The Wombles to the Rescue by Elisabeth Beresford Page A

putting down the letter he had been reading.
    â€˜Which must mean that the whole business has been a great success,’ said Miss Adelaide. ‘One hopes.’
    â€˜Taste this, please,’ said Madame Cholet, bustling in from the kitchen. ‘I have put just a touch of my new paste on these grass biscuits. C’est OK?’
    â€˜Um. Rather,’ agreed Tobermory, crunching up his biscuit and then licking his lips while wiping the back of his paw along his grey moustache. ‘Smashing. Have you read Bulgaria’s letter?’
    â€˜Oh yes, Adelaide passed it to me yesterday. I think, Tobermory, that for you in particular it will be good to have Bulgaria back home. You have lost weight, and for a Womble to do that is very bad. It reflects, you see, on my cooking!’
    â€˜ Tsk, tsk, tsk ,’ said Tobermory, taking off his bowler hat and running a handkerchief round the inside of it. ‘Never, never. Ho-hum. It’s young Wellington that we must think of now. He hasn’t invented all that he felt he should have done, but he does come up with some very good ideas from time to time and now I believe he’s done it again. All right, young Wellington, in you come.’
    Wellington edged into the Workshop rather shyly and then, reassured by the smiles and nods of the older Wombles, he produced two flasks from behind his back. In one flask was a thick yellow liquid while in the other the liquid was blacker than the blackest night.
    Wellington bowed jerkily and said, ‘I think I’ve discovered an oil, sort of, which will stop all the doors making horrible noises when they’re opened and shut. I discovered it quite by accident. This is it.’ And he held up the flask which was yellow-coloured.
    â€˜What’s in it?’ asked Tobermory.
    â€˜I’m not too sure really,’ said Wellington. ‘It’s some buttercup juice mixed with part of the stuff which came up with my ex-oil rig. But it is ever so oily.’
    And Wellington tipped the flask slightly so that a few drops of yellow liquid slowly fell, glup, glup, glup , on to the table.
    â€˜And what is in the other bottle?’ enquired Miss Adelaide, as Tobermory put one cautious finger into the mixture and first sniffed and then tasted it.
    â€˜Ink. Or paint,’ said Wellington. ‘Honestly, Miss Adelaide, it’s ever so black, and you dip a felt tip into it and then draw on a plastic blackboard. Look, Shansi will show you . . .’
    Wellington stood aside and Shansi came into the Workshop, ducking her head rather shyly. In her hands she held a pile of small sheets of coloured plastic. She sat down at the workbench and, taking a felt-tipped paintbrush out of her pocket, she dipped it into the flask which held the black liquid, pressed it gently against the side to get rid of the excess and then, with what looked like half a dozen quick strokes, she painted the Womble Willow Pattern on a piece of scarlet plastic.
    â€˜Very good,’ said Miss Adelaide, ‘very good indeed, dear. But then you always were top of the painting class. This really could be hung on the wall as a picture. We do miss your skills in the Womblegarten, Shansi. Indeed I have been wondering if . . .’
    â€˜But, Miss Adelaide,’ burst out Wellington, who could stand the suspense no longer, ‘it’s not a picture. It’s a new kind of slate which you use in the Womblegarten instead of paper exercise books. You can wipe off the drawing or the writing or whatever it is frightfully easily with a cloth. Then you have a clean slate again. Do you like it? Do you think it’s a good Idea?’
    Young Wombles, even young working Wombles, hardly ever interrupt Miss Adelaide and get away without a telling-off or a cuff round the ear. Sometimes they get both. But even as Wellington realised what he had done and began to gulp nervously, Miss Adelaide nodded and smiled.
    â€˜Yes, it is a good Idea,’ she