‘But it’s the best we can do,’ said Toot. ‘One thing we won’t do, we won’t find them much to eat. Right?’
So when there was a bawling and a howling and a banging of tins for dinner, the foraging party returned with nothing more than a few earwigs in old cardboard boxes — very poor fare for Bottersnikes, especially as the cardboard was bleached and soggy and had lost its taste.
‘This sort of tucker ain’t for a stewed rabbit!’ Chank roared. ‘I say we should move on to where the livin’s better.’
This time the Bottersnikes grumblingly agreed — except for the King, who positively refused to leave his palace. It fitted his personality like a glove.
Tootngumble said brightly: ‘As the palace is round it could be rolled to a new place. Somewhere where there is plenty of stuffing for you.’
‘Quiet!’ the King roared. ‘Gumbles do what they’re told. I do the telling. And tin those Gumbles, hard, before they escape.’
It did not seem a good beginning. Nevertheless Tootngumble had started an idea wriggling in the King’s mind. He squeezed out of the palace and waddled round it, looking from all angles; he gave it a careful push with his foot and observed that it rolled easily on the flat rock. ‘As my palace is round,’ the King said thoughtfully, ‘it could be rolled to a new place. Somewhere where there is plenty of stuffing for us.’
‘Clever, to think of that!’ the Bottersnikes admired.
‘Because it is a moving palace,’ the King explained, to make the why of it exactly clear. ‘It is a palace-mobile.’
‘And you don’t see many of those!’ the Bottersnikes said, impressed.
Two strong and sensible ’snikes would see to the rolling, the King said; they were to slow down round corners and not scratch the rust. Glob and Snorg appointed themselves palace-rollers, mainly to keep Chank out of the job.
‘Jam tins ready!’ roared the King. ‘We will travel.’ Instead of beginning to waddle left foot flop! right foot flop! in the usual way, the King climbed into the palace-mobile, settled down with a snort and said: ‘Wake me when we get there.’
Glob and Snorg saw that with his majesty in residence the palace-rolling was going to be hard, hot and heavy. ‘Gumbles’ work,’ Glob growled. ‘Why else do we keep the little blighters for?’
‘Why should we carry ’em around in tins? Let the little perishers earn their keep,’ Snorg said indignantly.
So, as Merrigumble had hoped, the Gumbles were taken from their tins and given orders to roll the palace to where there were mountains of mattress stuffing, with no mucking up on the way.
The move began. Chank and Glob led, each trying to waddle more importantly than the other; next, the palace, pushed by the Gumbles, the King snoring inside and his tail flop-flopping at each turn; Bottersnikes to right and left, watching for any hanky-panky; more Bottersnikes behind shouting at the Gumbles all the time.
The move stopped almost as soon as it began, when the leaders found their way barred by an animal they had not seen before.
‘Out of the way, you idiot dog.’
‘Move over, you rotten great cat,’ said Chank and Glob together.
The Gumbles peered round the palace to see what strange creature this might be: neither a dog nor a cat — horrors! it was Fox.
‘Moving, I see,’ said Fox smoothly. ‘How I wish I could move as easily. You see, I am lame.’
‘He wasn’t lame when we saw him in the fern,’ the Gumbles thought.
‘A rusty nail in my foot,’ Fox sounded brave about it. ‘Painful! But there.’
The Bottersnikes fell over themselves to be sympathetic — next to bottle tops, rusty nails are their favourite sweets. Fox would not allow his foot to be touched, and bared his teeth when they tried to pull the nail out. It made the Bottersnikes red-eared. The King woke, displeased too. ‘We ain’t got anywhere, why have we stopped rolling?’
‘He’s got a nail,’ the Bottersnikes explained. ‘It’s no good to him but he won’t let us have it. What a selfish animal he is.’ For a moment the attention of the whole grumbling band was fixed on Fox — his injured paw, his particularly sharp teeth.
‘Just what we wanted!’ Merrigumble whispered. ‘They have forgotten us completely.’
It looked like being one of the easiest escapes they had ever had. They put a stone behind the palace to stop it rolling backwards and without any fuss began slipping towards the bush.
