The Selected Adventures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles

by S A Wakefield

  The rain dropped from the sky, too fast for the ground to soak it up. The Gumbles turned somersaults in the puddles; they tried to water-ski on the bush track that had suddenly become a shallow lake. Steam rose from the weather station as the anger of the Bottersnikes heated it up. But they couldn’t do a thing about it even though they had a proper King.

  Long after the Gumbles had run off to the dripping bush, after the Bottersnikes had fallen asleep from boredom, the Weathersnike sat huddled near his door, still under his umbrella. His corns were hurting. The rain would go on and on, he forecast. The dry creeks would start running again, the rock pools would fill, the bogs and swamps become oozy. The bush leaves would green up and dew would drip from them on foggy mornings. That was the way of the weather. In all his years of weather-watching, and he had been watching it since Halley’s comet, the Weathersnike had never known a drought that didn’t end in rain.

  THE DARK FOREST

  Happigumble cupped his hands and shouted, ‘One thing’s certain! We shan’t have any trouble with Bottersnikes in this sort of weather.’

  The Gumbles could hardly hear him for the roar of the falling water.

  ‘I said, we shan’t have any trouble with Bottersnikes in weather like this!’ Happigumble yelled again.

  All night it had rained hard, and for three or four days before. Earlyfruit Creek, the little bush stream in whose quiet pools the Gumbles spent much of the summer paddling, was changed to a swirling racing torrent of floodwater; and the waterfall, usually a lacy curtain of water splashing from ledge to ledge, was now a cascade that sent delicious shivers of fear through the Gumbles as they watched, clutching each other for safety.

  This morning it was not raining all the time. There would be bursts of hot steamy sunshine, making the bush leaves brilliant with sparkles and causing a rainbow to spring from the spray of the waterfall. Then clouds would scud over with more downpours, making yet more floodwater for the creeks to carry away.

  The Gumbles did not mind this sort of weather at all. Apart from their ear-tufts they have no fur to get wet, and some of their best fun comes from splashing about in water. But for the Bottersnikes, who shrink in the rain, it was the worst sort of weather imaginable. They would be skulking in rubbish heaps somewhere, hungry and angry, their bellies rumbling and their ears red hot, as they tried to keep themselves dry under scraps of wood or tin or plastic — for they were too lazy to build proper shelters unless they had the Gumbles to do it for them.

  The Gumbles giggled as the rain poured down once more. ‘No Gumbletraps for us today!’ they said.

  They scrambled to the bottom of the rock ledges and looked again at the waterfall, which was even more spectacular from below. Down here the water spread out over flat rocks, racing fast and shallow before tumbling into a rock gully. Willigumble threw a stick and watched the current bear it away faster than he could run. ‘Let’s build boats!’ he said. ‘Canoes! Let’s shoot the rapids in canoes.’

  Happigumble shook his head. ‘Much too dangerous! That current’s very fast, and we’re none of us strong swimmers.’

  This was a bit of an understatement. For all their love of messing about in water Gumbles cannot swim at all, though they can float in a calm pool as long as they don’t get the giggles.

  ‘Then let’s find a smaller creek where there’s not so much water and build canoes there,’ Willi said. ‘Let’s go and look for one down there.’ He pointed away from the waterfall to where the Earlyfruit gully disappeared beneath a great canopy of forest trees that, from where they were standing, seemed to stretch unbroken into the mists and rainclouds.

  ‘But Willi,’ some of the Gumbles said, ‘that’s the Dark Forest!’

  ‘I know it’s the Dark Forest! But there’s dozens of creeks in it! Let’s find one where we can canoe.’

  The Gumbles could feel perfectly at home anywhere in the bush, but just as a palace may have many rooms the king might never enter, so there were parts of the bush the Gumbles seldom or never visited. The Dark Forest was one of these. It was a wild and broken country of mossy boulders and gigantic trees, so dense in places the sunlight hardly ever got in. Fern-jungles sloped steeply to the rocky gullies, and on the far side of the forest (so the Gumbles had been told by ducks and herons who fished there), the tumbling creeks flowed into a much larger one whose water was broad and smooth and slightly salty.

