The Wandering Wombles by Elisabeth Beresford

Author:Elisabeth Beresford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 9

Nessie

It was at the actual moment that Bungo overtoppled and plunged head first towards the cold, grey waters of Loch Ness that another side of Tobermory’s training proved its worth. Bungo, scarcely without thinking, straightened out and neatly entered the loch in a perfect dive. It caused hardly a ripple and, even as he went down and down, he couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself.

However, as he continued to go down and down at quite an alarming rate, he soon stopped being pleased and pushed his clasped front paws upwards towards the surface. Slowly, slowly, he began to rise, but his overalls were by now very heavy with water they had absorbed and they stopped him going up as fast as he should have done. The result was that by the time Bungo reached the surface again, he was gasping for breath and all he could do was to float with his chest going up and down like a pair of bellows.

‘Goodness, oh dear, oh my,’ gasped Bungo, flat on his back and staring up at the night sky. ‘Oh, it is deep. Oh dear. I can see stars.’

Which was hardly surprising, as there were a great many stars up in the deep blue over his head. However, they were of a different kind from the sort which were exploding in coloured lights before Bungo’s eyes, so he shut them and just let himself drift. The water was also a great deal colder than he usually swam in at Queen’s Mere, but he was young and healthy, with good thick fur, so that didn’t worry him too much.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Bungo to himself, opening his eyes at last. ‘I’ve escaped, that’s what I’ve done. Fancy that.’

But even as he spoke he heard another sound. A soft sort of gulping sound. A kind of splash, splash, splash, gulp sound, which made him roll over on his stomach. Like nearly all the Wombles, he could see in the dark and he soon made out where the noise was coming from. Ahead of him was the dark shape he’d seen before. Quite a large round shape it was too, and behind it were a whole lot of smaller shapes. They were moving rapidly through the water, sending out a series of ripples, and Bungo was so interested – or curious – that he quite forgot to be afraid and began to paddle towards the Thing to get a closer look.

The Thing, whatever-it-was, didn’t seem to notice Bungo until he was quite close, and then it suddenly ducked down into the loch with all its bumps and humps following it.

‘Drat!’ said Bungo crossly. Really the overalls he was wearing were nothing but an awful nuisance, they held him up so; and just when he had been about to discover something really interesting too. So he paddled back towards the shore and clambered out of the overalls and spread them on a bush, and then shook himself very thoroughly and plunged back into the loch.

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