Who Is Left In The Burrow?

Who Is Left In The Burrow? is the tenth chapter in the Wombles One.

An ambulance rushed up and two curiously short men with very long faces carried Cathy into it on a stretcher.  They found it quite awkward so they put Cathy on the stretcher instead.  Cathy woke up in a cosy apartment.  She was confused so headed out of the door.  It opened without touching it.  She saw a womble running away from a strange white balloon. She thought the womble was roaring.

As the womble and ball disappeared from site a man in a matching bowler hat and suit greeted her. “Peter!  I’ll get you yet.” She yelled angrily.  “I’m not Peter.” He replied.  “Steed?” she corrected herself.  He shook his head and said “I’m not Steed.”

Cathy was confused and asked him “Who are you then?”  “I’m Happy” he replied smiling.  Cathy thought it was good to be happy but then he started crying.  “Why are you crying?” she asked.  “I’m sad” he replied.  “WHO ARE YOU” shouted Cathy who wanted INFORMATION.  “I am number 14” he replied.  “Well” said Cathy “I’ll call you the Positive Negative Man, PNM for short.”

Number 14 took her to see number two.  “I am number two” said Alderney.  “Actually I am number two” replied Cathy.

Great Uncle Bulgaria was in his office.  He had been watching what had been happening to Steed on his big number 1 screen, and he knew it wasn’t Peter, so then he had a suspicion that actually she was the murderer of the wombles.  But he didn’t want to put Tobermory back as second-in-command, just in case, and still wanted to make big womble history with a human as second-in-command, so ended up putting Miss Peel as second-in-command!

Later, there was a scream from Miss Adelaide’s room.  Miss Peel ran to see what it was.  It had been Great Uncle Bulgaria screaming, as he had just found Miss Adelaide dead! “Any suspects?” asked Miss Peel. “No.” replied Great Uncle Bulgaria. “What about you?”  “Yes.”  “Well arrest them immediately.”  “Ok.” And Miss Peel hand-cuffed Great Uncle Bulgaria!  “Um, I guess this means I’m first in command now.” She said.  “And I’m re-hiring Cathy as second-in-command!  She was probably hypnotised!”  “Oh no!” moaned Not-So-Great Uncle Bulgaria.  “This is a conspiracy!  The humans are taking over the wombles!”  And everything was decided.

Steed had just finished parking his Bentley.  It was a bit tricky as the space for the Wombatmobile proved to be a bit tight.  “Emma?” he called.  “In here!” she called back.  He followed the voice and found her tying Not-So-Great Uncle Bulgaria to an old TV that was tidied up.  “Now we can keep watching you” said Miss Peel.  Steed asked why there weren’t many wombles.  After learning about all the missing wombles Steed made a plan. “I’ll track Bungo.  Can you manage to take Peter to the window company?”

Just before heading off, he said, “Hang on, who is going to run the womblegarten now?”  “You can. Anyway, I’m off!” replied Miss Peel.  So Steed paused for a minute, then headed into the womblegarten and said, “Good morning class!  I am your new teacher, my names Steed, John Steed.”  Then he headed after Miss Peel, and called, “Who’s going to replace Madame Cholet?”

They tried having a member of the womblegarten as the cook, but they just did tiny food so everyone got really hungry.  Then they tried having the MacWomble as the cook, but he just made disgusting Scottish food, so Tara ended up as the cook!

Tara brought Steed a hot acorn juice.  Steed tried it and screwed up his face.  “Tara please bring me a large brandy” Steed asked.  She came back looking surprised.  It turned out then Not-So-Great Uncle Bulgaria had all of Steed’s favourite drinks.  He actually hated acorn juice and other womble drinks.  Tara also had Brandy but the young wombles weren’t allowed until they were five (Steed made that rule).

“Now womblet’s” instructed Steed “it’s time for basic combat training”.  “Wassat?” said a voice.  It was Tobermory.  “I don’t need Wombat training!  I’m Wombat!”

Miss Peel changed her mind about finding Peter, in case he made her forget again, so jumped back onto Wimbledon common and fell into her office.

Suddenly Cathy came into the womblegarten, followed by Dr King, followed by Venus.  “Where have you lot been then?” asked Miss Peel, coming out of her office, which on the door said, “MEPO”, which meant Miss Emma Peel’s Office.  She had been thinking about becoming a doctor, but then her office door would say, “DEPO”, so she decided just to stick to bossing the wombles and honorary wombles around.  Venus sang what had happened.  “Me and Dr King were going to see Mother, Apparently Dr Keel and Tara love each other, So Dr Keel drove Tara here to the burrow, Then me and Dr King pulled over and Dr King said, “Uh-oh!”, He was looking at an ambulance that Cathy was being put in, The ambulance drove off, and we were following!  It stopped at a beach and put a sleeping Cathy on a boat, We stowed away by pretending to be goats, The boat went all the way to America then we all got off, Unfortunately they saw us so gave us both a boff, It knocked us unconscious and we woke up in a village, I looked out the window and saw miles and miles of hillage, We found Cathy along a futuristic bridge, We saved her from someone who was there and then we hid, We asked Cathy why she had been in an ambulance, she told us all about it and added some on, She told us about trying to kill Peter, I asked her to describe him and then later, I told her that was you Steed and then she said, “Well even if I had known that, I wouldn’t have really cared!”  Later, somehow, we managed to get out the village, away from the miles and miles of hillage.”

Steed looked blank for a minute, then asked, “What do you mean she wouldn’t have cared?”  “I mean she wouldn’t have cared.” Replied Venus. “Isn’t that simple enough?”  “Um…” replied Steed, and there was a short silence, then everyone went back to doing their job in the womble burrow.  Everyone except Venus and Dr King that is, because they didn’t have jobs in the womble burrow.  Until ten seconds later that is, because after going back into her office, Miss Peel decided that they would need a children’s entertainer for some reason, and she asked Venus to do that, and then she asked Dr King to be the womble doctor.  Suddenly the MacWomble and his ten Scottish friends came up to her.  “We’ve come to announce that we’re leaving ya now wee lassie!” said Cairngorm.  “Um…ok…” replied Miss Peel, and they began their journey back to Scotland.  “Oh dear.” Sighed Miss Peel.  “Now the only wombles in here that aren’t under house arrest are Wellington and the womblegarten.  Maybe Not-So-Great Uncle Bulgaria was right about saying that this was a conspiracy!  Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!”