OK, so it's not so very different, you might say, from what you already knew. A lot of words (14, 096 of ’em) to little purpose. Naturally, you are entitled to your opinion, if it is your opinion, though I do sincerely hope that in this particular instance you may just possibly be just ever so slightly…
WRONG!
Where was I? Rosalind. Rosalind waved her brother out of sight, giving up, it seems, on her ambition to attend the horticultural show, and drove the cart with Horace (he knew the way all on his own) to her friend's house. And stayed the night.
I sat in the barn. Closed and locked the diary. Heard an intriguing ‘Plop!’ from the tin bath. Went to investigate. It was Percy's ‘Frog Island’, a smudgy label on the side said as much. An arrangement of logs with a covering of moss and twigs. An unlikely collection of plastic cowboys, dinosaurs, bits of Lego. A tiny home-made matchbox boat tied up at one end. A wind-up bath-toy duck. And in the water and on the island a flurry of little frogs. Full of their own concerns, I have no doubt. That duck for one.
I stepped outside, blinking in the brighter light. Mrs McFirkin was somewhere not far off with a chainsaw. I made my way to the house.
[13] Errors and Omissions
Truth is truth, be it written in the sky or on a Weetabix box.
George Henry Knott
We think we know and we don't know. We think we don't know and we do. I think… I sort of half maybe or three-quarters nearly perhaps know… something. How about you? Do you at least know more than you did, would you say? I am not expecting you to be enlightened. Lies, confusion and doubt are all around us. The Boy, the Wolf, the Sheep and the Lettuce, what is it, after all? Just my little ‘clearing in the forest’. I have done what I can.
It is a few days later, by the way, late afternoon. I am back in my beloved garden, in the deckchair taking my ease. This garden of mine, this time of year, is like a green cup from which I hardly can see out. I have a barbecue going. Company expected. Where was I?
Yes… done what I can. Look at it this way. The World, the Universe, or at least that bit of it that we have knowledge or an inkling of, is surely (or possibly) composed of time and space, of course, and STUFF. And all the…grass, and all the roses, deckchairs and wine bottles, boats and bridges, mushrooms and men with wriggling sacks, and the sacks likewise, and the ‘wriggling’, and tigers and trolls (except there are no trolls), wood smoke, twittering bats, baby frogs, baby carrots, and lettuces, sheep and wolves, and golden afternoon light, and me and you ARE the STUFF. And all of us forever on the move, like a million, billion billiard balls. No wonder it's a puzzle. ‘No disgrace’*, is it? Not to solve it, I mean.
Which brings me to some errors and omissions. The promised map, you'll note, has not materialized. It did not seem useful when I thought about it. The talk with Auntie Joyce did take place, but wasn't interesting so I left it out. Sorry, Auntie! I never finished telling you the Lettuce's version, and never will. The offer of cups of tea, (see page 52) was, I have since realized, unwise. This book, my publisher advises, could easily become a bestseller, 300,000 copies, say, which even at 20p a cup could cost me… £60,000. So, offer withdrawn.
Anyway, there's a few (errors and omissions). Should you spot any more, as I fear you may, please DON'T write to me. I am happy IN ADVANCE to take your word (without your word, so to speak) and withdraw it, whatever it is… unreservedly.
Which brings me to… hang on, I've just remembered, the biggest omission of the lot. How could I have (nearly) forgotten it?
Multiverses
The idea is simple enough, once you have the Sheep explain it to you. We've all heard of the Universe, right? (See above.) Well, the theory is, so the Sheep says, perhaps there could be more than one, loads of 'em, in fact, Multiverses, i.e. one for each version of the truth. So in one particular time and place with one particular load of stuff, Percy did build a raft, the Wolf did get to eat everybody, the Lettuce was Queen of the May or whatever. Truth, in other words, is just another variable and all argument or INVESTIGATION of any sort whatsoever is unnecessary.
I cannot say I like the sound of this. Where would it end? The donkey (Horace) could be a mule, the frogs toads, day night. In some universe or other the sky is always starry (the sun never rises). And the Wolf or Rosalind wrote this book and I'm a bit player. Or you wrote it, and I am reading it… NOW.
So, anyway: Multiverses, that was the big omission, really big. Except, of course, that now, in this universe, it gets to be included. Ha!
