Song Clues

Song Clues is the ninth chapter in the Wombles Four.

Venus was in the lair of SCAR. She had hired some new members. One of them was called Mr Speel, and hadn’t arrived yet. Suddenly they came in. “Are you Mr Speel?” asked Venus. “Yes.” Replied the person who was actually Mrs Peel with a fake moustache. Venus was unsure. “You look rather feminine.” She said. She walked round and round and round her then ripped off her fake moustache. “Ow!” said Mrs Peel. “Come to stop me, have you?” said Venus. “Well that’s not happening!”  She knocked Mrs Peel out with a lead pencil. “A lead pencil?” Venus was confused. “No, it’s a lead pessil!”

Mrs Peel woke up in a strange CGI place. “Eh?” she said. She looked at her hand. It was CGI. “Uh-oh! How did Venus do this?”  She saw a big sign above her. It said, “Welcome to your TV!”

Steed turned on the TV. He seemed to hear someone screaming, “Help!” in the distance as soon as he did, but changed the channel and that stopped. “Must’ve been part of the programme.” He said. “How are we getting TV programs when the TV studio has been destroyed?” asked Cathy. “I don’t know” replied Steed. “Shall we find out Dad?” asked Lucy. “OK but take some Gooseberry Cider though!” replied Steed. “And take my tiny gun!” added Cathy. “It’s OK I’ve got this RPG launcher” replied Lucy. “I’ve got my umbrella” added Thomas.

“Hang on!” said Cathy. “How are you going to get there?” asked Steed. “Where?” asked Lucy. “Exactly!” said Cathy. “Best leave it to Mum” decided Steed. It was a good thing they did because the purple serum wore off. Thomas and Lucy were babies now. Steed got to work on his Dad duties. First was a bath. He put them in the dishwasher on eco. They came out shiny and clean. Next was learning to walk. Steed fired blanks at their feet so they had to run. Sleep was next. Out for a speed record attempt in the Lotus Europa (it used to belong to Tara). Sleep over. Time for survival training. Steed and Freckles hunted the now superfast babies in the grounds.

Just then Cathy came home. “It must be from somewhere else. Our TV signal is definitely dead. Let’s listen for clues” she suggested. They did. The TV was switched on.

''Och now it’s TV time from bonnie Scotland! News about Villaincon! It’s gonna be at SCAR HQ near Loch Lomond! Hear is a word from our leader!''

Venus started singing.

“I was just being innocent and really very good, then villains killed me dead, as a piece of rotten wood, I became immortal and came back to life, The evil John Steed did it with his evil wife, We’re going to kill them and imprison Mrs Peel, If you don’t believe I have her, See for yourself it’s real!”

“What!” shouted Cathy “Mrs Peel was going to bring up the children for me!”  “Should we save her?” asked Steed. “Well yes! Obviously! Get me an army John!” she replied. Steed headed out to build up their forces. Mr Class and Bungo lead two divisions of window cleaners. Joe and the Milk Man teamed for sniper and bomber duties. Grandma lead the Avengers team who were to spy and shoot to kill. Rover and Freckles were ready to divert the enemy!

Mrs Peel was rather unsure what to do. “How did I end up in the TV?” she said, scared. “But wait- there’s no programme or film with a big sign that says ‘Welcome to your TV!’  It must be some kind of trick. Simply an illusion. I’m not really CGI. I can’t be!” She looked around. She saw what looked like a bird sitting on top of the Welcome To Your TV sign. She looked closer. It wasn’t a bird. It was some kind of projector. She climbed up the side of the sign and switched it off. She and the sign now looked real and she was just in a big white room. “The projector must be to project CGI images over the real things.” She said. “But I wonder how I get out of here?”

There seemed to be no doors or windows. Just white walls all around. “There must be a way out,” she said. “Because otherwise I couldn’t have got in.”  She saw a camera and walked up to it. “Hello world!” she said, working out that Venus must’ve created a TV channel with the big white room constantly showing. Then she said, “Can you get me out of here please?”

Everyone watching the new channel fainted. “Oh dear” said Mrs Peel. “It seems I’ll have to get out myself.”  She looked up. There was a chandelier on the ceiling. “Hmm” she thought, and got the machete which she had secretly kept out from amongst her hair. It wasn’t as dangerous for her to keep it there than it would be for you, because she was immortal. Unfortunately half her hair fell off her head when she took it out. She was slightly upset but got on with it. She threw the machete at the chandelier which then fell down. There was now a big hole in the ceiling. But she couldn’t get up there.

