The Nose That Nobody Picked

by David Parkin

  Christopher thought for a moment. What would he normally start with in this situation?

  “Well, let’s try some worms and see how we go.”

  Glasses Of Goo

  Later that day, Christopher glumly sneaked out of the house carrying a tray of glasses all filled with thick, dark mucus. So far he had made no progress with the nose whatsoever. If anything, Little Big Nose was getting worse. He tried all sorts of things from his mum’s cupboards, but couldn’t get him to eat anything.

  Christopher had held the nose in his hand, saying soothing words and catching the endless flow of snot in the various glasses. He filled up six. It had been a long day.

  He slowly shut the back door behind him, wincing at the hinge’s slow creek. It was early evening and a strange hush had fallen upon the garden. Christopher glanced at the full moon that hid behind a cloud, and a shiver whispered down his back. He decided the best thing to do with his collection of gunk was to pour it down the drain as quickly and quietly as possible.

  “What you doing?” Christopher jumped and nearly dropped the tray. It was Lauren. She pushed her curly red hair out of her eyes and smiled at him.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Christopher edging around slightly, trying to hide the tray. “Creeping up on me again – what do you want?”

  “Oh, not much,” said Lauren. “Just finished my homework so I thought I’d pop out for some fresh air.”

  In the dusk sky a lone bat zigzagged overhead.

  “You’ve spent even more time than usual hiding away,” said Lauren casually as she watched the bat’s dizzy display. “Locked up in your room…”

  She turned to Christopher and narrowed her eyes. “Are you up to something?”

  “Oh you know. Same as you … homework.”

  “Homework?” Lauren looked at him over her glasses. She was only eleven months younger than Christopher and was in the same year as him at school. She liked it and always got top marks. Christopher didn’t. She knew he only did homework if absolutely necessary. “What homework would that be then?”

  “Erm…”

  “The maths project about triangles or the history essay about the ancient Egyptians?”

  “The Egyptians…” said Christopher. “The urm … the building of the stinx…”

  Lauren laughed. “It’s Sphinx not stinx! And besides, we’re not doing the ancient Egyptians this term, I made that up. You haven’t been doing homework at all, have you?”

  “I’ve been busy,” said Christopher trying to get past her whilst still hiding the tray.

  “What have you got there?” Lauren stood on tiptoes to peep over his shoulder.

  “Nothing. Go away.”

  “Yuk! It looks disgusting, whatever it is!”

  Christopher stopped and thought for a moment. Lauren hated slimy, icky things … this might be fun.

  “It’s snot,” he said, and proudly pulled the tray from behind his back.

  “SNOT!” spluttered Lauren, stepping back. “Where did you get all that from?” Then she froze, and her eyes widened as another thought struck her. “What are you going to do with it?”

  Christopher frowned and looked at the green mucus-filled glasses in front of him. He hadn’t really thought this through. Showing her the goo had been fun for a moment, but now he had to explain it. He didn’t want to tell her the truth; he liked having the secret of Little Big Nose all to himself.

  “It’s for my garden,” he said in a flash of inspiration. “I’ve had a bit of a cold and I’ve been doing some experimenting. It turns out that snot is excellent for killing thistles.”

  Lauren stared at him blankly.

  “So you collected all that snot to kill weeds?”

  “Just thistles,” said Christopher. “I don’t mind the other weeds.”

  Lauren narrowed her eyes. Christopher met her gaze with a look of blank innocence. Lauren tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. Christopher held his breath.

  “Well, don’t let me stop you,” she said. “It’s getting dark. Go on. Weed away.”

  “Good! Thank you very much,” said Christopher. “I don’t see what it’s got to do with you anyway!”

  Lauren watched him go with a confused look on her face. He really had changed over the last year. He used to like having her around but these days he spent nearly all his time on his own, either working on his garden or in his room.

  She huffed with frustration. He was a puzzle she couldn’t work out.

  “Gardening with snot,” she mumbled. “What next?”

  In his garden Christopher looked at his tray of goo and then at a rather nasty looking thistle that had sprung up right in the middle of one of his ornamental displays. He peered back at the house, Lauren was still on the doorstep and he could tell she was watching him through the trees. He shrugged and began to tip the snot-filled glasses all over the weed. “Oh well, it might work, I suppose.”

  By the time he had finished, the thistle was well and truly covered. In the evening light Christopher thought it looked like a vicious space alien, spiky, green and slimy.

  “IT CAME FROM ANOTHER PLANET TO DESTROY OUR GARDENS!” he boomed in an over-the-top movie voice. “ONLY ONE YOUNG BOY COULD STOP IT! THE THISTLE MONSTER FROM THE PLANET JUNIPER WOULD LEARN TO FEAR THE NAME…”

  “Christopher Postlethwaite!” It was his mum calling him from the kitchen window. “Dinner’s ready!”

  Christopher looked the thistle right in the stalk and sneered: “I’ll be back.”

  “Christopher!” His mum’s call was sharper this time. “It’ll get cold.”