Well, there we are, time for farewells, I think. Thank you for your kind attention. Sorry if I YELLED a bit in places, or got worked up, or even, heaven forbid, was RUDE. Time to write, ‘The End’. Time to get a move on with this barbecue. I should start cooking soon. Bring things out from the kitchen. Put my apron on. Prepare to greet my… Oh, look, here she is now – green dress, straw hat, glad smile – opening the garden gate and calling my name.
[14] The Spider in the Rose
And who are you? Said he.
Don't puzzle me, said I.
Laurence Sterne
It is late. Lucy, my saviour with a shotgun, has gone home. She really is, I am discovering, a most delightful companion: good-humoured, capable, kind. How lucky I was to meet her. And I owe it all to a wolf. Hm.
Where was I? Yes… it's late. Lucy has gone and the barbecue is cooling down. Glimmers of light still flicker in the garden, stars shine and I am here transfixed… watching spiders.
An hour ago while clearing up, I came upon this little mass of spiders' eggs just on the point of hatching. Out they came and off they went, amazing specks of curious and puzzled life, hundreds of 'em. And the breeze caught some and blew them around. Others got no further than the flower pot they emerged in. And now here's one of them, ascending step by step (times eight!) the stem of a rose, overhanging my deckchair, overhanging my head. A rose is not a simple flower, you know. Its convolutions are remarkable, like Russian dolls (a rose in a rose in a rose). And up and up and into it, at last the tiny spiderling proceeds. Its near-invisible legs negotiating the hairy surface of a petal. Over the ragged edge of the rose and out of sight. Its investigations, you might say, have just begun. What will it find?
[15] Down the Road
I'm going into the next room to pack my bags and you'll never see me again, except at mealtimes and odd moments during the day and night for a cup of tea and a bun.
Ionesco
Every good book, so we're told, has a beginning, a middle and an end. In which case this must be a very good book. It has two beginnings, a multitude of middles and no end of ends. Here's another.*
The trouble is, the previous endings – roses and romance and all that – simply won't do. I should've remembered. Children have no patience with that sort of thing. I was a child myself once (preposterous thought). Watching old cowboy or pirate movies, groaning whenever the hero broke off from slaughter to embrace – Oh, yuck! – the heroine. Human affection came a poor third to mayhem and murder for me in those days, and kissing was nowhere.
Incidentally, if it's action you're looking for in a book, watch out for the works of Wayne Duane McBane. Yes, in recent years the Wolf has taken up his pen; thrillers and courtroom dramas mostly. The conclusion of his first (‘Reader, I ate him!’) was particularly admired. I have not read them myself. The Sheep, too, has entered the pages of a book, another book, that is: an account of her remarkable origins. Turns out she was a scientific marvel, a CLONE in fact. Apparently, there's not just one of her now, but dozens. Pity the poor sheepdogs – Ha!
And now I'll stop, I really will. Mrs Smout (guess who?) is waving at me from the garden. We're off to take the baby for a stroll; a walk in the Forest. Tea at the McFirkins’, perhaps…
P.S. If I think of anything else, I'll put it in a SEQUEL. Goodbye, goodbye! EXIT.
*Or a rigmarole perhaps
* I'm an occasional SHOUTER.
*
*Too many brackets too – Oh, dear.†
> †Too many ‘toos' – aaargh!
*The sun declines yet light still glows
Below the hill, inside the rose.
Sarah Osgood Grover
*
*
*
* Actually, if we're being absolutely accurate, I am writing ‘I am reading’, and you are reading ‘I am writing’. Lovely – I like that.
*
*Yes, I know, I've overdone it here. The thing is, I do love a good quote and was pretty desperate to shoe horn all three of 'em in somewhere, and was running out of chapters. I especially like the William Strunk, it's from a really useful little book on English grammar and so forth, The Elements of style. I read it all the time. And Strunk, of course, is such an ace name, wouldn't you say? Better even than Smout.
I should stop. This will make a funny-looking page; hardly room for the story, which, I've just remembered, is teetering on the brink. Suspense is in the air, and I am, well… I am IN THE WAY. Sorry about that. Exit.
*And come at last to that glad place
Where puzzlement is no disgrace,
And mind it not, nor think it odd
(A riddle may confound a God!)
Sarah Osgood Grover
* I know, I'm overdoing it again and should STOP – and I will, I will!
The Boy, the Wolf, the Sheep and the Lettuce Page 5