The Steeds and their army arrived in Scotland. They had caught the train to Loch Lomond. They all got out. They looked around and saw a building with a sign that said, “Scottish Company And Rover’s” “Rover certainly doesn’t work here.” Said Cathy. “And the initials for that are SCAR.”  “Oh yes, I didn’t think of that.” Said Steed. “You haven’t been thinking of anything lately.” Replied Cathy, and led them into the building. As soon as she did she got knocked out. Then Steed did. Then Mr Class did. Then the other window cleaners did. Then Bungo did. Then the Milkman did.

They all woke up in a strange CGI world. They heard a familiar voice saying, “Welcome to your TV!”  It was Mrs Peel sitting on the sign with the projector. She turned off the projector and it just looked like a big white room. “I suppose you can’t help me anymore.” She said. “If you had been upstairs you could’ve poked a rope through the hole in the ceiling. And the sign isn’t quite tall enough to reach.”  “Uh,” said Cathy. “Is it safe up there?”  “For me, yes, because I’m immortal. You’d probably fall off and die. Did you want to come up then?”  “Not after you’ve told me the dangers! Are you crazy?”  “Uh no…” said Mrs Peel. “You’re on the same side as her Mrs Peel! Try and remember that!” said Steed.

“Shouldn’t we be trying to work out how to get out of here, not having a discussion about who’s side we’re on?” said Cathy. “I suppose so” said Mrs Peel. “But I’m beginning to like it here. Just a bit though. I can make it be anywhere I want. Look.” She turned the projector on and it looked like Cathy was about the be sawn in half and everyone else was just standing there not caring. But it was just a projection. “Turn that off!” said Cathy. “No” said Mrs Peel. “Please do.” Said Steed. “Oh alright.” Mrs Peel did. It now looked like a big white room again. But there didn’t seem to be a hole in the ceiling this time.

“Strange” said Mrs Peel. “I could’ve sworn there was a hole there.”  “There was.” Said Cathy. “Venus must’ve fixed it.”  “Oh.” Said Mrs Peel. “I didn’t imagine it then?”  “Obviously not! Anyway, how are we going to get out of here? If only there was something bouncy to bounce us up there.” “Tttthhhheeeerrrreee iiiissss!!!” said a voice. “Huh?” Mrs Peel was confused. “I think where it looks like the whole is fixed it’s just that Rover’s there and he’s going to come down and we’ll all bounce up on him.” Said Cathy.

“Oh” said Mrs Peel. “Why are you always the one who works it out?”  “I’m not always, you worked out the projector here and you worked out what was going on in the house with the weird man that kept saying about the house that jack built, and you worked out what was happening in the big house that was an awful lot like the one I was in once, and…”  “How do you know about all that?” interrupted Mrs Peel. “It was filmed and I watched it.” Replied Cathy. At that moment Rover fell in the room. “Yyyyyoooouuu cccaaannnn aaallll gggeettt ooouuuutttt nnnnoooowww!” he said.

Mrs Peel leapt down from the sign, landed on Rover, and bounced up through the hole. The others did the same. They went all round the building but there was no sign of Venus anywhere. A screen switched on with Venus singing. “If you really want to find me, follow these clues! The first one is somewhere Rover got some tape and glue!”  The screen switched off and Rover led them to the stationary shop back in London.

“Hello, what can I do for you?” said the shopkeeper, not seeming to be terribly confused that he was looking at lots of window cleaners, three spies, a milkman, a womble and a big white talking ball. “Do you have any notes that have rhyming sentences on?” asked Mrs Peel. “Yes actually.” Replied the shopkeeper. “They’re all over there.” He pointed at hundreds and hundreds of post-it notes.

It took some time for the Steeds, Mrs Peel, Bungo, Mr Class, The Other Window Cleaners, The Milkman and Rover to find the right one. It was evening by the time they did. This is what it said:

The second clue could help you or maybe not, let’s make a crate with inside it a robot!

“Hmm” said Mrs Peel. “Crate sounds a bit like crater. But which one? Steed Crater or the crater where the Classy Glass Window Cleaning Company, the Cafeeee, Eat At Joe’s, and Womble Manor used to be? Speaking of Joe, where is he? Didn’t he come with us?”  “He’s scared of trains.” Explained Steed. “So he left us before we went to Scotland. Maybe he’s scared because he’s robot, but I’m not sure how that works.”  “That’s it!” said Mrs Peel. It must be the one that’s not Steed Crater, because at one point it was Eat At Joe’s, and Joe is a robot!”

