and they had gone on her when she fell.

Steed was about to do the same with Cathy, when she did it to him!  So Cathy and Mother went away, back to the Cafeeee, where they discussed business in the Absolutely Really Super Staff Only Room.

Wellington was fiddling with his shrinking machine.  Dr Keel and Dr King walked into the burrow just as Wellington fired it.  They asked Wellington if a bigger womble was around. “It’s just that I’ve accidentally enlarged you” shouted Wellington.  “Oh will I be this big forever?” asked Dr Keel.  “No” said Wellington “the effect is temporary.  Otherwise Miss Peel would be tiny now and Steed would be dead.” “How long will we be this big?” asked Dr King.  “About 2 hours I think.” Replied Wellington.  “OK Well, er Super Womble, follow me in your weird black car.” Wombat came in and nodded.  He and Super Womble headed towards the Cafeeee. The doctors got there really quick because they were giants.  Dr King picked up the Cafeeee and Dr Keel pulled Cathy and Mother out of it. “Right OK do it!” said Dr Keel to Dr King.  He did. As his huge hand squeezed hard the Cafeeee was turned to dust.

They ran back to the burrow, only just avoiding squashing it.  The Wombatmobile got there just in time as the doctors returned to normal size. Cathy and Mother were a bit shocked.

Obviously this meant Dr Keel had dropped Cathy and Mother now.  They ran away, then bumped into Tara.  She hand-cuffed them and took Cathy back to the cell.  As an additional extra, she taped Cathy’s mouth so that she couldn’t say something that fooled them again.  She put Mother in a cell with an electrified chair.  MacWomble was playing the bagpipes again and Dr King was singing Remember You’re A Womble whilst Dr Keel questioned Mother.