The Selected Adventures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles

by S A Wakefield

  Unfortunately, Bottersnikes are objectionable whatever their size. They were not in the least grateful. All they said was: ‘If it hadn’t been for you Gumbles we’d never have got in that hole in the first place,’ and they found that although they were too small to grab the Gumbles properly they could pick the jam tins up and throw them over the Gumbles, making prisoners of them; this they did, shouting, ‘Got you!’ as usual, and then they sat hard on the tins and waited for the wind to dry them out, so that they would grow again.

  That was how things were when Willigumble came along.

  ‘O, grasshoppers!’ said Willi. Now he would have to do the rescuing, on his own.

  ‘I wish I could have tinks,’ he said. But Tinkingumble was the only tinker.

  The Bottersnikes thought they may as well make some noise while they were growing up, and they shouted at the radio to play a tune. No one was big enough to reach the knob to switch it on, however, and the King growled, in what was supposed to be his deepest woof but was really only a tweet: ‘Just like that idiot Smiggles. He don’t dream right and what he do dream don’t work.’

  That gave Willigumble his big idea, though it did not come with a tink. He nipped over the bridge and, keeping out of sight, crept to the back of the radio. A moment later a piping, squeaky voice came out of it: ‘Hem! Exercises for small people, to make them bigger! Are you ready, everyone?’

  ‘Just what we want!’ said Smiggles, very pleased with his radio and himself.

  The radio made them wriggle and bend, waggle their ears and tie knots in their tails, but the Bottersnikes did all their growing exercises sitting down and just would not get off the jam tins.

  At last the radio said: ‘Now, you’ll have grown an inch! Stand up, everyone, and try to touch the sky with the tops of your heads, and see how much you’ve grown.’

  This the Bottersnikes could not resist doing. As they stood up to see how much they’d grown the jam tins behind them tipped over and the prisoner Gumbles escaped silently to the bush.

  ‘Close your eyes, everyone!’ the radio said hurriedly, ‘and listen carefully. Here’s a brand new exercise that will make you grow two inches. Sit on the ground with your tails between your legs. Now put your feet behind your ears. Roll forward slowly until you can pick up the ends of your tails in your teeth —’

  The Bottersnikes tried to do this complicated growing exercise and scorched their feet severely on their red-hot ears. The radio gave a snort and a giggle then, and went off the air for good. Little Willigumble crawled out from the valves and things and — late as usual — rushed off to find his friends.

  THE ADVENTURES OF CHANK

  There was a fat, important Bottersnike called Chank. He was one of those who usually had two Gumbles to tidy up and keep him comfortable — that is, when the Bottersnikes had the Gumbles; but at the time that Chank began his adventures they had no Gumbles at all, not even Willi. Every morning they looked hopefully in their jam tins but the Gumbles were never there. They wanted the Gumbles back very badly because the middles of their scaly backs were all itchy and their wiry tails needed brushing. Their ears were red nearly all the time.

  This Bottersnike named Chank liked to think that he was very brave and clever. His secret dream was that he should be the King of the Bottersnikes because he knew he was braver, and was sure he had more brains, than the real King.

  One of the clever things he had done was to find an old straw hat amongst the rubbish. He called it his roof, and he wore it when it rained with his ears sticking out of two holes at the top. When it rained the other Bottersnikes had to crawl under their pots and pans and things (the King would get in his car) and stay there until it stopped, or they would shrink; but Chank would put his roof on and waddle about if he wanted to. It didn’t matter about his ears sticking out. A Bottersnike is always angry when it rains and his ears get so hot the rain just sizzles off them.

  Chank was very proud of his roof. He boasted like anything about it and would put it on whether it was raining or not, just to show off. He decided to put it on today to remind the others how clever he was. It wasn’t raining but it was very windy; the gusts of wind were blowing loose paper about the rubbish heaps and rushing through the branches of the trees like giants in a hurry, and as Chank lifted his roof over his head the wind caught it and blew it clean away. It sailed away on the rush of the wind, over the rubbish heaps, and away to the bush.

  ‘Aow!’ screamed Chank. ‘My roof! My beautiful roof!’

  The other Bottersnikes made their nose noises, which meant that they were laughing.