They all hurried to that crater. There didn’t seem to be anything there. Bungo decided to dig. That reminded him of Freckles, so he said, “Did Freckles go with Joe? He was with us before as well.”  “Yes, he went with Joe.” Replied Steed. “Just keep digging.”  Bungo dug ten feet down and finally found some kind of stone with writing on it. It said:

''This is the third clue, yes it is! The place the next clue’s hidden might make you end up in a tizz!''

“I think that means it’ll make us cry.” Said Cathy. “Aha!” said Mrs Peel. “A while back now, when I left Peter, before I did I was taken to a farm where they were cooking onions! Onions can make your eyes water! It must be there!”  “Told you I wasn’t always the one who works it out.” Said Cathy. “Yes, I was quite wrong, wasn’t I? You’re actually rather stupid.”  “Wha… no I’m not!”  “Yes you are.”  “No I’m not!” “Yes you are!”  “No I’m no…”  “Stop arguing!” said Steed. “Mrs Peel, please take us to that farm.”  So Mrs Peel did.

“Oh!” said Bungo when they got there. “This is the place where we captured Madame Cholet to ask where Mrs Peel was when I was a window cleaner!”  “You must be able to lead us round this place then.” Said Cathy. “This way!” said Bungo. “We were here because the Classy Glass Window Cleaning Company building was too obvious, but no one was likely to find us here!”  They found some hedges cut into the shape of words. It was the next clue:

''The fourth clue I really hope you will not get! It’s time to hang a wombat in a net!''

“It must be Cousin Botany’s trap that he accidentally put himself in.” said Bungo, so they went there. Words had been cut into the net.

''Seriously, How did you get to number five? Well, it was a trap, so never mind!''

“What? A trap?”  said Steed. “Why did we fall for it?”  “We always do” replied Mrs Peel. “No we don’t” said Cathy. “Yes we do”  “No we don’t” “Yes we do”  “No we don’t”  “Yes we do” “No we don’t”  “Stop arguing!” said Steed. “And don’t do it again this time! Anyway, I can’t see the trap, so it’s fine! She probably expected us to get inside the net!”  “No, she didn’t.” said a snarly voice behind them. “It was that she knew we were here.” Said another. They all turned around. It was Dr Jon Von Pincher and Dr Diabolical Diablo!

Steed knocked them out with his umbrella then they took the evil doctors back to HQ. Cathy tied them to the floor of a cell with reinforced steel. As soon she came out the door was locked by Mrs Peel. Steed switched on the flame thrower and enormous flames started burning Dr Pincher and Dr Diablo.

“Where is Venus?” asked Cathy. “Arrgh!” replied the prisoners for a short time then stopped. “Excuse me” said Mrs Peel “but I think we have killed them”. They had. Cathy pulled a lever and the bodies were thrown down in the ground. “What now?” asked Mr Class. “The club!” said Steed. They all headed there and walked into the jazz lounge. Venus was there singing.

“You found me singing here and solved all my clues, now I’m going to kill you all with ultra strong glue!”

Venus ran out of the club. The ceiling started to collapse. Some glue dripped down to the floor.

“She can’t.” said Mrs Peel. “Huh?” said Steed. “What are you talking about?”  “Venus said she was going to kill us all, but I’m immortal.” “Oh.”  “Why do we always just have a discussion instead of trying to escape?” said Cathy. “I’m not sure.” Replied Steed. “Perhaps it’s because you’re too stupid to come up with an idea.” Said Mrs Peel. “I’m not stupid!” said Cathy. “Yes you are”  “No I’m not”  “Yes you are” “No I’m not”  “Not a third time!” said Steed. “I almost wished we hadn’t rescued you now Mrs Peel.”  Mrs Peel was upset. Steed tried to calm her down. “I only said almost!”  “For the last time, we need to get out of here!” said Cathy. “Wait a minute we can just run out like Venus did.” Said Mrs Peel. She turned to Cathy. “And you were too stupid to notice!”  “For goodness’ sake! I’m not stupid!”  “Yes you are” “No I’m no…”  Steed groaned. “A fourth time now! This is ridiculous! Mrs Peel, go to One Ten! Why am I giving an adult a time-out?”