Mr Chips

Mr Chips is the tenth chapter in the Wombles Four. If you were looking for the character, see Mister Chips.

Cathy got really fed up and knocked Mrs Peel out with Steed’s hat. “Leave her there!” she shouted. They went outside and found that it was rather foggy. Everything went black. Steed was the first to wake up. He looked around and saw metal walls and a kind of tunnel. He was on his own. “Cathy!” he shouted. A distant reply came “Yes John, John, John, John”. Everything was echoing.

Cathy was in a similar place to Steed as were all the Avengers. Just outside Venus was arming Josh, James and Jack. “Kill them” she said coldly. The robots rushed into SCAR’s huge steel maze as the groggy Avengers tried to work out what was happening.

Steed found a whistle in his pocket. He blew on it. Back at home Mrs Peel got down on all fours and rushed towards the sound with Freckles. Rover followed them with Bungo riding him.

Cathy looked around. She saw a weird yellow man. “Who are you?” she asked. “Mr Chips” replied the weird yellow man. “When Roy Walker stopped presenting Catchphrase I was sent here by the new presenter and replaced. I have been here for years. How long have you been here?”  “A few minutes.” Replied Cathy. “My husband’s in here somewhere. Could you possibly find him for me? You must know your way round here after all those years.”  “I’ll try, but what does he look like?” replied Mr Chips. After Cathy finished describing him, Mr Chips went off to find him.

Later he came back and said, “I found five of him.”  Cathy was confused. “Were they all carrying an umbrella?” asked Cathy. “Pardon?” asked Mr Chips. “Umbrella!” shouted Cathy. Her word echoed. “Ella Ella”. “No four of them had machine guns” replied Mr Chips. “Machine guns uns uns!” said Cathy in horror. Mr Chips ignored her and started acting weirdly.

He wrote ACTION then ripped a piece out. “Say what you see!” he said. “A yellow idiot?” suggested Cathy. “It’s a good answer but it’s not right!” replied Mr Chips and kept on doing his weird thing. “A silly tantrum?” said Cathy. “No!” replied Mr Chips. The silly conversation continued. “Action words?”  “No!”  “A piece of the action?”  Suddenly an Irishman appeared from a door in the wall. “That’s right!” he shouted and hugged Cathy. “Who are you?” asked Cathy whilst pushing him away. “The names Walker, Roy Walker” replied the Irishman.

Steed was being attacked by four duplicates of him, who were the ones with machine guns. Suddenly one of them destroyed the other duplicates. It was Joe! “Joe!” shouted Steed. “Steed!” shouted Joe. They hugged then shared the machine guns. Steed took one and Joe the other three. A weird sound started to echo around them. “It sounds like panting” said Steed. The sound got louder and louder then something launched at him. Joe was just going shoot it when Steed shouted “No don’t!”. It was Freckles! An even weirder panting came towards them now. It was Pickles!

Steed, Joe, Freckles and Pickles suddenly went quiet when a scary roar echoed through the maze. “Is it a bird?” asked Joe. “Is it a plane?” asked Steed. “No! It’s Bungo and Rover!” shouted Bungo.

“You’re not Roy Walker!” said Mr Chips. “Your hair is too dark.”  The man went back through the door and another one came out. “You’re not Roy Walker!” said Mr Chips. “Your smile is too big!”  They left and another came. “You’re not Roy Walker! Your height is too high!”  That one left and finally Roy Walkers stopped coming out from a door. Mr Chips tried to go through the door but it was stuck. Cathy tried it. She couldn’t open it either.

Suddenly Mr Chips went weird again. “Say what you see!”  He painted cars on the door using jam. “A door that won’t open?” guessed Cathy. “It’s a good answer but it’s not right!” replied Mr Chips. Cathy decided to actually try and guess because otherwise Mr Chips would keep being weird. “Traffic Jam?” she said. “That’s right!” said Mr Chips. Another Roy Walker came out from the door. “Not again!” said Cathy, and pushed him back through the door then slammed it shut. Her and Mr Chips decided to try and get out the maze.

As they were running along, they found three Steeds lying on the floor not moving. “Which one of these is the real one?” asked Mr Chips. Cathy wasn’t sure so looked round each of them. The first one wasn’t him. “That’s not my husband! His hat is too tall.”  The next one wasn’t either. “That’s not my husband! His shoes are too pointy.”  The final one. “That’s not my husband! His umbrella is too stripy.”

