Rover Takes Over, The Wombles Go Gardening

Rover Takes Over, The Wombles Go Gardening is the sixth chapter in the Wombles Three.

Ding Dong! “Who is it?” asked Cathy. “Steed!” replied Steed from outside. “Don’t be ridiculous” said Cathy. “First of all Steed is John to me and second of all he’s in here!”  “Sorry” said the Steed who was outside. “I guess I’ve revealed myself, I’m just a duplicate robot.” “Joe?”  “No! I’m with WOOF! Joe is with you! I’m Josh!” “Are there any more duplicates?” “Yes. James and Jack. We all begin with J.”  “I noticed that. What did you come for anyway?”  “Well originally I came to make you think I was Steed and lure you into our trap, but you know I’m a duplicate now, so instead…”  “Instead what?”  Josh leapt in and attacked Cathy. Steed got him off of her, but then he attacked him. Steed and Cathy started to run away out the house. Josh chased them, but eventually his battery ran out and he just stopped. By that time they were in Southend on the beach. Cathy suddenly realised this. “Uh, John, do you know the way back?”  “No, do you?”  “No.” “Oh dear.”

“We know the way back if you mean back to London!” said someone in a family of six. “Oh, well, who are you?” asked Cathy. “You don’t know who we are, but we know who you are. We watched you on TV last night when they said Steed was a traitor.” Steed was confused, “They didn’t say I was a traitor last night?”  “Well no but they did a while back and we watched a recording of when Big Ben was copied.”  “That was a while back now” said Steed. “Before we met the wombles”  The two oldest members of the family of six were confused, but the other four new exactly what they were talking about. “Wombles are real?” asked the youngest one. “Of course they are” replied Cathy. “I was second in command of the Wimbledon ones, but then Mrs Peel fired me for no apparent reason. Well actually she did have a reason but it wasn’t a very good one. Anyway you said you knew the way back?”  One of the oldest ones gave them a map. Then the youngest one asked the youngest adult one, “Since when were the avengers real?”

Later, Steed and Cathy arrived back home. For some reason Rover was in there! “Gggggeeeetttt oooouuuuttttt!” he said. “No” said Steed. “This is our house.”  “Nnnnnnooootttt annnnyyyyymmmooorrrreeee!” said Rover. “IIIIIIII wwwaaannnnttttt iiiiiittttt aaaannnnndddd iii’mmm hhhaaaavvvviiiinnnngggg iiiitttt!”  “No you’re not” said Cathy, and poked a hole in him with their machete. He deflated.

“By the way” said Steed. “How did you do all that running?”  Cathy shrugged and said, “Sheer will power I guess.”

Underneath the garden, Venus found a phone in the rocket. “ESP! I need you!” “Who is this?” asked ESP from the other end. “DOV” replied Venus. “Oh and by the way did DOS2 succeed?” “No. He ran out of battery power. I’m at a shop to buy new batteries now.”  “Lucky for you that I don’t need batteries.”  “Of course you don’t Duplicate Of Venus! Venussians are just people from Venus!”

Steed popped down to the cellar to get some champagne. He wandered all round the racks to find the one he wanted. It wasn’t there. “Of course it’s in the extra storage by the rocket!” he said to himself. So he opened the secret door the rocket hangar. As he opened it he heard a weird scream. Down at his feet was Venus! “What? I killed you already! Oh well I’ll have to do it again.”  Steed got a cheap wine (kept in the cellar to fool burglars so they don’t nick the good ones) and smashed Venus on the head. She started to bleed. “Blue?” said Steed. “Blue blood? Venus really is royal!”

After discovering that Venus was not only alive but royal he thought the Queen would like her in the palace. Then he remembered he had just killed her again. So instead he put her in a coffin and buried her.

Rover meanwhile had dragged himself to a stationery shop. Nobody was around so he helped himself to strong glue and tape. It took a while but he fixed himself. Although he looked rather injured now with all the tape strapped around him.

Tara saw Venus’s gravestone. She was confused. “Is she dead or alive?” she asked Steed. “Well we thought she was dead but then she appeared in my rocket alive so I killed her again”  “Oh thankyou” said Tara. “That’s alright” replied Steed. “But apparently she really was royal!”  “Hardly” said a voice from behind. “Her blood was blue because she’s venussian, and she is not Venus!”  “What? You mean the stabbing did kill her?”  “Yes. How would it not? Anyway, apparently venussians can look like anyone.” The person talking was Mrs Peel. She had ESP on a lead. “I was a dog earlier, but I grabbed the whistle and reversed it. Anyway we need to defeat WOOF!”  “Don’t bark at me” said Steed. “I didn’t! WOOF stands for World Order Of Fiends! I’ve already got ESP!”  “Well,” said Steed. “What about the venussians? You never know what someone from another planet can do!”

