Читать книгу The Adventures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles - Desmond Digby - Страница 8

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.