The real Steed and Joe were looking for Cathy. Three Roy Walkers walked past them. One of them was eating Walkers Crisps. “Does everyone get duplicated now?” asked Joe. “Maybe” replied Steed. Suddenly they heard voices. They followed them back to where Joe had destroyed the other duplicates. Cathy was there with a weird yellow man. “Say what you see!” said Mr Chips and repeated the catchphrases he had done for Cathy. Steed’s guess for the first one was, “A strange man that’s doing weird things”, and the second one, “Gooseberry Jam which I would like some of”. “It’s not a good answer but I’ll let you have both!” said Mr Chips.

“That’s not fair!” said Cathy “I have to get them all right, so should he!”  “There won’t be time for that” said an Irish voice. It was a duplicate of Roy Walker with a knife. Steed clicked his fingers and Mrs Peel stopped being pickles. “Mrs Peel kill that Irish robot please” he asked. “Anything for you Johnsie!” swooned Mrs Peel. She cut off the robot’s head with Steed’s machete. “Not so fast” said another Irish voice. There was an army of Roy Walker duplicates coming out of doors. “Through a door!” shouted Steed. They all rushed through different doors.

Mrs Peel, Cathy, Rover, Bungo, Joe and Freckles came out of the maze into the countryside. A man with a kilt walked by. “Where are we?” asked Bungo. “I just know we’re somewhere in Scotland” replied Cathy.

Steed wasn’t so lucky. He was in a pitch-black room. Venus’ voice boomed out of the darkness. “I’ve got you trapped, All SCAR have clapped, the first test of ten, don’t know when you die, but I sure won’t cry!”

Mr Chips came out in a quiz show place. He couldn’t get away from the buzzer. The voice of Roy Walker boomed into the room, “Say what you see!”  The big screen in front of Mr Chips started playing. Someone that looked a bit like him but without the scarf and a lot smaller with his arms by his eyes. “Where am I?” asked Mr Chips. “In the quiz studio.” Replied the one who looked a bit like him. “What do you want?”  “For you to die.”  “Whose side are you on?”  “That would be telling. We want you to die! You to die! You to die! You to die!”  “Who are you?”  “I am the new Mr Chips!”  “Who is the Catchphrase presenter?”  “You are Mr Six.”  “Eh? I am not a number! I am Mr Chips!”

A light came on in the dark room. Steed was temporarily dazzled. A gun came out of the wall. It moved around to aim at his head. Steed dived to the floor and bullet flew over his head. The gun kept moving and firing As Steed scrambled to the door. He ran through and slipped over. This room was full of banana skins. A hatch started open in the ceiling as the door slammed shut. The hatch was full of thousands of banana skins about to bury Steed!

Quickly he put up his umbrella and banana skated to the next door. He went through and everything was black again. Venus sang again.

“You survived my guns, survived banana skins, but it’s SCAR who are evil, evil always wins, here is the third test, 8 more to survive, SCAR are the v best, you they won’t revive!”

The wombles were trying to push the giant octopus off the TV Studio. All of them apart from Bungo and Wombat were there, because Bungo was somewhere in Scotland, and Wombat had been killed by a giant womblet. Suddenly a train arrived. Bungo came out. Then Rover did. Then Freckles did. Then Mrs Peel did. Then Cathy did. “Have you seen John?” asked both Cathy and Mrs Peel at the same time. “Stop copying me!” said Cathy, and cut the second half of Mrs Peel’s hair off with the machete. Now Mrs Peel was bald!

She kicked Cathy. Cathy knocked her out. Luckily for her at that moment a giant womblet fell on Mrs Peel. Cathy left her there and helped try to get the octopus off of the TV Studio. It was too large for Cathy, Rover, Freckles and the wombles. Somebody else arrived. “Can you help us move this octopus please?” asked Bungo. “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeee” added Rover.

The woman replied rather haughtily. “One does not ask one’s Queen to move one’s giant octopus!”  Cathy heard this and saw red. “But I AM THE QUEEN! So get off your high horse and push off the octopus with us!”  The Queen replied “My doctor has forbade me to push”. “Well pull it then!” said Cathy. “My doctor has forbade me to pull” added the Queen. Cathy knocked her out then threw her out of the way. The Queen landed in a heap just where a giant womblet was about to land. A crater appeared and the Queen disappeared.

Steed blinked as a light came on he was in giant glass tank. Water started to gush in! He opened his umbrella and started turning the handle. It got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, then he used it as a boat. He got out the hole where the water was coming in from. Unfortunately he couldn’t work out how to make his umbrella small again. So then he was carrying round a giant umbrella.