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.