  Then he was off, over his mother’s nice neat lawn and through the back door, slamming it behind him.

  Then there was silence…

  High above, the clouds crept off into the darkness and the full moon shone down, drawing long dark shadows across the lawn and painting everything silver.

  In the middle of Christopher’s garden the thistle started to sparkle gently.

  Slowly, steadily, each spiky leaf twinkled under the moon’s gaze. Then the slimy thistle began to glow. As the moon continued to shine, its strange light glittered and grew.

  The trees swayed silver in the breeze, the shadows slid from the bushes and an incredible green light engulfed the garden.

  A Horrible Dark Day

  A month of spring sunshine and showers went mostly unnoticed by Christopher. He only really left his room for school or on Saturdays, when he went on long bike rides or walks in the country. He spent most of his time making sure the nose was comfortable, trying to tempt him with different food and reading to him.

  Christopher had never read so much. They were getting through about three books a week. It was the one thing that seemed to soothe the nose. His breathing would become less ragged, and he would sometimes pull himself up onto his nostrils and sit quietly, like an attentive child. But these occasions became less frequent as Little Big Nose’s condition worsened. He spent days without moving, became very pale and the tiny suckers on his back turned from a dark red to a deathly grey.

  One damp Sunday Christopher finally gave up all hope of Little Big Nose ever getting better. It was a horrible dark day. Christopher was feeling particularly miserable as he read Pinocchio to the trembling nose. He mumbled the words halfheartedly as he slowly munched a sandwich.

  “Okay, that’s the end of that chapter,” said Christopher, trying to sound excited. “Next chapter tomorrow. It’s a good one, I can tell you. I think he gets eaten by a whale!”

  Christopher smiled weakly at the pale nose. “That crazy wooden kid!”

  He gazed at Little Big Nose sadly and put some music on. Christopher was just thinking that the nose probably wouldn’t last the day when a small piece of lettuce fell from his sandwich and landed in Little Big Nose’s
box.

  The nose’s nostrils flared instantly and began to sniff the air furiously.

  Christopher jumped. “You all right?”

  Little Big Nose sucked in a huge breath and then blew it out again. He panted lightly for a second and then drew up another nostril-full and exhaled noisily.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” said Christopher. “Just slow down.”

  But the panting became faster and louder, so much so that Little Big Nose jerked violently from side to side.

  As the slow seconds passed, Christopher watched helplessly as Little Big Nose puffed and spluttered and trembled and twitched. Panic crept up his neck as the shoebox shook, and the nose’s gasps for air became high-pitched wheezes.

  “Take it easy,” he said desperately. “What’s wrong?”

  Little Big Nose pitched frantically to and fro, his breathing fast and desperate. Just when Christopher thought he had no more puff in him, he let rip an ear-piercing sneeze that propelled him high off the ground. The nose flipped through the air once, twice, and then landed, splat, upright on his damp nostrils.

  “Bless you!” shouted Christopher’s mum up the stairs.

  “Thank you!” called Christopher.

  He looked back to the nose.

  A moment passed as Little Big Nose seemed to compose himself.

  Then he began to wriggle.

  He inched forward.

  A short pause.

  Another bit of wriggling and nostril flaring moved Little Big Nose further across his box.

  Christopher let out an excited laugh. “You can walk … I mean crawl, sort of…”

  The nose stopped in front of the lettuce. He opened his nostrils wide and inhaled.

  “I don’t believe it!” shouted Christopher as he watched Little Big Nose suck up the piece of lettuce like a vacuum cleaner.

  “You eat lettuce?”

  Christopher was amazed. He could just about stand lettuce in a sandwich, but it had never occurred to him that anyone or anything would like it on its own. He jumped to his feet.

  “Well, I suppose someone’s got to. Okay, wait there. I’ll be right back!”

  Christopher ran downstairs and flung open the door to the larder. He hurriedly tucked a lettuce under one arm and a cabbage under the other. His mum entered the kitchen wondering what all the commotion was about. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting lettuce,” said Christopher. “Oh, and a cabbage.”

  “Yes, I can see that, but why?”

  Christopher paused. He had to think quick.

  “You know, Mum, I’m worried about my diet,” he said. “I’m a growing boy and I need to make sure I get the proper amount of minerals and vitamins.”

  “So you’re going to eat a cabbage and a lettuce?” Christopher’s mum looked doubtful. “Do you want anything else with that, maybe sugared sprouts for dessert?”

  “No, this ought to do it.” Christopher went to leave, but his mum folded her arms and gave him the look.

  He was backed into a corner. There was nothing else for it. Christopher breathed in, closed his eyes and then took a large bite out of the cabbage.

  His mother’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

  “Mmm…” he cringed. “Not only good for you, but tasty too!”

  He ran upstairs, burst into his room and spat noisily into the bin.

  “Eurgh!” He held up the vegetables to Little Big Nose. “This is disgusting! You like this?”

  Little Big Nose’s nostrils twitched instantly.

  “Clearly you do!” Christopher ripped off a leaf, rolled it into a long thin tube and offered it to the hungry nose.

