The Nose That Nobody Picked

by David Parkin

  Copyright © 2018 David Parkin

  Edited by Maxine Linnell

  Illustrations by Amy Nicholson

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

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  Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

  Tel: (+44) 116 279 2299

  Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277

  Email: books@troubador.co.uk

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  ISBN 978 1789012 651

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  About the Author

  David has dipped his toes into pretty much every art form. A child actor who had a speaking part in the film ‘Hope And Glory’ and a munching part in cake adverts, he showed off in everything from school plays to National Youth Theatre shows, to skits he wrote. As a grown-up artist he has written books, released an album and created an exhibition for galleries.

  He adapted ‘The Nose That Nobody Picked’ into a ‘mucusical’ that toured nationally. ‘The Nose That Nobody Picked’ was also nominated for ‘The James Reckitt Hull Children’s Book Award’.

  He lives in Leicester, has a black cat called Benjie and would love to know what you think about this book. Why not leave a review?

  Photo by Scott Choucino

  For the children in my life.

  For Isla, Joe

  and for Evie.

  Contents

  The Sneeze

  The Sniffling Pocket

  What Do Noses Eat, Anyway?

  Glasses Of Goo

  A Horrible Dark Day

  The Animals Of The Garden

  The Glowing Bush

  The Fantastic Plastic Surgeon

  Doctor Skinner’s Mansion

  Scuttler and Funky Feet

  The Nose Is Mine!

  Full Moon

  Follow Your Trail

  I Must Have That Nose!

  The Old Tree House

  We Meet Again!

  Halloween Night

  The Monster in the Garden

  Screams in the Morning

  Nosenapped

  The Trail Through the Snow

  The Mechanical Beast

  Tears Turn to Ice

  The Laboratory

  There is Always a Choice

  Boogying Around the Laboratory

  Mucus and the Moon

  Fathers and Sons

  The New World

  The Sneeze

  Early one sparkling spring morning, the Postlethwaites’ garden echoed with cries of agony and terror. Past Mrs Postlethwaite’s nice neat lawn, beyond the row of trees, within an overgrown jungle of plants and flowers … something screamed.

  A tangle of vines and branches shook as the terrible shriek ripped through the air. “Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!”

  A boy’s head appeared above a bush and looked around. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and then plunged back into the undergrowth.

  Another cry shattered the silence.

  Christopher Postlethwaite was weeding.

  Christopher didn’t mind weeds in general; they were all welcome to grow on his patch of land … except one.

  “Thistles,” he muttered, and yanked one of the spiky plants from the ground. The ten-year-old let out a blood-curdling yell as he threw it over his shoulder. “AAAAiiiiiieeeeeee!”

  Although he hated thistles, Christopher enjoyed weeding them. He liked to imagine they cried out in pain as he wrenched them from the earth. It made him feel better about all the times they prickled his hands.

  “Yeeeeeaaaaaghhhh!” he roared as the last thistle flew through the air. He took off his gloves and surveyed his patch of garden.

  Christopher was particularly proud of his ornamental displays. Vicious-looking gnomes guarded the entrances to mysterious caves, toy soldiers slowly sank into dark and smelly swamps, and headless dolls with arms outstretched walked through the wilderness, like zombies stuck in an endless game of blind man’s buff…

  “Looking good and not a thistle left standing,” he said. “Not bad for a morning’s work!”

  Then a very strange thing happened.

  He heard a sneeze.

  “Hello?” he said. “Is anyone there?”

  It was a busy spring morning with all the usual activity. The birds were building their nests and the spiders were hanging their webs, all about him the garden was preparing for another year, but Christopher couldn’t see anything that might have sneezed.

  “Must be imagining things…” He brushed himself down and looked at the pile of thistles at his feet. “Right!” he said as he scooped up the weeds. “It’s the compost heap for you lot!”

  “Aaaashooo!”

  Another sneeze. Christopher dropped the thistles and glared around. “Now I definitely heard that!” He stood perfectly still and listened very carefully.

  A faint sound was coming from the other side of his garden. “What is that?” He took a few steps toward the noise, then froze.

  A patch of tall grass was moving in a very odd way, and something – or someone – was wheezing. He had to strain to hear it: a heavy panting sound. With every gasp and huff the grass trembled.

  Christopher felt his heartbeat quicken.

  “Probably just a sick badger … maybe a fox…” he said, but reached down for a gardening fork all the same. There was something about the wheezing that wasn’t quite right. It didn’t sound like any animal he knew. He held out the fork in front of him and took five small steps towards the rustling greenery.

  “It’s okay,” Christopher called. “You can come out. I won’t hurt you.”