  The Gumbles looked at each other and giggled a bit. ‘Well, why not?’ they said. ‘Why don’t we go into the Dark Forest? It’s not really dark, is it — it’s only a name.’

  But it was rather dark, they found, under the cloudy sky and dripping trees. Today the whole forest was aroar with rushing water. Overhead, the rusty-hinge creaks of black cockatoos sounded from the treetops.

  Almost at once they found another creek, smaller than Earlyfruit, and they gave it the name Tumbledown — the Dark Forest was so lonely a place that few of its creeks had names. They decided to explore Tumbledown towards its source, hoping for a canoe-reach, or perhaps another spectacular waterfall.

  So they went into the wild, steep country, into places they had never seen before; single file along wombat tracks in the fern, or sliding the slippery trunks of fallen trees, dodging the leeches that tried to fasten on; always with the Tumbledown torrent racing below them, much too dangerous for Gumble-canoeing. On and on they went into the gloom of the forest, until Jolligumble, who was leading, mounted a steep boulder and stopped in surprise.

  ‘Grasshoppers! Look what we’ve got here — a bridge!’

  Half a bridge, to be exact, since one of the great logs supporting it had long ago been washed out by floods, and now lay part in, part out, of the water. Clinging to the top of the log was a small ball of fur, so bedraggled they could hardly see what it was.

  ‘Someone’s in trouble!’ Jolligumble shouted.

  They crowded on the squelchy floodbank, as close as they dared.

  ‘It’s a possum,’ Merrigumble said. ‘A very young possum. Must have gone to sleep in the log then woken to find itself marooned. Lucky we came along.’

  ‘Now we’ll have to build a boat, to rescue the possum,’ Willi said, for the small animal was much too terrified to make a jump for it and swim.

  The mention of boating made Happigumble shake his head again, and look worried, until a sound like the chime of a bell came from Tinkingumble, meaning he’d had one of his bright ideas.

  ‘A ladder would be safer than a boat,’ Tink said. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult. Fixngumble might help me build it.’

  Fixngumble often helped Tink with his ideas, when there was any building to be done. He was clever at mending and making things, and loved to find out how gadgets worked or how to put them right if they didn’t. Fixngumble had already noticed a tangle of vines nearby, the kind that make good strong rope for bush-building. In quite a short time, with Tink as architect and Fix as foreman-builder, they had a ladder made, rough but stout, with shorter sticks lashed to two long saplings, and this they lowered by vine rope gently on to the log, so as not to frighten the possum.

  A party of six roped Gumbles edged along the ladder, only inches above the swirling water, and brought the possum to safety. To finish the job properly they hauled the ladder in and leaned it against a tree. They were going to use it to place the possum among the branches where he’d be safe, but the possum squeaked, ‘Don’t put me up there! I want to go home.’

  ‘Where is home?’ they asked.

  ‘In the barn,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘Don’t be silly! There can’t be a barn in the middle of the Dark Forest.’

  Only they weren’t in the middle, of course; they were on the edge of one small part of it. And very soon, as they carried the possum along the rough track that led away from the ruined bridge, they came to the absolute end of this part of the forest — four strands of rusty barbed wire; and beyond them a grassy paddock run wild with blackberries and bracken. In the paddock was the possum’s home, an old ba
rn with wooden walls gone grey with age, and weeds growing right up to the doors.

  The possum jumped down and ran towards the barn, but the Gumbles stopped point-blank. Roads, fences, buildings, bridges (unless built by themselves) are not at all to the Gumbles’ liking; they keep to their beloved bush unless they have a special reason. Peering through the barbed wire into the paddock, they saw two very good ones why they should go in.

  ‘Blackberries!’ exclaimed Jolligumble.

  ‘And mushrooms!’ squealed Willigumble.

  ‘What feasts we could have! But is it safe, d’you think?’

  Automatically they looked at Happigumble, who liked mushrooms and blackberries as much as any of them. ‘Well, if we all stay together …’ he began to say cautiously. Brilliant sunshine flooded them as he spoke, making the old paddock seem a warm and friendly place ‘… and take great care to keep out of trouble, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be safe to go in.’

  ‘Rain’s stopped,’ Chank called. ‘It’s safe to go out.’

