Aristotle's Nostril

by Morris Gleitzman

  But he knew he couldn’t.

  Not with history about to repeat itself. Not with a huge battle about to take place at the back of the nostrils. Not with two vast armies about to trample on the sneeze cells. Not with every nose germ in the human about to be blasted out of the nose to oblivion and probable death.

  Including Blob.

  Aristotle went determined-shaped.

  Luckily he had another plan.

  It’s not going to be easy to pull off, he thought grimly, and some would probably say it’s very silly, but that’s not going to stop me trying.

  The more Blob saw of the vast royal army as it marched towards the back of the nostril, the more sick and anxious he felt.

  He knew he couldn’t see all of it, which made him feel even worse.

  It wasn’t easy for a germ to see a whole army when it was that vast. And when he was tied up and being carried over the shoulder of a commando.

  ‘One million two hundred and eight thousand,’ Blob murmured to himself, ‘six hundred and fifty-three . . . six hundred and fifty-four . . . six hundred and fifty-five . . .’

  He stopped counting.

  This was pointless.

  The army was vast and it was heading for the tunnel at the end of the nostril. Once it was through the tunnel it would be all over the sneeze cell paddock and then everything would be all over.

  Unless, thought Blob desperately, I can stop this war.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he yelled. ‘Your majesty.’

  The king, who was being carried nearby on the backs of several royal attendants, glared down at Blob.

  ‘What?’ he said tersely.

  Blob could see that the king was stressed. War probably did that to a monarch. And there was a ninety-nine point nine percent chance his majesty was still upset that his birthday had been forgotten. He’d been muttering about it the whole march.

  Blob pressed on anyway.

  ‘Your majesty,’ he said. ‘Do you have a Litter Prohibition Act in this nostril?’

  ‘Of course we do,’ said the king.

  ‘And a Tidy Nostril Enforcement Bill,’ added the senior royal adviser, who was being carried alongside the king.

  ‘I thought so,’ said Blob. ‘This being such a tidy and law-abiding nostril.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the king.

  ‘You do realise,’ said Blob, ‘that this war is going to break both those laws. It’s going to create a huge amount of litter. You know, food wrappers, drink containers, body parts.’

  The king and the senior adviser didn’t reply.

  It’s working, thought Blob.

  The senior adviser gave a very big sigh.

  Perhaps not, thought Blob

  ‘For us,’ said the senior adviser, ‘this war is a major clean up. Those germs in the other nostril who hate peace and freedom, we’re cleaning them out.’

  ‘Well put,’ said the king.

  Blob flopped back on the commando’s shoulder, defeated.

  All he could hope now was that Aristotle had managed to get very far away from the awfulness that was about to happen.

  Aristotle was almost ready to go back into the nostril.

  Getting everything together hadn’t been easy.

  The hardest was finding the talcum powder and playground dust for the cake. He’d searched everywhere around the nostril entrance and had almost given up, but then he’d found some lodged in a crevice in the nostril wall near the abandoned defence force border security post.

  Making the cake was hard too.

  The kitchen facilities at the border security post were pathetic. The guards were all on their way to the battle, so Aristotle couldn’t even ask them if they had a cake whisk.

  But now it was done.

  Fluffy skin-flake icing.

  Carbon molecule candles.

  Time to go.

  Aristotle turned to face the cool breeze blowing into the nostril. He looked up. And saw exactly what he hoped he’d see.

  Butterfly bellybutton fluff, floating into the nostril on the wind.

  He reached up and grabbed onto it.

  All he could hope now was that he wasn’t too late.

  16

  Blob couldn’t bear to look.

  The two huge armies were assembling. Each was at its own end of the vast paddock. Each was well away from the sneeze craters.

  For now.

  OK, he was looking.

  He couldn’t bear not to.

  Because any moment, Blob knew, the king was going to give the order to attack, and millions of germs were going to charge, and then shortly after that they’d start falling into the sneeze craters, and then it would all be over.