  ‘It ain’t funny!’ Chank raged. ‘It’ll have to be brought back this instant.’ He looked in his jam tins to see if his Gumbles were there, and they weren’t, so he kicked the jam tins savagely and hurt his toe.

  ‘Hey, Glob! Snorg! Be good ’snikes and go and find it for me,’ he said. ‘I’d go myself only I’ve hurt my toe.’

  ‘All right,’ said Glob, but he didn’t move from the carpet sweeper he was sitting on.

  ‘Go on, then,’ shouted Chank.

  ‘I have found it,’ Glob said. ‘It’s stuck in that tree, about ten miles away.’ They looked where he was pointing and could just see it caught in the branches of a big white gum; it wasn’t ten miles really but it looked as far as that to a fat Bottersnike with short legs.

  ‘Now all you’ve got to do,’ said Snorg, ‘is to go and get it. Ain’t you pleased?’

  ‘Or you could wait till the wind changed and blew it back,’ said Glob helpfully.

  ‘What’ll I do if it rains?’ wailed Chank.

  ‘Never mind, Chank. We’ll lend you a jam tin,’ they said, and snuffled their noses loudly.

  This was too much! Very red in the ears, Chank shouted: ‘Who’d want you to help anyway? You two ain’t got enough brains to fill a peashooter — nincompoop Bottersnikes, that’s what you are!’

  He grabbed his favourite jam tin which had a wire handle to make it easier to carry (that was another of his clever ideas) and climbed over the rubbish. He was not keen about leaving on his own, but reminding himself he was a very brave and clever Bottersnike he waddled into the bush trying to look bold, still muttering: ‘Nincombotters, that’s what they are, absolute Poopsnikes.’

  Soon after Chank had gone the King of the Bottersnikes woke up. He had been asleep on and off for two weeks and now was tired of resting. He poked his head out of the window of his rusty car and roared: ‘Snonk!’

  The King said: ‘Amuse me.’

  The Bottersnikes blinked.

  ‘Do something funny,’ the King shouted. ‘Make me laugh. Go on, make me laugh.’

  Two young Bottersnikes tried to amuse the King by standing on their heads and waving their legs in the air — which, come to think of it, is rather a funny sight, but the King did not laugh.

  ‘Idiots!’ he growled. ‘What’s funny about standing on their heads? Now if they were to sit on ’em it might be quite amusing. Sit on ’em,’ he added. ‘Hard.’

  Glob remarked that the funniest thing he could think of would be watching Chank trying to climb a tree, to get his roof down; and they told the King what had happened while he was asleep.

  ‘All right,’ said the King, ‘we will go and watch.’

  The other Bottersnikes did not like the idea of having to waddle so far but the King, well rested from his fortnight’s sleep, was ready for a little exercise, especially as the others would have to carry him.

  ‘If he’s not funny,’ the King said, ‘we’ll sit on his head.’

  They took their jam tins with them, just in case.

  The Gumbles had nearly forgotten the Bottersnikes because they are always too busy having fun to think of the nastier things. Besides, it was spring and just now they were going to help a willie wagtail build her nest. But the mother wagtail was being very difficult about it, very choosey.

  ‘First of all I must have the right place,’ she said. ‘Where the crows can’t see it and the snakes can’
t climb.’

  There was something wrong with all the cosy nesting places the Gumbles found for her.

  ‘What about that thing up there?’ Happigumble said at last. ‘It looks like an old straw hat caught in the tree.’

  ‘It might do,’ Wagtail said doubtfully, ‘but it’s rather high up. What would happen if the babies fell out before they could fly?’

  ‘We’ll put it lower down for you,’ the Gumbles said. They were tired of Wagtail’s fuss and glad of an excuse to go and climb something. At the foot of the tree, though, they got a fright that nearly made them jump out of their Gumbleskins. They saw a fat Bottersnike, flat on his back and snoring.

  It was Chank, of course, come for his roof. He was too fat to climb the tree and his long waddle had tired him out.

  All the Gumbles together need not be afraid of one Bottersnike, especially when he is sound asleep; so they hid his jam tin in a bush, to be on the safe side, pulled faces at him and climbed up the inside of the tree because it was a hollow one. There was a sort of window high up where a branch had broken off, and they climbed through that and got the hat and threw it down — it landed on Chank’s head where it belonged.

  Now they found it harder to get down. They were going to make themselves into a Gumblerope and climb down that when a tink came from Tinkingumble.