  During the wet weather the Bottersnike band had been living under an upturned rainwater tank. This had kept them dry, but not good-tempered. The tank was crowded, hot and very noisy, for the iron walls echoed every sound that was made and only the most determined sleepers, such as the King and Snorg, could get any rest at all. All their food was gone, except for some egg cartons and newspapers lying soggily in the roadside rubbish. The Bottersnikes hated wet food. It tended to shrink their stomachs, which then became too small to hold the huge meals they thought they needed to keep themselves alive.

  ‘Come on!’ Chank said impatiently. ‘The rain’s over and it’s safe to go out.’

  ‘No it ain’t,’ said Glob, who never missed a chance to disagree with Chank. ‘The Weathersnike says it is going to be “showers decreasing”, and he is sure to be wrong.’

  Chank pushed his way to the door, which was a big hole in the wall of the tank. ‘Then you lot stay here and starve,’ he said, making a grand exit. ‘I ain’t afraid of a forecast whether it’s right or —’ He tripped and fell sprawling over a peculiar piece of machinery parked directly outside the door.

  ‘Who left this thing here?’ Chank howled, rubbing a foot that had been severely stubbed.

  It was an extraordinary contraption. It had four mag wheels, with wide tyres on the back, a very long low bonnet with stable-room for about 200 horsepower, and a single seat upholstered in two-tone rhinoceros skin behind a steering wheel encased in the same material.

  ‘Whoever left this thing here,’ Chank snarled, ‘should get a parking ticket.’ He kicked the machine with his good foot and hurt that too.

  A few Bottersnikes ventured out to laugh at Chank, then the King of the Bottersnikes himself emerged, blinking in the brilliant sunshine. Not a word was spoken until the King had waddled around the machine, inspecting it from every angle; then the King ordered, ‘Fetch Smiggles.’

  Smiggles, the unlucky ’snike whose dreams became solid, was dragged out of the tank by Amps and Mudger, who gleefully expected him to get into trouble.

  ‘Did you dream this thing, Smiggles?’

  Nervously, the dreamer admitted he had. ‘I get tired of waddling everywhere,’ he explained, ‘so I dreamed this racing chariot. It will be more comfy for me when we move.’

  The King grunted. He clambered into the dream chariot, bounced on the rhino skin seat and wobbled the steering wheel. ‘Quite right, Smiggles,’ he said at last. ‘A very useful and sensible dream. And will be more comfy for me when we move.’

  ‘But it hasn’t got an engine,’ remarked Glob, who had lifted the bonnet to see.

  ‘It don’t matter. Without an engine we shall use a lot less petrol,’ the King decided.

  Awake or asleep, Smiggles’ brain did not understand engines, though he loved the noise that came from an exhaust pipe especially when there was no muffler. Beneath the long low bonnet there was nothing — except for a noise-making device and a long coil of rope.

  ‘But what’s going to make it go?’ the Bottersnikes asked, blinking.

  ‘Smiggles is,’ the King said. ‘Pulling on the rope.’

  ‘Quite right too!’ the other Bottersnikes shouted, greatly relieved not to be pulling it themselves. ‘He dreamed it up, it’s only fair he should lug it around.’

  It was rather a good idea from the King’s point of view. Smiggles’ dream creations always disappeared the very moment he began his next sleep. Making Smiggles do the pulling would ensure that the chariot didn’t vanish through the dreamer having a quick doze.

  Under a hot and steamy sun, Smiggles’ dream chariot began its one and only journey, its creator pulling it, the King steering it, and the rest of the band waddling alongside sniggering.

  ‘What an idiot Smig was not to dream an engine,’ they said.

  By order of the King the chariot was hauled along a rough bush track where the Bottersnikes had never been before. The wretched Smiggles was soon panting and gasping in the heat, so the King ordered Amps, Mudger, Gubbo and Glag to harness themselves to the chariot and help with the pulling. ‘And faster,’ the King shouted. ‘So’s we can find out where we’re going to.’

  For the track was leading them on and on, along the stony ridge above Earlyfruit Creek, getting narrower and bumpier as it went. The Bottersnikes, even those not pulling, grumbled bitterly about the length and roughness of the journey. They hated the bush, loathed having to look at scenery, and besides the effort of so much waddling, they were nervous about long journeys. Having heard the evidence on both sides, the Bottersnikes preferred to believe the earth is flat. If you went too far in any one direction, they argued, you ran a big risk of dropping off the edge, since it was a certainty that no one would have bothered to put up a safety fence where the world ended.

