The Adventures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles. Desmond Digby

the roof of his palace the King bawled: ‘Light the fire and fry the stuffing!’

      Firelighting was the one job the Bottersnikes did themselves. As no one happened to be angry at the time, they grabbed a snoozing ’snike, thrust his head into the fireplace and kicked him and twisted his tail until he was thoroughly enraged. The kindling quickly caught from his red-hot ears and the fire blazed in no time.

      In great excitement, Smiggles woke from a little nap he happened to be taking. ‘Look what I done!’ he shouted. ‘Look what I gone and dreamed!’

      ‘You wasn’t ordered to dream anything, Smiggles,’ the King roared. ‘Sit on his head!’

      ‘But it’s tomato soup!’ Smiggles protested. It was too, a large tureen of it, rich, red and steaming, fresh from the depths of Smig’s sleep. ‘I dreamed it special,’ he added craftily, ‘as a birthday present.’

      The King could not be angry. Everyone loves tomato soup. Yet care had to be taken lest the present vanished before it could be used; so Smiggles was hung up by his tail to stop him going to sleep. From time to time he was given a kick to make certain of his wakefulness, then a pat on the head to show there were no hard feelings.

      Quite pleased with the gift of soup, the King announced, loudly: ‘I will receive the rest of my birthday presents.’

      The Bottersnikes blinked.

      ‘Now,’ the King said. And sat there waiting.

      Once more the tired Gumbles had to comb the rubbish heaps, with the Bottersnikes waddling behind, this time for suitable presents for the King. His Majesty received a whistle, a water pistol, a mousetrap and a quantity of fruit, mostly rotten — the best that could be found at short notice.

      Presently the King stood atop his car and blew a shrill blast on his new whistle. In the grand manner, the King said: ‘Bottersnikes! I declare my Birthday Party open!’ He took a flying leap from the roof of his palace and landed on the table, which tipped under his weight. Most of the Party food slid his way and he grabbed all he could and sat on it. The others rushed in from the sidelines and yelled and fought for what was left — the idea being to grab all that could be grabbed and sit on it, then to try to steal from someone else’s grabbing without getting caught.

      With nothing left to grab, they pounded the iron table with their spoons, scratched their backs with their forks and shouted at each other in a ’snike-like way.

      ‘My pile’s bigger’n Glob’s!’ crowed Chank.

      ‘But I got more stuffin’!’ shouted Glob, and to prove it he hurled his table knife. His aim was bad and the knife stuck quivering in the Weathersnike’s tummy. The weather expert folded his umbrella (he had brought it with him because, he said, you can’t take chances at a Party) and coshed Chank on the head, whereupon Chank groped under the table for a dead fish he’d hidden there and slapped Snorg in the face with it twice. So the Party got going.

      All this time Smiggles was howling to be let down so that he could join in. With a shrill whistle blast the King announced that the soup would be served.

      He served it in his water pistol. Dangerous jets of tomato soup shot everywhere. No one but the Weathersnike had an umbrella. The Bottersnikes found the safest place was under the table with their Gumbles held in front of them, rolled thin.

      When all the soup had been served, or spilled, and Smiggles released, the King thought the Party needed livening up. Most of the Bottersnikes under the table were asleep. So the King started throwing things. The rest of his presents, the rotten fruit, were excellent for livening up the Party. Against a water pistol the Bottersnikes were helpless, but when the King threw rotten fruit they scraped it up and threw it back. The Party went fast and very furious. When the fruit became squashed to pulp they threw Gumbles instead — Gumbles could be thrown again and again.

      Quite soon the King became tired of throwing the Party — he was being hit too often. Blowing a fierce blast on his whistle he yelled: ‘Half time!’

      Smiggles, who was very sore at missing so much of the fun, especially about the tail, took no notice. He hurled his last Gumble — it happened to be Tinkingumble — and scored a direct hit on the King’s nose. This made Smiggles feel much better; less fortunately, it made the King swallow his whistle. It went on whistling inside him each time he took a deep breath.

      The King was exceedingly angry. His ears glowed, his tummy whistled. He unwrapped Tinkingumble from his nose and rolled him in a tight ball to throw back. As he was about to throw, a loud tink sounded, clear as the call of a bellbird.

      ‘Hooray!’ shouted Tinkingumble. ‘It wasn’t lost after all. It only got stuck.’

      ‘Quiet!’ yelled the King. ‘Feep!’ went his tummy.

      Tinkingumble couldn’t help it. The King was squeezing very hard and it made him tink madly, like a cash register in Woolworths — every one a good idea.

      ‘That’s the one what causes all the bother,’ said Chank airily.

      ‘Cleversnike!’ the King snarled, and threw Tinkingumble at him. The tinker bounced and rolled under a bush, where he sat down to sort out all the good ideas that had come unstuck.

      ‘Ar, it don’t matter,’ said Glob, helping himself to Chank’s bottle tops. ‘Clunks are better’n tinks any day.’

      Before this could be proved the King said: ‘I will make a speech. Then we’ll have a sleep. Then we’ll throw some more Party. Grab them Gumbles and pop ’em in the jam tins.’

      During the throwing the jam tins had been scattered far and wide, so to save themselves bother the Bottersnikes squashed the Gumbles together in one big mass in the empty soup tureen, saying they’d sort ’em out in the morning. This was worse for the Gumbles than jam tinning because those beneath could hardly breathe, but there was no help for it and there they had to stay while the King made his birthday speech.

      The speech was long and dull. At first the Bottersnikes sat on the table and listened, pounding with their spoons at the important places, then one by one they dozed off and at last the King put himself to sleep with his own speech. Only Smiggles was awake — he had been hung up again to prevent the disappearance of the soup tureen. Old Smig wasn’t having much of a Party yet, but there was still two and a half days to go.

      The Gumbles knew this too. Inside the soup tureen they were struggling and wriggling to escape, and they had found that they were not stuck to the bottom of the tureen as it was still slippery with thick red soup; but they were stuck fast to each other because the Bottersnikes had jammed them in so tightly.

      ‘If we could only get unstuck from each other,’ they thought, ‘we’d be free!’

      Push and wriggle as they might, they could not pull themselves apart. What they did manage to do was make themselves into one big Gumble — a clumsy creature, but it could walk and move its arms and waggle its huge head, and it could talk in a deep boomy voice … it was a Giant Gumble! Little Willi was stuck on behind, like a tail. He wagged.

      A bit soupy round the edges, the Giant Gumble stepped out of the tureen and loosened up, like a genie just out of a bottle.

      ‘Yikes!’ yelled Smiggles, who could not remember having dreamed a monster.

      The Giant lifted Smiggles down, finding he could do it easily, and when the Giant found how strong he was he laughed ‘Ho ho ho!’ in his deep boomy voice. He put Smiggles in the soup tureen and slapped a lid on; from there, for the dreamer,