You Are The New Number Two

You Are The New Number Two is the ninth chapter in the Wombles One.

“Who are you?” Cathy raged at him. “I won’t tell you anything!” he said “Want some more forgetful darts?”  “I don’t know” replied Cathy. “Well here they are just in case you do!” he said whlist laughing. With that he fired another round into her. Cathy collapsed to the floor. Peter went out hunting. Hunting for wombles!

The only thing that Cathy remembered was something about a burrow and something about orange dwarves called… “Was it wambles?” She somehow managed to find her way to the burrow and came right up to a door with a notice on it that said, “GUBCWO”. “Gubcwo?” read Cathy. “What on earth does that mean?”  “It means,” said Great Uncle Bulgaria, opening the door and letting her in. “Great Uncle Bulgaria Coburg Womble’s Office.”  “Oh.” Said Cathy, sitting down. The chair gave her a vision of a man being tied up on a chair a bit like it, and her kicking him a lot. She couldn’t remember his face, but remembered his clothing and his name. “Peter Peel!” she gasped. “What about him?” asked Great Uncle Bulgaria. “I remembered him!” replied Cathy. “Oh.” Said Great Uncle Bulgaria. “When did you forget about him?”  “I can’t remember.” Replied Cathy. “Oh.” Repeated Great Uncle Bulgaria. “Anyway, do you have any reports?”  “Reports?”  “About Peter Peel. You were questioning him.”  “Yes, I vaguely remember that.”  “Well do you?”  “Do I what?” “Have any reports?”  “Yes, I think I remember finding out that he didn’t kill any wombles at all.”  “Oh, well then, we better re-arrest the original suspects.”  “Who are the original suspects?”  “Bungo, Shansi, and China. Unfortunately we’ll have to go out and find Bungo and Shansi, but China is inside luckily. And we’ll also have to add a new suspect.”  “Why?”  “Well, I forgot to tell anyone, but recently I was just going to tell Madame Cholet that it was dinner time, but she wasn’t responding, so I opened the door of her bedroom, and found her dead!”  “Yikes!” “Yikes indeed. And there is only one womble who has been in and out of Madame Cholet’s room.”  “And who is that?” “That, dear human THAT is Tobermory.”  “Oh! You’ll have to get a new number 2 then!”  “Yes, very true, Bungo’s under house arrest and has a silly name, Shansi’s under house arrest, Orinoco’s dead, and would’ve been too lazy and greedy anyway, Madame Cholet’s dead, Alderney’s dead and would’ve encouraged all the wombles to be rebels anyway, Wellington’s always too busy with his inventions, and Tomsk is dead and wouldn’t do anything but play golf anyway!”  “And Miss Adelaide is in the womblegarten all the time, and all the others are members of the womblegarten!” interrupted Cathy. “No they’re not.” “Yes they are.”  “What about Cousin Botany?”  “He’s missing.”  “Yes, I suppose so. But that’s all the wombles of Wimbledon!”  Suddenly a strange idea entered his mind. “We could try it, I suppose, it would be a bit weird, but it would make very big womble history!”  “What would?”  “We could have a human as second-in-command.”  “Um… ok, but who?”  “You.”  “Me?” “Yes, you.”  “Um… ok?”  And that was that.

A few hours later, Super Womble knocked on the workshop door. “Wombat?” he called. “Are you in there?”  “No he’s not, he’s a suspect now, but you can come in!” replied Cathy. Wellington was sure that the voice he was hearing wasn’t the voice of a womble, so opened the door a crack to look who it was. He was very surprised to see Cathy sitting on Tobermory’s workbench, so asked what she wanted, assuming that she was up to something. “Information.”  Replied Cathy. “I don’t know what to do with anything.”  Wellington knew he had seen her somewhere, but couldn’t remember who she was, so asked, “Who are you?”  “The new number two.” Replied Cathy. “Where is number one?” asked Wellington. “Telling off a womble who is six years old.” Replied Cathy, then suddenly forgot who the new suspect was.

She went to see Great Uncle Bulgaria. “Great Uncle Bulgaria, I…” she began. “Now that you are second in command, you may refer to me as simply Bulgaria.” Interrupted Great Uncle Bulgaria. “Ok Bulgaria, but I can’t seem to remember who the new suspect is.”  “Well it’s Tobermory.”  “Tober who? Oh, the one who pretends to be Steed?”  “Pretends to be who? Do you have a horse then?”  “Um, what did I say? Who am I?” asked Cathy all of a sudden, as Peter Peel had just shot a forgetful dart down into the burrow, then ran away. Cathy heard his footsteps, so went out the burrow and looked around. There was no one in site, so she headed off into the middle of London.

Eventually she saw a man wearing a bowler hat and a suit carrying an umbrella. She recognised the outfit as Peter’s, but couldn’t see their face as they were facing away from her, but then again, she couldn’t remember Peter’s face anyway. So she went up and tapped them on the shoulder, then punched him in the face when he turned around. “Ow!” he said. “I know you don’t like me Mrs Gale, but isn’t that going a bit too far?”  It wasn’t Peter. It was Steed. But unfortunately Cathy didn’t know this, so kept punching him again and again and again and again, until she knocked him unconscious. Then she carried him away to her house, just before Miss Peel, who was standing next to him, turned around. “Steed?” she called. “Steed, where are you?”

When Steed woke up, he found himself tied to a conveyer belt, about to be sawed in half by a circular saw. He didn’t remember being taken, because the punches had been very hard and had wiped some of his memory. He wriggled around, and when he turned his head to the left, he saw Cathy sitting on a chair with a smile on her face. “Mrs Gale, save me!” he spat desperately. “Why would I save you when I’m the one who captured you?” asked Cathy. “Excuse me?”  replied Steed, and then felt even more worried.

The conveyor belt was moving slowly. As Steed realised it was so slow his luck seemed to be changing. “Don’t look so pleased.” Cathy purred “It is slow to prolong the agony you silly hat wearing, smug, know it all!”  Steed was trying the tricks he had recently learned in Advanced Escapology for Idiots Or Unlucky agents (AEIOU). He wriggled one hand free as the conversation with Cathy continued. She didn’t notice him grab a forgetful dart from her arm as the conveyor belt moved him level with her. He waited for his chance then threw at her. It went into Cathy’s leg. “Ouch!” she shouted and was about to glare when she forgot.

“Hello” she said “why are you about to be sawed in two?”  Steed replied sneakily “I’m helping you practice being a hero.”  “Oh” replied Cathy as she switched off the machinery. There was only a little of the drug left in the dart so Steed ran away. Cathy realised too late. “Peter!” she shouted and was going to chase him down but as she reached the street a large black car hit her. She collapsed and the driver who looked like a womble shouted. “I’m Wombat!”

Somebody shouted back. “I’m Steed, John Steed”  “Need a ride?” asked Wombat. “Very decent of you old man!” replied Steed as he hopped into the Wombatmobile. Wombat asked him “Have you seen Well, I mean Super Womble?”  Steed shook his head and asked Wombat to stop as they reached Miss Peel. He got out, tipped his hat and headed to the Bentley with Emma.