Holiday

Holiday is the second chapter in the Wombles Seven.

The music played. The wombles swayed. Great Uncle Bulgaria prayed. “Oh great Womble in the sky, we’re not busy wombles and wonder why, please please let us have Madame Chalet’s bramble pie!”

Just then the smell of delicious pie wafted from a bowl, complete with dandelion custard, right under Bulgaria’s nose! It was Madame Chalet with Bramble pie. The prayer had worked or had it? “Silly womble!” exclaimed the cook. “I gave you a menu for today with the bramble pie!”

“Menu?” said Bulgaria. He finally noticed it and picked it up. He read it and looked shocked.

''YOU WILL ALL DIE! NO WOMBLE WITH SURVIVE!''

The shocking message was just sinking into Bulgaria’s mind when Madame Chalet flipped it over to the correct side whilst tutting. “Eat your pie!” she urged and turned to head back to the galley.

On the way she had to side-step Bungo as he twirled Shansi around to the music. Life was a party for the wombles for the moment. Nothing but sailing, cooking, eating, dancing, sun bathing and swimming. Out of the corner of his eye Bungo saw something falling from the sky. He lost control of the twirl and threw Shansi into the sea.

“Is it time for swimming?” she asked whilst flying overboard. Bungo was busy looking up at the sky so she shrugged and started free-diving. The thing in the sky was getting closer. Now Bungo, who was the only one watching, could see it was a man dressed in black. The man was dangling from a union jack parachute.

As the parachute descended it fell much faster. Suddenly the man landed neatly on the deck. The parachute covered all of the dancing wombles. Bulgaria was busy eating pie and feeling sleepy. Shansi was now deep underwater.

There was Bungo the only one to notice the figure in black. The man removed his balaclava. “Bond!” shouted Bungo. “James Bond!” replied Commander Bond. “Joining our cruise?” asked Bungo. “Sadly not” said a serious looking Bond. “We have a serious problem. M is not M. Or more precisely M was not M.”

Bungo was looking puzzled. Bond explained. “M is my chief at MI6. The man I thought was M was an invader. I killed him.”  Bungo replied slightly confused. “So M is not M, M is missing and is dead?”

“You’ve got it Bungo!” said Bond. “Now that I can’t trust MI6 we need to form a new security agency.”  Bungo smiled and replied. “We have the Avengers! Would you like to join us instead?”  A nod from Bond was enough. Bungo waved the secret wave to Bulgaria and the order was given. “Dive, dive!” shouted Bungo and Bulgaria together.

Bond and all the wombles ran down through the hatch into the yacht. Tomsk pulled the big red lever and the yacht became a submarine. Shansi was a bit surprised at being left behind but just shrugged and headed over to Soton for another holiday.

She reached the shore and headed into a tea shop. A pretty lady in a swimming costume and crazily high heels tottered over to take her order. Shansi ordered a tea cake with apricot jam and a pot of camomile tea. A handsome man took her food and drink out. The man hugged the lady affectionately. Shansi was enjoying her holiday but was slightly confused about the sumo wrestler running by outside.

Inside the Womblemarine Bungo was setting course for Avengers HQ. Bulgaria was snoozing with his face in a bowl of custard. Bond was looking at the rack of weapons. He chose an M16 automatic machine gun and a Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol. The wombles started to choose weapons as he and Bungo talked over their plans.

Meanwhile Batman was being waterboarded by David Vincent whilst the joker threw metal cards into his back. “If you don’t talk we will kill you” said Vincent darkly. Batman replied in a voice even darker. “I have nothing to tell you so it’s you or me!”. At that moment he lashed out sending a metal card flying back at the Joker and crashing his fist into Vincent’s throat.

The punch made a hit on the larynx leaving Vincent gasping for breath. He briefly started to glow. Batman, without his cowel, ran just at the moment that poison was being brought to his cell. He rammed past the invaders with the vials. The poison spilt onto them and they burned up.

The Joker ran with a card lodged in his nose to Vincent and quickly put him in a recharging pod.