  For ever.

  OK, there was another possibility. That the prime minister would give the order to attack from the other end first.

  Probably a fifty percent chance of that, thought Blob grimly. But still with a hundred percent certainty of us all being sneezed to death.

  The one good thing was that he couldn’t see any sign of Aristotle up the other end.

  What a relief.

  Aristotle must have got away.

  Blob wondered if he should say something to the commando carrying him. It might be the last nice thing he ever had a chance to say to anyone.

  He tapped the commando on the shoulder.

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  The commando grunted.

  Oh well, thought Blob, a grunt’s better than nothing.

  He wished he could hear Aristotle’s voice one more time. Aristotle wouldn’t sign off with a grunt. A joke, more like. Or a song. Or a silly idea for making someone happy.

  Suddenly Blob found himself wishing that his life had been different. That he’d been more like Aristotle. That he hadn’t spent quite so much time counting things and being neat and tidy and worrying about rules and regulations and whether his legs were all the same length.

  I wish I’d been a bit more relaxed and easy-going, he thought sadly as he gazed upwards past the commando’s top bits. Like that butterfly bellybutton fluff up there.

  Blob gazed up at the wisp of fluff blowing on the breeze high above.

  That fluff, he thought, doesn’t care how many troops there are down here. Six million four hundred thousand two hundred and eleven. Six million four hundred thousand two hundred and twelve.

  It couldn’t give a fluff.

  It’s just content to float and be happy.

  Then Blob saw that even butterfly bellybutton fluff can have things weighing it down sometimes.

  Responsibilities.

  Other things.

  Blob stared.

  Was that a germ hanging off that fluff? Clinging onto it desperately? Carrying a cake?

  It was.

  And not, Blob saw as he went stunned-shaped, just any germ.

  Aristotle was having trouble steering the fluff.

  He’d worked out how to turn right and left by leaning all his body weight one way or the other. That was going well as long as he didn’t lean too far and drop the cake.

  The problem was going to be steering the fluff downwards.

  Now that Aristotle had emerged from the wind tunnel at the end of the nostril, he could see the armies massed below at either end of the sneeze-cell paddock.

  He could see the prime minister at one end.

  He could see the king at the other end.

  He knew exactly where he needed to go.

  Down.

  But how?

  Suddenly Aristotle had an idea. He knew if Blob was up here with him, Blob could tell him how many fluff strands were keeping him up. Several million, probably, each with air molecules floating around it.

  Blob would also tell him something else.

  Ninety percent less strands, ninety percent less up.

  Thanks Blob, thought Aristotle.

  He kept gripping the cake with a couple of arms and kept hanging on to the fluff with a couple more. With the rest o
f his arms and all of his legs he wrapped himself around the fluff strands and squeezed tight.

  The fluff strands bunched and lost some of their floatiness.

  Aristotle waited until he was directly above the king, then squeezed even harder.

  The fluff started to descend.

  Yes, thought Aristotle.

  The fluff started to plummet.

  Oh no, thought Aristotle.

  It wasn’t so bad. Aristotle hit the ground hard, but the two other things he’d been hoping for were fine. He hit the ground directly in front of the king, and he didn’t smash the cake.

  Aristotle stood up and faced the king. He knew he had to be quick. The king’s troops were moving towards him. They were assuming it was an aerial attack.

  Which in a way, thought Aristotle, it is.

  ‘Happy birthday, your majesty,’ he said in the loudest voice he could. ‘I bring you this birthday cake from our nostril, with our best wishes for many happy returns, and our apologies for the misunderstanding that has brought us all here.’

  The king was staring at Aristotle, dumbfounded.

  Then he went grin-shaped.

  ‘At last,’ said the king. ‘Someone has not only remembered my birthday, they’ve done it seven minutes early.’

  He gave a meaningful stare at his advisers and consultants and attendants, who all looked ill and like they wished they weren’t there.