  The back of his legs began to tremble as he watched the wheezing grass. He steadied himself, then peered into the foliage. “Right, let’s have a look and…”

  “AAAAASSSHHHOOOOO!”

  Another sneeze, the loudest yet, burst from the grass, blowing dandelion seeds and a wet sticky spray into Christopher’s face.

  “Yeugh!” Blinded by the goo and seeds, Christopher stumbled backwards into a bucket, then forwards onto a rake, which flew up and thwacked him on the nose, which pitched him backwards again. He cluttered over his rockery and fell onto his bottom with a heavy thump.

  The rustling stopped.

  The garden fell silent.

  Christopher rubbed the gunk from his eyes, felt the bump on his forehead and squinted angrily at the grass, which stood perfectly still.

  “Time for a change of plan,” he said as he scrambled onto his hands and knees. “Let’s try this another way.”

  The breathing began again, but quieter this time: a sad sniffling sob. Christopher crawled catlike toward the noise. When he was as close as he dared, he reached out and carefully parted the tall grass.

  Arnold, one of Christopher’s gno
mes, stood amongst the weeds and flowers. Christopher watched him intently.

  If he wasn’t mistaken, Arnold was moving ever so slightly. The gnome was wobbling, just a little, but wobbling none the less.

  Also, Arnold looked weird.

  There was something wrong with his face.

  Christopher peered closer. “What’s going on here?”

  Although Arnold smiled on stiffly as always, he looked different. Damply suckered to the middle of his face, between his two rosy cheeks, was a nose. A very big nose, speckled with ginger freckles. And it wasn’t a nose made out of clay, like the rest of Arnold. This was a real nose, a proper human nose, made out of flesh and bone.

  Christopher’s jaw hit the floor.

  The nose shivered slightly, and a steady flow of snot poured from its nostrils and dripped down Arnold’s red shirt. Arnold grinned bravely on and stared blankly into the distance.

  “This … this can’t be real.” Christopher glanced around. Maybe somebody was playing a trick on him.

  The garden was empty.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked.

  The nose just sniffled and sneezed.

  “You don’t seem very well.”

  Christopher’s head began to spin and his legs felt weak. “Let’s just sit down for a minute and have a think about this…”

  He clumsily cleared himself a space among the plants and flopped down onto a bed of dandelions. A fat bumblebee narrowly missed a squishing. It buzzed angrily into the air, but Christopher didn’t notice. He just sat and stared.

  There was a living nose, right in front of his eyes. He still couldn’t believe it.

  There was only one thing for it. He would have to touch it. If he touched it, he’d know if it was real.

  He held out his hand and realized it was shaking. He took a few big gulps of air and waited until it was steady. Then in one quick movement he reached out and prodded the nose’s right nostril.

  It felt cold and damp, like a frog. The nose twitched and Christopher swiftly pulled back his hand.

  “Yeugh … you feel like you’ve got a fever.”

  Christopher bit his lip and thought for a minute.

  “I can’t just leave you here,” he said. “You’re not going to last long. If the chill doesn’t get you, something else will. A sparrowhawk lives a few gardens away … you’d be a very easy breakfast.”

  The nose just sighed and dribbled more snot down Arnold.

  Christopher regarded the shivering, sorry-looking creature and decided he had no choice; he’d feel too guilty if he did nothing.

  “Come on, let’s take you somewhere warm … are you ready?” He cracked his knuckles, then added under his breath, “I’m not sure I am.”

  Christopher had picked up all sorts of slimy stuff before. He knew the best thing to do was not to think about it. He squeezed his eyes shut, held his breath and then lunged.

  The nose came free from Arnold’s face with a long, wet, sloppy, plop.

  The Sniffling Pocket

  Christopher slowly opened his eyes. The nose lay on his palm. Thick green bubbles popped from its nostrils.

  “There…” he said, feeling quite unwell. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  “Who’re you talking to?”

  Christopher whipped the nose into his pocket and spun round. Standing right behind him was his younger sister Lauren.

  “What have I told you about sneaking up on me?”

  “I didn’t sneak,” said Lauren. “I just came out to see what you were doing.”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  Lauren straightened her glasses and gazed at Christopher with serious eyes. “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”

  Christopher huffed. “I wasn’t talking to anyone…”

  “You were talking though,” said Lauren. “Unless I’m hearing things.”

  “I was … I was talking … I was talking to my plants,” said Christopher. “It helps them grow.”

  “Sun and water help them to grow,” said Lauren slowly. “Talking doesn’t do anything.” She paused. “Unless your plants have ears.”

  Christopher looked at the smirk creeping across his sister’s face, and felt a flash of anger. “What would you know about plants?”

