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, sleep would be the only escape.
The Giant Gumble lumbered around, followed by his own huge shadow — for it was night now and the moon was up — and when the Giant saw how big his shadow was he laughed ‘Ho ho ho!’ in his booming giant’s voice. He looked at the snoring ’snikes and knew that he need not be afraid.
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