  ‘I’ve got a better way,’ he said, peering from the window at the top of the trunk. ‘We can jump.’

  ‘O, no! It’s too high!’

  ‘On to Chank’s tummy,’ he said. ‘Watch!’

  He stood on the edge of the tree window, closed his eyes and went down with a Wheee! and a Berlumf! as he landed on Chank. He bounced off the great, fat stomach into the leaves beneath the tree, not hurt a bit.

  The others were not slow to follow. Down they came one after the other with a Wheee Berlumf! Wheee Berlumf! on to Chank — it was like bouncing on a springy mattress, though more fun because more dangerous.

  ‘That was good!’ the Gumbles cried. ‘Let’s do it again!’ and they scrambled up the inside of the hollow trunk and came down Wheee Berlumf! with their eyes shut. Chank did not wake up as he was so tired, but all that berlumfing on his tummy gave him bad dreams: he was being crawled over by a caterpillar as big as a crocodile with hobnailed boots on each of its fifty feet. It was fortunate he wasn’t Smiggles.

  The Gumbles thought this was one of the best games they’d had since last spring. While they were waiting for their turn to jump they tried to make up a Gumblesong about it, but they couldn’t think of a rhyme for Berlumf.

  Suddenly the noise changed to Wheee Blap! though they didn’t know why; they thought it might be easier to find a rhyme for Blap, but by the time they found out why they were going Blap instead of Berlumf it was too late to be bothering about Gumblesongs.

  The rest of the Bottersnikes had arrived, expecting to have a good laugh at Chank — but this was better, much better! They sneaked past the tree one at a time, each holding out his tin and catching the Gumbles before they bounced on Chank. Naturally, the noise of their falling changed to Blap.

  Chank woke up just in time to catch little Willigumble, who was the last to jump. He couldn’t find his jam tin and had to put him in his roof instead. Chank was very pleased to have his roof back though annoyed at not finding his jam tin, because it was the one with the wire handle. It was a good thing he did not find the tin as Wagtail had lined it with soft grass and laid an egg in it.

  SPRING IN THE AIR

  ‘The King’s Party is going to be put off until it stops raining,’ Willigumble whispered to Happigumble and the others nearby. ‘So there won’t be any nasty work for you for a bit. Now we’ve got to find a way of getting you out of the jam tins. I’ll go and see if Tinkingumble’s managed to have a tink yet — he’s sure to think of something.’

  He scurried across to Tinkingumble’s tin, taking care the Bottersnikes did not see him. This was not difficult. They were all under cover so as not to get wet in the sun. The King was in his car, Chank was wearing his roof, the Weathersnike was under his bathtub as usual and the rest were sulking beneath their pots and pans, bits of iron, mattresses, kettles, watering cans and buckets, waiting for the rain that never came.

  ‘No,’ said Tinkingumble sadly, ‘I haven’t had a tink, and I’ve tried and tried. D’you know what, Willigumble? I think I’ve lost my tink!’

  ‘Perhaps you dropped it somewhere,’ Willigumble suggested. ‘I’ll go and hunt for it. What does it look like?’

  Neither knew for certain. They imagined it would be a small bag with a bell that rang as each good idea popped out.

  ‘I’ll get the bees to help me look,’ said Willi, trying to sound cheerful. ‘They go everywhere.’

  Willigumble went off. It was a lovely spring day with a blue sky and a breeze that blew in playful puffs, just enough to keep the leaves from dozing. Down below, flowers were warming themselves in the sun, the bitter peas, red spiders and coral heath in the damp places; bees were busy looking for pollen and birds flying for the fun of it. Lower still, right on the warm earth, thousands of ants, beetles and spiders were on the move, each one busy doing what it should do on a fine spring morning.

  It is good to be friendly with these little people. Willigumble was, and very soon he had an army of ants and bees, birds, cicadas, frogs and spiders helping him by keeping an eye open as they went about their work, but none of them saw anything that looked like the lost tink.

  ‘Whew! The bush is a big place,’ said Willigumble, after he had been searching for a long time without success. ‘And we’re not even sure what the tink looks like. I’d better have a rest and a think.’ He sat on an old spring mattress in the rubbish, far enough from the Bottersnikes to be safe. The cover was quite rotten and he fell in amongst the springs and the things that happen in old mattresses, but it did not matter. Willigumble settled in the coil of a spring and bounced lightly to help him think things over.