  “Probably about as much as you do!” replied Lauren, raising her voice to match his.

  “Okay then,” said Christopher. “What’s the best way to pick up a nettle?”

  “Explain photosynthesis,” countered Lauren.

  “Where would you plant a snapdragon?”

  “Why did the tomato go red?”

  Christopher floundered. “What?”

  “Because it saw the salad dressing.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Christopher. Then he got the joke. “Oh really hilarious! Haven’t you got anything better to do?”

  Lauren looked into his eyes. “Come on Christopher, I was only teasing.”

  Christopher frowned at his sister. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  There was a loud sniff. Christopher’s pocket twitched.

  “What have you got in there?” asked Lauren.

  “Nothing,” said Christopher, pushing past her.

  “Not another mouse…”

  “No really, it’s nothing,” said Christopher. He needed to get the nose inside, and think about what to do before telling anyone else about it. Especially his annoying sister.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Erm…” The nose sniffed again but louder this time. It sounded like it was building up to a sneeze.

  “To the toilet,” said Christopher. “I’m bursting for a wee!”

  His walk turned into a run as the nose’s huffs and puffs became quicker and more powerful, all the while rising in pitch. He sped over his mother’s nice neat lawn and burst through the back door.

  He dodged around the kitchen table and ran straight into his mum.

  “What’s the rush?” she said. “You nearly knocked me off my feet.”

  “Toilet!” blurted Christopher.

  “Oh right.” Mrs Postlethwaite sidestepped swiftly, and Christopher disappeared up the stairs. “Remember, put the seat down when you’ve finished!”

  Christopher bounded along the landing, burst into the toilet and locked the door behind him.

  “Just in time,” he panted. Right on cue, the nose let rip with a loud, damp sneeze, deep inside his pocket.

  Christopher felt the snot seep through the fabric and onto his skin. He cast a glance downwards and winced.

  “This is going to be messy,” he said. “Very messy.”

  What Do Noses Eat, Anyway?

  Christopher made up a bed for the nose and placed it on his desk. He spent the rest of the afternoon staring at it where it lay, in a shoebox lined with thick football socks and cotton wool. The nose twitched its nostrils and snuffled. In the last ten minutes its breathing had become deep and slow.

  Christopher was sure it had fallen asleep.

  “Do noses dream?” he whispered to himself as he rested his chin against his arms.

  He still couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

  The oddest thing about the nose was its back. Christopher had never seen the back of a nose before, but he was pretty sure they didn’t usually look like this one. Where the nose had stuck onto Arnold, where a normal nose would usually join a face, this one had countless tiny dark red suckers. When Christopher prodded them with a pen they weakly clung to the nib like sea urchins.

  “This is all too strange.”

  All his life Christopher had always wanted something incredible to happen to him. He wanted to be the boy who discovered an alien in his shed, or stumbled upon the last living din
osaur.

  But now he just felt numb. He didn’t know where to begin.

  He put his head to one side and squinted into the shoebox.

  “You’re just a little nose really,” he said. “Alone and sick. Just a little nose…”

  Christopher furrowed his brow. “I say little, but you’re quite a big nose as noses go… but still, right now,” He fluffed the cotton wool, “you seem very small … small and helpless.”

  The nose snorted in its sleep.

  “I guess that makes you a big little nose. No, that’s not quite right … you’re a … little … big nose.”

  Christopher repeated the words louder; they had a nice ring to them.

  “Little … Big … Nose…” A grin spread across his face. “That’s what I’ll call you … Little Big Nose…”

  With that the nose snuffled awake and let rip with three short sharp sneezes.

  “And you even recognise your name,” laughed Christopher. “Brilliant!”

  Encouraged, he decided that it was time for action.

  Little Big Nose wasn’t the first helpless creature that he had looked after. He had nursed back to health many baby frogs and small birds that had strayed too far from their ponds or nests.

  A sick nose couldn’t be that different.

  “Right! Let’s get you well again,” he said, and held a hanky to the nose’s chapped nostrils. “Blow!”

  With a huge puff, Little Big Nose filled the hanky and more besides. Christopher looked down in horror and slowly spread his fingers. His hand looked like it belonged to some strange swamp creature. Green, slimy and webbed.

  “That was pretty disgusting!” He grabbed a T-shirt and wiped off the goo. “But I suppose I’d better get used to it.”

  Christopher threw the snotty shirt over his shoulder and looked hard at the dribbling nose.

  “Okay! Do you think you can manage some dinner?” He jumped to his feet. “What do noses eat anyway? My nose doesn’t eat anything. But you have to be different. Everything that’s alive needs food.”