Washy and the Crocodile (3 page)

“So I gather,” said Washy. “It would help if I knew a little bit more about the missing - about the family. What they weigh. How they walk. Who follows whom. Anything that will help me to track them. You know.”

“Do I?” Asked Wombat doubtfully. “I don't think I do.” He brightened up. “I can draw you a picture.” He sketched a circle in the dust, and Washy could see Mrs Wombat and the three little wombats.

“How did you do that?” Gasped Washy.

“How did I do what?” Asked Wombat, who was gazing at his family with a fierce parental pride.

“Draw that circle, and bring your family to life within it.”

“I don't know,” said the wombat. “I just do it. I suppose it's a gift.”

Washy stared at him. To-day was proving to be full of surprises! Why had he never spoken to a wombat before? “You're the father of three little wombats,” he said encouragingly.

“If you say so,” replied the wombat. “I don't usually count that far.”

“Well done!” Said Washy. “Just think! “How did all that happen?” He asked, rather foolishly: and could have kicked himself.

Wombat looked puzzled. “I don't know,” he said, and blushed bright pink. “Maybe...” He did not finish his thought.

Washy tickled him behind the ear, and gave him a walnut.

“You really are a little beast, aren't you?” He said.

“I suppose so,” said the wombat, eating the walnut still in its shell, and snuffling with pleasure.

“What are they called?” Asked Washy. “Your three children, I mean.”

There was a pause, while Wombat scratched himself in bewilderment. “I'm not good with names,” he said at last. “Just give me a moment. While I think. Only...”

Washy watched him.

“Only....” He said kindly.

“I'm not very good at thinking,” said the wombat simply.

Washy waited. He needed a little more information, and he was prepared to wait for it. He was an aborigine, after all. It had already occurred to him that his relationship with his new little friend, although a deep and charming one, and full of sudden depths and unexpected insights, was going to be punctuated by pauses; and he wondered, for one brief and almost wholly unconvincing moment, whether or not Mrs Wombat and the little wombats had actually been captured, or had simply taken the opportunity for some extended conversation with the zoologists.

Wombat's attention had wandered to the mysterious world of the mind. Where was his family now? he thought: and then he found he was thinking about what he had thought. Was that a thought too? He wasn't sure. And if it were-

“Got it,” said Washy, who needed to start his search, and had found a way forward. “We'll call them A, B and C.”

“Good idea.” Wombat had no idea what Washy was talking about, but was prepared to encourage any initiative.

“The children, I mean,” said Washy. “The little wombats. Which one came first?”

“Which what?” Asked Wombat, whose thoughts were now thoroughly confused.

“Which one of your children came first? He or she can be A,” explained Washy; but Wombat was silent.

Washy contemplated him. “You don't know, do you?” He said.

Wombat scratched himself behind the ear with his rear paw, and his little face puckered up. “It's jolly difficult, you know,” he said. “Being a father. There's just so much happening. First of all there's... And then there's the... And as for what happens after that...”

“I know,” said Washy, who didn't. “At least, I can imagine.”

“Can you?” Asked the wombat admiringly. “I can't.”

“But you imagined the picture,” said Washy with equal admiration. “I couldn't have done that.”

“Gosh,” said Wombat. “Did 1?” He took in this information in wonder and amazement, and quite forgot he was a wombat.

***

“I like Wombat,” said Jack, interrupting the story. “He doesn't pretend to be what he isn't.”

“So do 1,” echoed his sister promptly. “Like him, I mean. He knows when to stop.” She paused, meaningfully. “Not like some people I know.”

“She's thinking of her friend Samantha,” Jack added quickly. “She never knows when to stop.” He paused, importantly. Now he really had their attention! “It's probably because of her deprived childhood.”

“Oh, do be quiet, Jack,” said his sister impatiently. You're interrupting the story! How can Washy think, if you're going to talk all the time?”

“Sorry, I'm sure,” said Jack, and pulled her hair, and she cried, but not very much, and the story continued only after he had promised never to do it again, and made a variety of other wild and extravagant promises, including sharing his pocket money and never making fun of her appearance and being really nice to all her friends, including Samantha who had not had a deprived childhood at all...

No, he didn't know where that idea had come from, and no, really no, he had never listened to a strictly private conversation in his whole life, or perhaps just once or twice, possibly, but he would certainly never do so again, and he crossed his heart and was prepared to die!

Really?” Asked Evie.

“Yes, really,” said Jack sincerely. After all, he was a very promising little boy. His teacher had said so on his last report, only she had then gone on to spoil it by adding some quite unnecessary other comments that were must have been meant for someone else. Teachers were so unreliable!

Meanwhile, Uncle Otto was about to go on with his story. What a fine man he was, thought Jack, and how he would like to be Uncle Otto when he grew up! But then, if he did that, what would happen to the real Uncle Otto? This was all much too confusing, and he was beginning to think like Wombat. Oh, dear!

***

Washy had suspended his belief in the idea that Wombat would tell him anything more (said Uncle Otto, who was quite used to Jack's interruptions, and never allowed them to put him off his stride). He (Washy) had found the wombat family tracks, all four of them - sixteen tracks in all, thought Washy, who was privately very proud of his arithmetic, but would never have said so, because it wasn't really an aborigine thing - and was pacing rapidly across the desert, following the trail as if he were receiving directions from his very own Satnav system.

Wombat was following Washy, and squeaking with joy. Now they were getting somewhere, and he wouldn't have to do any more remembering! He was a very, very lucky little wombat, to have made a friend like Washy. He glanced up at the hot sun, and hoped his family were all right, and wondered about the next walnut. Where had Washy found the first one? He hadn't seen it lurking about: and he was much closer to the ground than the tall aborigine.