  Very soon, however, the chariot became easier to pull, as the track began to wind downhill. In fact, so far from having to heave the chariot along, the pullers had to waddle pretty smartly to avoid being run over. Smiggles hadn’t dreamed any brakes. Glob and Snorg hopped on the back fender for a free ride; the extra weight made the chariot go faster still, and the others, not wanting to be left alone in this desolate part of nowhere, had to waddle at top ’snike-speed to keep up.

  The track wound in tight corners round huge boulders and trees, then, when it was too late to stop, plunged straight downwards. The chariot surged as if 200 horsepower were in full control. It zoomed ahead of its pullers and dragged them behind.

  ‘It’s the end of the world!’ they yelled, clinging to the rope in panic. ‘Just as we knew, there ain’t a fence.’

  ‘Smiggles!’ someone shouted. ‘Dream wings.’

  The King didn’t care. ‘Faster! Faster!’ he roared. He chomped the seatbelt in his excitement.

  At the bottom of the steep hill the King swerved violently to avoid a large ironbark tree. His team of pullers, who were almost flying behind the chariot, swung outwards, and the rope wrapped itself three times around the ironbark trunk. Smiggles was knocked out — only for a few seconds, but it was long enough to make the chariot and the rope vanish on the instant. The King flopped to the ground still holding the invisible steering wheel and shouting ‘Faster’, and unexpectedly the Weathersnike appeared too, surrounded by his rope and umbrellas, his rain gauge, his shadow stick and the other instruments he used for forecasting the weather. There were too many of these to carry easily so the Weathersnike had smuggled them, and himself, into the boot of the chariot before the journey began.

  The other Bottersnikes rolled and pitchpoled more slowly down the hill until the whole band found themselves sitting rather dazedly around the ironbark tree, not at the end of the world but, as it happened, on the edge of the Dark Forest.

  And a worse place they could not imagine. To them, every tree in the forest was an enemy. They were trapped and couldn’t go on or back. To climb the steep hill behind them was unthinkable. In front was a roaring creek, and the bridge half washed away. Worse still, the sky
was clouding heavily and spots of rain beginning to fall.

  ‘We’ve had it this time,’ the Bottersnikes wailed. ‘We’ll shrink to nothing. All because of Smiggles and his rotten chariot. And all because of the Weathersnike and his rotten forecasts too.’

  The Weathersnike had quickly grabbed his umbrellas, which he never shared with anyone although he had two. The point of one of them was sharpened like a dagger — a good deterrent.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ the Bottersnikes moaned.

  ‘Smiggles!’ the King roared. ‘Dream a roof.’

  Smiggles tried to explain you couldn’t just dream a roof. You had to have walls to hold the roof up and a floor to put the walls on, and besides, he had too much of a headache to go to sleep; but the band was in no mood for excuses. ‘It’s time you dreamed something useful for a change,’ they growled threateningly. ‘We’re going to make you do just that.’

  Seeing the whole band come at him, Smiggles turned and bolted. He managed to scramble over the broken bridge without falling in. In front of him was Fixngumble’s ladder. He climbed it to the top. Luckily Smiggles was rather thin from chariot-pulling and worry, otherwise his weight would have broken the rungs. From the top of the ladder Smiggles was astonished to glimpse, between the outermost branches of the Dark Forest trees, a clearing partly overgrown with blackberries and bracken, and in the middle of it a barn, an old-fashioned farm barn, with a sound, weatherproof roof of iron.

  GUMBLEDUCKS

  In the bush Gumbles live on geebungs, wild raspberries, fern fiddles and many kinds of seeds. In winter or summer they have no trouble in finding a good feed. For a change, though, there is nothing they like better than a Gumblefeast of blackberries and mushrooms. But since these grow mainly in paddocks and along roadsides and not in the bush where the Gumbles feel safe, they try to be very careful when having this kind of feast. Gumbles don’t like meeting people, cars or dogs, though they are not afraid of cows.