‘No, no, I shall put up with the nail,’ said Fox heroically. ‘It is just one of those things. By the way, those squashy little creatures you have with you are nipping off to the scrub. Does that matter?’
‘Ho, are they just! Got you!’ the Bottersnikes yelled, whirling and pouncing in the nick of time to prevent the easiest escape ever. ‘Get behind that palace and stay there, ready for when we want to move on.’
‘Fox is a clever and useful animal,’ the King said, clambering out of his palace. ‘We should take him along to guard the Gumbles.’
‘We could help each other a lot,’ Fox said craftily. ‘A lone animal is not safe nowadays. There is a whole bagful of those dangerous nails, spilled —’
‘Where? Where?’ the Bottersnikes clamoured.
Fox looked at them very coolly. ‘Life in the bush isn’t easy at the best of times and for a hunter with an injured paw it’s very hard indeed. Now if I tell you where the nails are how can you help me find a meal?’
‘There is plenty of cardboard,’ said Glob.
‘He don’t eat cardboard, stupid,’ said Chank.
‘Then what do he eat, fathead?’
‘Anything meaty. Or eggy. Almost anything with some blood in it,’ Fox said, licking his lips. ‘No snakes or lizards. Birds are all right. Birds are delicious, especially if young.’
‘I’ll save you all the birds I catch,’ Glob promised. He leapt energetically, quite two inches from the rock, to show the slick catcher he could be.
‘You don’t have to be able to fly,’ Fox remarked. ‘Sometimes you have the luck to find them in a nest.’
‘Hang on!’ said Chank. ‘That monster that Smiggles saw. He said it was in a nest.’
During this conversation the Gumbles had been growing more and more dismayed. At the mention of Smiggles’ monster they couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘We’ve got to do something!’ Happigumble burst out. ‘And quickly! Tink, can you —?’
But no tink happened to be ready. ‘I can’t think of anything with Fox looking at me like that,’ Tink said.
‘Keep those jabbering Gumbles quiet,’ the King ordered. ‘Smiggles! Come here. Show the nice Fox where your monster is, Smig my boy, and he’ll tell us where the nails are, then we’ll all have a party with my nails.’
‘I ain’t going down that cliff again!’ Smiggles protested.
‘No need,’ said Fox quickly. ‘Just show me.’
On the dizzy edge of the cliff Smiggles closed his eyes and pointed. Without a word Fox walked along the edge to find a place where the descent was easier. Very soon he reappeared below them, and looked up with his sharp and hungry face. The King bellowed directions from the top: ‘Walk along that ledge. It’ll be easy. Now where are them nails?’
Fox jumped to the ledge. There seemed nothing wrong with his paw from the lithe way he moved. ‘I see it — a lyrebird’s nest! I have not eaten lyrebird before. It will be a treat.’
‘We ain’t eaten neither,’ the King yelled. ‘Where are them nails?’
Fox liked silence for his stealthy hunting. He told them: ‘The nails are near a big red gum, you can’t miss it,’ hoping this would keep them quiet. Unfortunately the Bottersnikes could not tell a red gum from a dandelion. ‘Come and show us,’ the King yelled.
Fox crawled slowly along the ledge. He thought he could see something in the nest. He thought he could see its eyes.
‘Our Chip-Chip,’ the Gumbles moaned. The chick with a busy mother and a dancing father. They were almost at their wits’ end. What could they do? Even if they escaped they w
ould never get to the nest in time.
In desperation they held Tinkingumble upside down, which sometimes helped his tinks to come. It was nearly too late. But with a sound like a pebble dropping in a deep well it came — a real beauty. ‘The palace-mobile!’ Tink said.
All he had to do was take the stone from behind it then stand back and pretend that what followed was nothing to do with him. The King’s winter residence rolled over the rock, slowly at first, gathering speed … it bounced once and trundled over the edge, clattering. The Gumbles never knew if the falling palace actually hit Fox. One thing was certain, it alarmed him very much; Fox yelped, fell or jumped from the narrow ledge and bounced away into the fern. The angry Bottersnikes yelled after him, wanting to know what a red gum was. The Gumbles raised a cheer. Never knowing how close he had come to being a meal himself, Chip-Chip called for dinner.