Washy had very sharp eyes and didn't miss anything, whereas he, Wombat, sometimes found it hard to concentrate. He knew that, because Mrs Wombat often told him so. When she had his attention, that was, which wasn't all the time... because he sometimes found it hard to concentrate.

Had he said that already? He wasn't sure, and decided to ask Washy. Washy would know. Washy was tall, and kind-hearted, and generous, and listened to people, and knew how to read tracks. Washy, in fact, was pretty wonderful all round, and he, Wombat, was very lucky to have met him. How had that happened? He wasn't sure, and would have to ask.

“Washy,” he said, “You know-”

“I know everything,” said Washy, making a joke.

“Gosh,” said Wombat, who had never heard a joke before, and was stunned. So Washy knew everything! Was that good or bad? Wombat didn't know. Washy knew the answer to that, too. Wombat had made a friend who could read tracks and knew the answer to everything! It was wonderful.

***

“Wait,” said Washy. “We're here. Look, there's the camp. The zoologists' camp. And that's where they must be.”

Wombat looked, and sure enough, there was the camp. He hadn't known what a camp was, but now Washy had pointed it out, he knew. A camp was large and fierce looking, and full of strange square shaped animals that glinted in the sun and made a deafening noise, and appeared to have more than one pouch!

It was all very odd, but he didn't need to worry about that, because all he had to do now was to find his family, and he didn't need Washy's help to do that. Washy had found the camp. Now it was up to Wombat.

“We need to be very cautious from now on,” said Washy cautiously, squatting on his heels and sketching out a plan of the camp in the dust, with the point of his spear. “We need to make a plan. That's what the tribal elders say, anyway. And they are the tribal elders,” he concluded, not quite convincingly. “They know.”

“Cautious. Elders. Plan,” repeated Wombat, not really listening, and digging furiously under the heavy metal fence that surrounded the camp with all four paws at the same time. (Only wombats can do this.)

“Cautious,” he said again, his hairy, well-protected, barrel-shaped little body already half-way under the fence. It was clear that the wombat did not set much store by forward planning, and believed in the virtue of action.

“Wombat!” Shouted Washy to the furry marsupial, who had already scrambled free of the other side of the fence, and was charging flat out towards the nearest hut, about fifty yards away. “We need to be careful! We need to follow a plan! This could be very dangerous! Some of these people may have guns!”

“Plan! Guns! Right!” Shouted Wombat, who didn't know what a gun was and couldn't have cared less anyway. He was streaking across the flat terrain like a hairy rocket, and had already knocked down a man who had come out of the hut and pointed a shot-gun towards him and fired it in panic. What chance had an unprepared zoologist against an enraged wombat whose family was in peril?

The shot-gun's pellets passed harmlessly overhead, for Wombat was moving a such a speed that even a marksman could not possibly have hit him; and Wombat had bowled him over and seized the weapon and stuffed its barrel with earth, before you could say Jack Robinson.

Whoever Jack Robinson may have been, said Washy to himself, as he emerged from beneath the fence, trotted over to the hut, and helped the uprooted zoologist to his feet where he tottered and wavered and swayed like a palm-tree in the grip of a tropical storm.

‘What was that?” Gasped the man, who was still in a daze, and had picked up the useless shotgun and was grasping it in shock. “What happened?”

“Congratulations. You've met the Wombat,” Washy told him reassuringly; but he had to admit that the other man didn't look very reassured. Washy didn't like the look of the colour of his skin, which was far too pale. He would probably benefit from the medicine of the wise old woman of the tribe, but there would be plenty of time for that later.

“He gets a bit excited,” the aborigine explained.

“Does he?” Said the white-skinned man; and amazingly, he grinned. “I'd hate to meet him when he's really worked up.” The wombat had that sort of effect on people.

Washy considered him.

“You're very white,” he said.

“I know,” said the other. “I can't help it. I was born this way. With a very white skin. And red hair. And freckles.”

“Gosh,” said Washy, his vocabulary reduced to almost Wombat-like proportions. This was serious. Perhaps the old woman of the tribe wouldn't be able to help, after all. Not if he were born like it. “My name is Washy,” he said. It was the least he could do.

“I know,” said the other man, and Washy started in surprise. “I'm MacNamara. Benjamin MacNamara. Ben.” Offered the other man, smiling, and they shook hands. “I'm Irish,” he added, as if that explained everything.

“Are you?” Asked Washy, who had no idea what he meant. “Never mind. How did you know my name?”

“Mrs Wombat told me,” said the Irishman, smiling.

“You already know Mrs Wombat? To talk to?” Washy was so astonished that his normal calm had deserted him.

“I do,” said Dr MacNamara, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “She's been talking a great deal, actually. A very bright woman. Her husband is a very lucky ... wombat. And boy, can she cook!” He patted his considerable stomach approvingly. “Her rabbit pie is really something!”

“If you say so,” snapped Washy, who had no wish to be reminded of the emptiness within.

“I guess you're an aborigine,” said the white man, tentatively. “If you don't mind my using that term. May I ask why you're here?”

As Washy was about to reply, he saw Wombat emerging from the hut, following his wife and three little wombats. His wife was speaking, and Wombat looked faintly embarrassed. If, as I may have mentioned before (and here Otto stepped outside his own story for a moment, but without losing the thread) a wombat can appear embarrassed. Washy pointed to them with his spear.

“That's why,” said the tall aborigine. “We came to look for them.”

Ben looked at the arrivals, and smiled.