  With a mighty suck, the entire leaf disappeared up Little Big Nose’s left nostril.

  “Wow, you are hungry!” Christopher tore off another leaf. “Would you like some more?”

  Little Big Nose let out two strange-sounding sighs.

  Christopher stopped dead in his tracks. He rose slowly to his feet, pulled the windows closed and turned off his music.

  Very carefully he leant right into the shoebox and lowered his ear to the nose. “What was that?” he said.

  The two breathy sighs came again, but this time Christopher could just make them out.

  “Yes … please.”

  Little Big Nose followed his first whispery words with another three husky snuffs.

  “Chris … to … pher.”

  The Animals Of The Garden

  Although Little Big Nose was on the road to recovery, Christopher’s work was far from done. He was busier than before.

  Whenever the nose awoke from his fevered sleep, Christopher would be there with lettuce and cabbage and various other bits of greenery.

  The nose also requested pond water to drink, so Christopher often scurried back and forth to his garden with beakers and cups. The nose slurped the water up through a straw, and then slipped back into his troubled slumber.

  Little Big Nose only spoke in fits and starts, usually short sentences, thanking Christopher, or asking him to read. He occasionally muttered while he slept, but the words made no sense.

  On the fourth day he woke up with a chirpy sneeze. It was a cool evening. Christopher looked out of his window, and saw that his favourite birds had returned for the summer.

  The nose’s nostrils flared. “The swallows are here…” he said from his shoebox.

  Christopher noticed that he was a healthy pink and his freckles had never looked so ginger. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not too bad,” said the nose. “I would very much like some fresh air.”

  Christopher gently picked him up and placed him on the windowsill. He looked at him with quiet awe.

  “I still don’t understand how you can talk … and how you can understand me.”

  “As you read to me, Christopher, I listened and I learnt.”

  Little Big Nose’s voice was a gentle whisper. Christopher had to make sure he listened hard.

  “And I would still like to know how Pinocchio ends…”

  “You learnt English just like that?” Christopher was amazed. “I’ve been doing French for a year now … and I still haven’t got a clue!”

  “I have always tried hard at languages,” said the nose. “It can be very difficult to get to know someone if you can’t understand a word they say.”

  “You can speak other languages too?”

  “I’m proud to say that I can. I speak mole, sparrow, frog…”

  “You can talk to animals! That’s amazing!” Christopher sat on the edge of the bed and stared at Little Big Nose intensely. “I’d love to be able to do that! You really are incredible.”

  Little Big Nose’s pale nostrils flushed a deep pink. It was the first time Christopher had seen a nose blush.

  “We are all incredible … in our own way…”

  “So can you speak to every sort of animal?”

  “Not at all,” said the nose. “For a start, a lot of creatures don’t want to talk. Trying to strike up a conversation with a toad is a very tricky business.”

  Christopher felt a giddy rush of excitement. He was being given a glimpse into a strange and secret world that no other person had ever seen.

  He wanted to know everything.

  “What are badgers like?” It was the first question that jumped into his head.

  “Lovely creatures. True gentle beasts. But ever so shy…”

  “Snails?”

  “Snails … snails are, in many ways, the dimmest slimers that you will ever meet.” The nose paused for a moment and snuffled thoughtfully. “But you can’t blame them. Any animal that carries its home on its back is always going to be a little simple. To never have to think about where you’ve been or where you are going may
be very convenient … but it is terribly bad for the brain.”

  “Tell me more!”

  So Little Big Nose told Christopher all about the garden and the animals that lived there. He told him about the birds, who always seemed to be in a rush, silly, noisy creatures who never stopped to think, and about the foxes who passed silently in the night singing ancient songs about their freedom, and about the giggling newts and the babbling bluebottles, and about the chubby caterpillars who spent their whole lives looking forward to the few crazy days they spent in the sunshine, transformed into beautiful butterflies.

  Christopher sat on the edge of his bed, enchanted.

  “So who are your favourites? What’s the best creature in the garden?”

  “Slugs,” replied Little Big Nose instantly. “Slugs are by far the most wise, kind and noble beasts you will ever meet.”

  He paused for a moment before adding, “But maybe I am a little biased.”

  “How come?”

  “Because my mother was a slug…”

  Christopher was just about to ask how a nose could have slugs for parents when his mother shouted from the hall.

  “Christopher Postlethwaite! Bedtime!”

  Christopher quickly lifted Little Big Nose off the windowsill and placed him in his shoebox.

  “Hold tight. I want to hear more about these slugs.” He slid the box under the bed just as the door swung open.

  “Pyjamas … Now!” declared his mum.

  Christopher opened his mouth to protest.

  “You’ve already been up half an hour longer than usual.”

  Christopher huffed and grumpily got ready for bed.

  His mum tucked him in and kissed him on the forehead. A tiny smile played upon her lips.

  “Did you enjoy your cabbage supper?”

  “Most nutritious,” replied Christopher very seriously.

  “Next time … let me make you a salad.”