A tale of two snails

Once upon a time there was a garden

And in the garden, there were lots of snails

all going about their business in a happy sort of way

And all of these snails had a right-hand twist in their shells

I say all, in fact that is a bit of a pork pie

Or a lie, if you like, for there was one unfortunate fellow named George

 

George was a snail who would have liked to have been like the other snails

But alas he was different

His shell wound in the other direction - it wound left

This meant as he was making his way up and down the garden path

Though he nodded his head and would even have liked to greet

Or shake hands with the other snails he was passing

Their heads and bodies seemed to be twisted away from him

If they did notice him at all, it was if they happened to see a passing bird 

over his head and behind him, 

so really it was an accident

 

George so much wanted to get to know the other snails that he went out

Sometimes to their local pub - the other snails called this the Jam Jar

It was where they all hung out, it was quite literally a jam jar

Sometimes they met in the Broken Mug or the Elder hollow

But whenever George tried to join them, he found

He couldn't get in; he had the wrong kind of shell you see

It wound in the wrong direction, they said he just wouldn't fit in

 

Anyway, time passed and the other snails he grew up around they

met other right-handed snails and started families

On a snail date the usual thing is to walk around-

Sorry slither around a bit and maybe climb up a stem or two

To get a better view of the garden, 

Then at a romantic viewing point they would get a little closer

Very close in most circumstances

But it was always important for the snails to ask each other first

If this was what they really wanted and were they aware this may lead to baby snails

And most important of all which one of us should be the boy snail and which the girl?

For you see snails spend their whole lives going around not bothering about

Whether they are a male snail or a female snail

The thought hardly crosses their mind

Not until they find another snail they rather like and would like to know a little better

And then once they have shaken hands and had a chat one of them must pop the question-

Boy or Girl?

So, you see snails are very open minded sorts of creatures.

 

Anyway, George or sometimes known as Georgina, depending on his mood

Had found another snail, let's call him Harold or Haroldina, depending on his mood

And they met outside the Jam Jar as George was sliding away

A little dejectedly

"Hey do you wanna slide with me?" Asked Harold or Haroldina

"Do I? Sure I do, let's get out of here", said George or Georgina

So the pair went off into the undergrowth together.

However, they weren't gone very long when Haroldina came sliding back out

Crying "Get away from me you freak! With your left-handed shell! And left-handed brain!

I don't know what I ever saw in you! Good night!"

George had only tried to shake Harold's hand

But you see he did it in such a strange way

That it would have never worked between them

They just weren't compatible, and Harold had turned away from him quickly.

 

George found the same thing with every other right hander he encountered

Since there were no other left handers,

George was alone in the world of the garden

Not only that but the snail "Garden Preservation Society of Traditional Snail Values and Ethics" 

decided to put up signs with pictures of a left-handed snail on them

And a big cross through it, this meant "No entry to lefties"

And "Keep out Left handers, go back to your own side of the garden!"

 

The problem was George felt he didn't really belong anywhere

He didn't have his own side of the garden

He only had himself. At last, it started raining and he could forget his woes and just hide inside home

And listen to the rain drops falling on his wicked shell

Was it really so bad?

He wished he never had it, or he could re-draw his spiral and straighten it out

And put it back on his back the 'right' way round.

 

But he knew this was useless and he must accept himself.

 

One bright sunny day the Entomologist Doctor Daddy long legs

Walked into the garden to visit his friend Mrs Cook

Who had baked him a nice cake? 

and they sat down outside in the garden and ate the cake and drank their cups of tea

 

All of a sudden Dr Daddy long leg looked down and there

Perched on the end of his shoe was a very unusual and interesting sort of snail

And this snail looked back at the entomologist in an interested sort of way 

"What have we here!?" The Dr said, "a very special snail I think Mrs Cook"

And he plucked George from off the end of his shoe

And put him in his lunch box,

You see George didn't know what to do, as he had never been in a lunch box before

And with someone name Mrs Cook nearby he was worried he might soon become lunch

He had heard of certain French Restaurants who were especially fond of eating snails like him,

Though maybe his bigger French Cousins were the unlucky ones.

