Once there was a young wombat named Benson, who lived in a warm, cosy wombat hole with his mother and his two aunts, Lillibet and Moss.
Benson was lying on his back in the sun, in the sunny spot just outside the front door when he heard a kind of scritching noise. He opened his eyes and there were two bush turkeys scratching around in Aunt Lillibet’s garden.
He got up and went over. “Hi,” he said. “What are you two doing?”
The bush turkeys stopped and looked at him. “You’re not him,” they said, and went back to scratching. Two of Aunt Lillibet’s carrot seedlings came out of the ground and went flying.
“I’m not who?” Benson said. He watched them dig up a baby potato. “You’d better stop doing that,” he said, “or Aunt Lillibet will be mad.”
“Is she the one?” the first turkey said.
“What one?” Benson said.
One of the turkeys said, “I’m Ken and this is Kenny. We want to see the big wombat.”
“Yeah,” said the other turkey. “We want to see the big wombat.” The turkeys went back to scratching. Another carrot seedling and a young tomato plant flew out of the ground.
“What big wombat?” Benson said. “Mr Fenn?”
“No, not him,” said one of the turkeys, Ken or Kenny. They both looked exactly the same and Benson couldn’t tell them apart.
The other turkey said, “We saw this sign up on the road that had a picture of a wombat with “1 km” underneath. That’s a really big wombat, one kilometre long. We want to see the big wombat.”
Benson thought. “I think that means that there are wombats for the next one kilometre,” he said.
Ken and Kenny looked around. “Do you see that many wombats?” one of them said.
The other one said, “Nah, just this one. That can’t be right.”
The first turkey, Kenny or Ken, said, “No, show us the really big wombat, the one that’s one kilometre long.”
Benson said, “But there isn’t one.”
The turkeys paid no attention to him. They kept scratching around in the garden. They dug up a whole row of leeks and Aunt Lillibet’s favourite rhubarb plant.
Benson went inside and got Aunt Lillibet.
Aunt Lillibet got the broom and went outside. “Shoo, you turkeys!” she said. “Get out of my garden!”
The turkeys shooed, but not very far. When Aunt Lillibet whooshed Ken, or Kenny, with the broom, Kenny, or Ken, scooted around behind her and went back to the garden. When she swished Kenny, or Ken, the other one nipped back into the garden.
“We’re not leaving until we see the big wombat,” Ken said, or Kenny.
“All right, then,” said Aunt Lillibet. The turkeys stopped scratching and waited.
Aunt Lillibet said, “Benson, you go and wake up the big wombat, but be careful. You know how she gets cranky when you wake her up.”
Ken and Kenny got closer together, feeling a bit worried.
Aunt Lillibet whispered to Benson. Benson nodded and scampered off.
Aunt Lillibet said to Ken and Kenny, “Come on, then, but you’d better not get too close. She doesn’t like turkeys, and she hates anyone messing up her garden.”
The turkeys followed her around to the back door of the wombat hole. “See?” said Aunt Lillibet. Aunt Moss’s back legs were sticking out of the back door, waggling. All the turkeys could see was the back half of a wombat.
“Now come up to the other end,” Aunt Lillibet said. The turkeys followed her up to the front door. Benson’s mother put her head out and growled in a very fierce voice, “Who’s been digging up my garden?”
The turkeys looked at Aunt Moss’s legs way down at the back door, and Benson’s mother’s head, all the way up at the front door, and they grabbed each other in fright.
“That’s the biggest wombat I’ve ever seen!” said Ken, or Kenny.
“Let’s get out of here!” said Kenny, or Ken, and they ran off as fast as they could go.
A Wombat Named Benson 