  Aristotle glanced anxiously at the king’s troops. And was relieved to see the king signalling to them to hold back.

  ‘Sorry we missed your last birthday,’ said Aristotle. ‘Fifty-three minutes ago our nostril didn’t know your nostril existed, so we couldn’t give anything to you then.’

  Aristotle held the cake out to the king.

  The king beamed at it.

  Aristotle started singing as loudly as he could.

  ‘Happy birthday to you . . .’

  For a while he was singing on his own. Then another voice joined in. A voice that Aristotle recognised.

  Blob.

  He looked around and saw his brother, tied up and flopped over the shoulder of a commando, singing fit to bust.

  Blob saw him and they both went grin-shaped.

  Then the whole world started to tremble.

  The wind got stronger. The fleshy ridges across the paddock shook with terrible spasms. Troops were being thrown to the ground. Millions of voices started screaming. Millions of arms and legs were wrapped protectively over millions of trembling outer membranes.

  Aristotle looked around in panic.

  And saw that the butterfly bellybutton fluff had tumbled into one of the sneeze craters.

  Aristotle stuffed the cake into the king’s hands.

  He danced and skipped desperately between the craters until he got to the one with the fluff ball in it. He grabbed the fluff ball and dragged it off the quivering skin membrane. He smothered the fluff ball with his body and waited, trembling, for the sneeze that would fling him and all the other nose germs into oblivion and make history repeat itself.

  But there was no sneeze.

  The trembling spasms slowly subsided.

  The wind dropped.

  And from over near the king, Aristotle heard a single voice still singing.

  ‘Happy birthday to you . . .’

  Good on you, Blob, thought Aristotle as he went carefully to the edge of the paddock.

  He joined in, but this time he and Blob weren’t singing alone for long. The king’s advisers and consultants and attendants joined in, then the king’s troops, and then, down the other end, the prime minister’s troops.

  The great open paddock, the meeting place of the two nostrils, rang with millions of trembling grateful voices.

  And, as Aristotle looked around and saw that every germ in the place was relief-shaped, he had the strangest but most wonderful feeling.

  The germs weren’t just singing in praise of the king’s birthday, they were also singing in gratitude to Aristotle and Blob.

  17

  Blob’s whole body went grin-shaped as he thought about the very good thing he was about to do.

  He peered around the crowded nostril.

  The other germs were all busy. Some were giving each other piggybacks. Others were sliding down nose-hair highways. Or bouncing on mucus trampolines. Or welcoming tourists and exchange students from the other nostril.

  There was Aristotle’s friend the tummy germ, giving the government ministers a history lesson.

  This was the perfect moment.

  Blob grabbed his brother and dragged him behind a chunk of broken-off nose hair.

  ‘Hey,’ complained Aristotle. ‘Don’t. I’m trying to teach the king how to play table tennis. I think he’s wishing he hadn’t asked for a table-tennis table for his birthday. The prime minister’s beating him eight hundred and forty-seven to nil.’

  Blob knew it probably wasn’t as many as that, but he didn’t care. He could see that the senior royal adviser had taken over the lesson and was showing the king how to do backhand. Which wasn’t bad considering the adviser had several little kids clambering over his bulges.

  ‘Surprise,’ said Blob happily.

  He pointed to the birthday cake sitting on a pimple.

  Aristotle stopped struggling and went grin-shaped. He looked at the cake, at the candles, at the very neat icing, and then at his brother.

  ‘We’re twelve,’ said Blob.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Aristotle. ‘Happy birthday.’

  They gave each other a long hug.

  Then Aristotle looked around his nostril. At the defence force troops playing soccer against the royal commandos. At Ralph and Lou and the other visiting microbes showing kids how to juggle chunks of gnat dandruff. At Len, sniffing the chief judge and not being arrested. At Blob cutting the birthday cake and not even counting the candles.

  The nostril, he saw, was full of happy germs.

  Millions of them.

  Suddenly Aristotle didn’t feel so different after all.

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