 

Anyway, here he was in the lunch box 

when somebody dropped a leaf of lettuce in and he was happy as larry, 

if you could hear a snail laugh for joy then that would have been it

But it is very quiet you know, to our ears.

 

Unbeknownst to George, Dr Daddy long legs had examined his shell and came to a conclusion

"I think Mrs Cook that this snail maybe the only example of a left-handed snail I know of! Do you have any more in your garden?"

"Not that I know of Dr Longlegs, but you are welcome to have a sniff about, I've never really looked in so much detail at them."

"That I will Mrs Cook, thank you."

So Dr Long Legs spent the rest of the afternoon scouring Mr's Cooks garden searching for another instance of a left hander, but he never found one.

 

On the spot he asked Mrs Cook if she minded him keeping George for a while

Well I don't suppose he'll mind, no

So George was whisked away in the lunch box, quite happy to be escaping the garden he no longer felt was his home and where he wasn't welcomed

 

Well perhaps I'll meet some new snails outside of the garden wall, George thought to himself on the train journey back to Longleg's apartment.

 

Back in the garden, the other snails hadn't really noticed George's abduction by the Giant Bipods as they called them, or clumsyfeet sometimes. Only Harold wondered as he hadn't seen him skulking around the Jam jar for a few nights.

 

Back home long legs telephoned his friend and journalist Max Webber, well Max I think I have found it the hapax legomenon, the only example of a left-handed snail, it is like finding a four leafed clover!

Are you sure? Asked Max, well in that case the poor fellow's line will die out with him, as he won't be able to start a family with any other right handers.

Maybe there is a way said Longlegs. What if you put out an advert in your magazine and we called up the other media outlets, newspapers and the news and asked the public to send us their sightings or better still the real McCoy versions of left-handed snails. Then maybe he'd have a chance?

Mm, said Max

He needs a partner and a friend in this world. We must put out our feelers and put out a search letter and scour the whole of Great Britain for other left-handed snails, and if we can find them and invite them, then maybe George can have a family of his own one day. 

I don't like his chances, but perhaps we can make it happen, let's try our best and put an advert up in the paper.

So, they did just that. And once, they'd done it, it was remarkable. It did take several months, but then the first left-handed snail arrived who was very happy to shake hands with George. 

 

And here they were back in Mrs Cook’s garden again, and the entomologist had given them a special cordoned off area where only George and his special friend could stay. Her name was Henrietta, or sometimes Henry, depending on the mood.

 

And the right-handed snails had to look on enviously with their small garden mentality, they talked about them and spread rumours saying oh look at those two, once they start a family it will be the end for us all. What must they be up to?

 

So, George and Henry started a family and then there was a little left hander there as well. In fact, over the course of some years, George had helped make rather a lot of left handers, to the extent the entomologist had to give over half the garden to them.

Even more than this, readers of Max Webber's magazine - Snail Trails Monthly continued to send in their snail mail and to Webber's and Long legs great joy and surprise they received live left-handed snails all safe and alive, but a little shell-shocked from the royal mail snail delivery service.

Although this wasn't a plethora of snails or a panorama, it was in fact enough for George to keep making his own family.

So eventually George wasn't alone in the world anymore. They lived in this section of the garden, but soon they began to wonder what was outside of the garden wall and so George led his family a bit like Moses out of the garden.

So that is just what they did in a great exodus of left-handed snails who crossed over the border and searched out a new world to live in.

Some stayed behind, because they liked the garden. George was one of those who wanted to explore, he'd always wanted to explore his whole life, perhaps because he didn't feel welcome in the right-hand side of the garden. After many years of travelling and starting different families, like starting new businesses up, George returned back to his old garden, and he saw to his great surprise that the left-handed snails and the right-handed snails were living together quite peaceably in harmony. And he felt such great joy when he could see that they could all live together happily, and he went and joined them in the Jam jar, and they had a right old time chatting about things he had seen outside of the garden wall.