THE ART OF CATCHING GUMBLES
Tinks happen at the strangest times. A real beauty came to Tinkingumble as they were running for their lives from the King’s grave — tink!, sweet and fruity as a home-made cake.
‘I’ve thought of a way to make Chip-Chip safer.’
‘Got to make ourselves safer first,’ Happigumble puffed.
‘A catapult!’ Tink said. ‘To shoot anyone who tries to go along the ledge.’
It seemed a wonderful idea. Making the catapult was easy for the Gumbles, who love playing with springy things, levers, see-saws and suchlike. They chose two swishy saplings on the edge of the dense bush not far from the nest and tied their tops together with vines, binding in a piece of stringybark to hold the bullets.
‘They used a longer vine-rope to pull the saplings back, and when released the bullets shot out with plenty of sting. After practice they could fire oak knobs and cabbage-palm seeds in salvoes and pepper the target usually.
‘That’ll warm Fox up a bit,’ they chuckled.
To make Chip-Chip safer still, Happigumble suggested they should climb the cliff and collect some stones to drop. ‘Then if anyone tries to raid the nest we can pepper him from the side and bomb him from the top as well.’
That would be splendid. Everyone agreed.
‘Gumblerope, then, and up the cliff,’ Happigumble said. Then came a second tink, clear as a magpie on a frosty morning. ‘Quicker if I fire you up in the catapult! I’ll alter the aim.’
Willigumble wanted first go but they told him it was too dangerous. Glag was still up there. ‘Fire us up one after the other as quick as you can,’ Happigumble said. ‘We’ll soon take care of Glag. Willi, you can help Tink with the firing.’
‘The Bottersnikes are coming!’ said Jolligumble.
They worked like horses, Tink and Willi, firing the others up. The catapult had masses of power. It sent the Gumblebullets whistling skywards till they disappeared over the edge of the cliff. ‘Won’t old Glag get the surprise of his life?’ Willi giggled. ‘How I’d like to see his face when they all come dropping in.’ Tink and Willi chuckled at the good job they had done. They thought they had done a really good job.
Glag the artist had wonderful pictures in his head, waiting to be painted. He had yards of flat rock to paint on, and no one to waddle in his work while it was wet or to sit on his head while it was seeing pictures; but he had no paint.
He tried to make some by stirring soil into a pool of water but the sloppy mixture caused his tail to shrink. Charcoal did not suit his style — it crumbled under his bold strokes — and the clay had gone hard. Glag began to get desperate when a truly bright idea dropped into his head. The Bottersnikes’ custom, when they wanted a home, was to crawl under any old bit of rubbish they could find — sheets of iron, tins, baths, tanks, anything would do if it kept the rain off. It seemed to Glag that this was not a dainty habit. With a little care, a little flair, Bottersnikes’ homes could be made attractive. So it came to him in a flash what he would do: he would design a beautiful rubbish heap and live in it.
Glag collected all the building materials he could find. His prize piece was an iron bedstead with knobs and rails. He stood this on end and hung a watering can on one of the legs. The springs of the bed were ideal for holding bits of rag or paper; he stuck them in the wires and they would stay there and flutter. Glag worked in a fire of enthusiasm. ‘A blob!’ he said — Glag was a great user of blobs — ‘I need a blob, I need a blob, I need a blob.’
With a twang in the bedsprings a blob appeared — the very thing he needed, squashy and squeezable to any shape. He was too wrapped up in his work to wonder how it got there. Several more followed in quick succession, out of the sky it seemed, and Glag had to work like mad arranging them in their proper places. When he stood back to admire his work he felt it was coming along very nicely; and the catapulted Gumbles, who found themselves twisted and looped into the springs of the bed, wondered how in the name of science or politics they came to be caught in a Gumbletrap like this.
‘You know,’ said Happigumble sadly, ‘I really do think Tink’s tinks are not as bright as they used to be.’
Perhaps it was not fair to put all the blame on Tink. He and Willi knew nothing of what had happened and had no time to wonder about it; as they catapulted the last of their mates up the Bottersnikes came waddling along from the direction of the King’s grave.
‘Now you, Willi. Quick.’
‘No, I’ll stay with you.’