  ‘Now I’m out,’ he thought, ‘and the rest are in — tins, that is. They can’t get out and I’m not strong enough to pull them out. Tinkingumble’s lost his tink and it can’t be found, and if they don’t escape soon, by tink or by think, there’ll be all that horrible work to do for the King’s Party. This is serious. Very serious.’

  There came a loud laugh from a branch above his head. ‘Hahahahahohohohohaha!’ Kookaburra, of course.

  ‘Lovely day,’ remarked the bird to Willigumble. ‘What are you doing down there?’

  ‘I’m thinking how serious it is.’

  ‘Ar, it doesn’t do to think,’ said Kookaburra. ‘Bad for the brain. That’s the trouble with you ground creatures. Too much thinking, not enough flying. Look at those Bottersnikes now — what do they think they’re doing, cooped up in their pots and pans on a lovely day like this?’

  ‘They think it’s going to rain,’ said Willigumble.

  ‘Hahahahahoho! Rain? On a day like this? This is the sort of day that makes you glad to be a bird,’ Kookaburra said. ‘Why, it’s spring in the air today!’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Willigumble, bouncing higher.

  ‘What’s the matter with you? I said spring’s in the air. Can’t you feel it?’

  ‘Grasshoppers!’ shouted Willigumble. ‘Spring. In the air. I believe you’re right! Help me, please, Kookaburra, with your strong beak,’ and he did a very strange thing for a Gumble. He began pulling the old mattress to bits.

  ‘Everybody’s mad!’ said Kookaburra.

  With the help of the astonished bird Willigumble had stripped the rotting cover from the mattress and laid bare the springs when they heard shouting and snufflenose noises from the Bottersnikes, and saw smoke rising.

  ‘Have they started a bushfire?’ Willigumble asked anxiously.

  It wasn’t a bushfire. It was Chank’s roof. Chank had got angry waiting for the rain that didn’t rain and his straw hat had caught alight from his red-hot ears.

  Chank was extremely angry when he saw that his beautiful
roof was smouldering, and the angrier he became the hotter the fire flared. The other Bottersnikes stood giving good advice but they did not do anything to put the fire out.

  ‘It must be cosy in there with a nice fire,’ Snorg said.

  ‘But you should have a chimney to let the smoke out,’ said Glob.

  ‘Keep still, Chank, while we cook a bit of toast,’ and they snuffled in high glee.

  Slightly overheated now, Chank started running about madly. He could not see where he was going — how those fat Bottersnikes hopped when Chank and his blazing top-knot came blundering among them. This part, they thought, was not so funny, and the King was not at all amused because Chank was coming near his car.

  ‘What’s that idiot doing running around on fire?’ he roared. ‘Sit on his head!’

  The Bottersnikes blinked at this because Chank’s head was obviously too hot to sit on, but the King was angry and not to be put off.

  ‘But King, we can’t —’ they said.

  ‘Yes you can,’ he bawled. ‘If he’s got a head it can be sat on, so sit on it, hard, and don’t argue.’

  ‘We’ll get burned!’

  ‘I don’t care,’ the King screamed. ‘If somebody doesn’t sit on his head in less than no time I won’t have a birthday when it stops raining, and there’ll be no King’s Party.’

  This would never do. The Bottersnikes hurried to their jam tins and let the Gumbles go with orders to put the fire out quick smart so that Chank could have his head sat on. The Gumbles were glad to be out of the tins at last and made a great show as firefighters.

  First they tripped Chank up by thrusting a stick between his legs. The straw hat had nearly burned away by now but somehow — no one quite knew how — the fire spread alarmingly. A patch of dry bladey grass exploded into flames. Billows of vile smoke went up from an old bag that caught alight. Gumbles, rushing about with hoses, tackled the job manfully, but seemed to be making the fire worse. The hoses would keep getting wound round the Bottersnikes’ legs. Many a tail was scorched, accidentally. And the noise! There was a wailing from the roofless Chank and yelping from the owners of scorched tails, while the fire was roaring and the King was roaring and smoke made everyone cough. Altogether there was far more smoke, sparks, shouting and confusion than when the Gumbles were safely in their jam tins.