Down in Paradise DOV was watching them on a big screen. “Fetch Mrs Peel for me please.”  She asked the wombles. “If you are good doggies I won’t kill you!”  She added in a sinister voice. The wombles all run off barking and howling through London. A big grey van started cruising alongside them. It raced ahead of them and blocked the road. Two big men leapt out and threw a large net out over the wombles. They pulled on some ropes and the whole lot of them were bagged. The wombles were dragged into the van. The doors were locked and the van sped off out of London.

The wombles woke up very confused. Bungo was the first to say anything. “I was at the burrow with Mrs Peel then I must have fallen asleep. I think I had a dream about being a dog. I had kennel that was”. Orinoco interrupted now. “Metal, like a dulled silver.”  “Yes it was” replied Bungo “and I was”. Now Confused Uncle Bulgaria interjected. “Chained! Chained to the kennel. Always hearing that song! Them”. Alderney took over. “Bones them bones them dry bones!”. Now they all nodded violently. They stopped remembering the weird dream they shared rapidly though. A new song played in the head of every womble now. “Food Glorious Food! Hot womble and custard. Food Glorious Food. Orinoco with mustard. Wombles are so tasty now. And they serve me so well! Food Glorious Food, wonderful food, wombles are fooood!”

All the wombles started dancing to the song. They grabbed all sorts of gardening tools and materials. Then they all danced out of the greenhouse. The two big men did the same. All of them headed for a tower in field. There was a sheet underneath it. The sheet was moving. There was something alive underneath it!

DOV couldn’t work out where the wombles had gone but there wasn’t time to worry now. She sent out James and Jack to get Steed and Mrs Peel. Jack called from behind Mrs Peel. “Emma will you marry me?”  Mrs Peel was so pleased that she forgot the real Steed was with her. Jack bashed her on the head and dragged her off.

James was trying to drag off Steed but having trouble with his battery. He shouted for help but Jack had already gone back with Mrs Peel. So the only ones to hear were the womblets. They heard Steed’s voice so rushed out to help him. Wombles being wombles they knew the real Steed straight away and helped Steed to carry in James. One of the womblets was a bit like Wellington. He loved to invent things and find out how they worked.

This particular womblet was just about to become working age. “Time to pick a name!” said Steed. The womblet picked the name of his favourite actor on TV. “Patrick MacNee Womble it is then!” said Steed. Patrick left the womblegarten to take over from Tobermory. His first task was to dismantle Jack.

Cathy was bored. “I’ve barely done anything since I married John!” she said. “Oh well nevermind.”  Suddenly Steed came in carrying James. “Oh hello are we ever going to do anything again?” asked Cathy. “Yes” replied Steed. “But it’s a been a bit difficult lately.”  “Yes, I know.” Replied Cathy. “But it has started to get boring”  “Not for me”  “Well that’s because I keep having to stay at home”  “Mm well let’s see is there anything that you can do that you should be doing right now?”  Cathy wasn’t sure. “Perhaps you could try some gooseberry cider” said Steed. “No! I don’t want to be poisoned!”  “It’s not poisonous.”  “Ok…” Cathy hesitantly tried some, then said, “Did you change the recipe?”  “No” replied Steed. “Why?” “Because I like it all of a sudden” “Perhaps everyone who marries me likes it then but how does that work?”  “I’m not sure”

Mrs Peel woke up. She saw DOV. She had the whistle! She blew it and Mrs Peel became Pickles again. POL came in carrying a letter. It was quite smudged on the envelope and the name Pickles was written on it. Pickles grabbed it just as POL recognised the letter. “NO PICKLES! LEAVE!” she shouted. Pickles did leave it. She changed the name to Tara Keel made it into a paper plane then threw it into the wind of Wimbledon Common.

The paper plane flew away from the common, across the north sea, over Scandinavia and landed outside a door in Russia. The door opened and Tara appeared. She saw the paper plane went to pick it up and then it started to snow. The snow was heavy and smudged the writing on the envelope. Now it said POL care of Cairngorm, the MacWomble, the terrible. Tara threw it and it flew off to Scotland. Cairngorm picked it up. “Och a wee peeper plane!” he shouted and threw it. It flew across Scotland to England. When it reached London the paper plane dropped down a hole in the ground onto the lap of POL.