‘We’ll have to run for it then. Come on.’
Tink and Willi ran a little way down the slope to be out of the Bottersnikes’ path. They found the father lyrebird down there, scratching the earth for insects.
‘Lyrebird!’ said Willi. ‘There are Bottersnikes everywhere. Don’t you think you could look after Chip-Chip now and then? It would make things easier for everyone.’
‘Who is Chip-Chip?’
‘Your chick! He’s the one who’ll sing and dance when you’re — well, when you’re too old to sing and dance. Someone’s got to carry on,’ Willigumble said. ‘So couldn’t you help?’
Lyrebird went on scratching. ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ he said. ‘But it’s the wife. She won’t have me near the nest.’
Tink and Willi looked at each other and sighed.
‘She says she goes to a lot of trouble to hide it and she won’t have me showing everyone where it is. I haven’t even seen the chick.’ For a moment Lyrebird looked as if he were going to moult. ‘But I don’t care! What do I want with nests? I dance! I sing!’ He threw his head back and carolled at his loudest, blending in bird calls, Chank’s snores and the King’s whistles.
‘Not so loud!’ said Tink anxiously. ‘The Bottersnikes will hear.’
They had. Furious shouts from higher up told that this time Lyrebird had sung too heartily. ‘There he is!’ the King was heard to thunder. ‘That rotten bird that spoiled my Gumbletrap! Get him!’
The mourners and the gravediggers, led by the lately dead King himself, came down the hill like robbers running, like words tumbling from a dictionary, to have their revenge on Lyrebird. Going downhill they could move amazingly fast. Some of them lay on their sides and rolled, which was quicker still.
Lyrebird ran across the slope, keeping low, and watched the Bottersnikes roll past. No one was likely to catch him in his own fernbed. Tink and Willi scooted down the hill, bumping and sliding, until the land flattened out. They pushed through thick wiry grass and found themselves on the edge of a creek where the water trickled over shallows into deep pools, almost hidden by the crowding grasses on the banks.
‘Got a tink?’ asked Willi, panting.
‘Don’t think so. Wait … Yes!’
Willi had the same idea at the same moment. Giggling, they splashed through the water where it was shallow and hid under a tree root on the far bank. Most of the Bottersnikes had rolled to a standstill. Small fires burned in their ears from pieces of dry bracken picked up during the roll.
‘Which way’d he go? Don’t let him get away!’ the King roared.
Tinkingumble sang out: ‘Quick, Lyre
bird! Don’t let them catch you!’
‘Freep-freep!’ went Willi. His squeaky voice copied the whistle as cleverly as Lyrebird would have done.
‘We’ve got him cornered!’ the King yelled triumphantly. ‘He’s in that long grass. I’ll throw a Party for the one what catches him.’
The Bottersnikes charged into the grass, grabbing-mad. ‘Got you!’ they started to shout, out of habit. None of them saw the deep, still rock pool until too late. Their charge carried them right into the icy shock of the water. Steam hissed up in clouds from their red-hot ears. But very soon their splashes became smaller and their yells became little bleats as the water shrank, and shrank, and shrank them … their fat stomachs, their warts and knobbles, their absurd ears … until they were no more than matchbox models of themselves with only their bad tempers life-sized.
When they were about the size of brown frogs, Tink and Willi fished them out with long sticks and set them spluttering on the bank. The King was speechless. While every other part of him had shrunk his swallowed whistle had not. Now the tiny King was so full of whistle he could not pass a single comment, but sat like a toad, bulging.
‘We could teach him to hop,’ Willi giggled.
Tinkingumble thought it would be better to send them home at once, while they were still small enough to manage. For they would grow, slowly, as the wind dried them. Willi, king-sized among all those shrunken ’snikes, gave the orders: he lined them up with a stick and drove them uphill to the catapult. Taking great care not to get scorched on the red-hot needles of their ears, Tink and Willi fired them up in threes and fours to the top of the cliff — sent them flying home. ‘And now the lyrebirds can have some peace,’ Tink said.
‘We’ve done a good job, just the two of us,’ said Willi. ‘The others ought to be jolly pleased.’
The Selected Adventures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles Page 5