Snott on the Wall was intended to be the first of several adventures of a human baby (a weenie) left on the edge of a cliff and rescued from approaching vultures by Giant Sunkenditch and his wife April-May, who bring him up as one of their own, only smaller. The Sunkenditches call him Snottridge, an old family name, though this is soon shortened, appropriately enough given his size, to Snott. Snott grows into a fine lad, brighter and bolder than any of the Giant youngsters he goes to school with, and in time becomes the go-to-kid when they need help with their spelling and when Giant adults get frozen in fridges, trapped in quicksand, or attacked by even more Gigantic enemies.
Snott tales planned:
SNOTT ON THE WALL
SNOTT ON THE RUN
SNOTT ON THE SPOT
SNOTT ON THE CARPET
ADVENTURES OF SNOTT
It's not always easy to pinpoint where an idea comes from, but this one popped into my head one fine summer day of 2014 while strolling along Paignton Pier in Devon. Maybe it was sparked by passing someone with a very runny nose, I really can't say, but between one step and the next I had pulled out the little notebook I never go anywhere without and jotted down the name Snott, adding 'human baby adopted by giants', after which my mind was teeming with ideas for a series - a series that, as it turned out, no editor was the least bit interested in.
SNOTT ON THE WALL
1
The Giants of the Fears
(opening extract)
Mr and Mrs Wrinkly-Bott of Bottom-in-the-Mire were not happy. And who can blame them with a Giant in the fridge?
'A what?' you cry.
'A Giant in the fridge,' cry I.
'But that's crazy,' you cry back. 'I mean we've all heard of fridge magnets. But fridge giants?'
But it's true. There was indeed a Giant in the Wrinkly-Botts' fridge. Would you like me to tell you how he came to be there?
OK. I'll tell you anyway.
First, the fridge.
It wasn't what you and I might think of as a fridge. It was a lot bigger than usual fridges, which is why it was in the Wrinkly-Botts' garden rather than the house. Its inside walls were thick with ice at all times, which made it great for keeping things frozen. Technically, this made it a freezer, but Mr and Mrs Wrinkly-Bott insisted on calling it a fridge.
Now the Giant. He wasn't a huge Giant. But Giants don't have to be huge. No, they don't, honestly. It's true that some Giants are as tall as a block of flats, but others... others are only as high as dustbins. The average Giant of the Fears was what might be called 'middling'. That is, about as tall as a two storey house.
'The Giants of the What?' you ask.
The Fears. That's where they lived, the Giants I'm going to tell you about. The Fears is what the humans who lived outside the Giant village called it because, well, they were terrified of them, and who can blame them, given their size and all.
Originally, the Giants had another name for their village (Meadowsweet) but over time they too had got into the habit of calling it the Fears. This is because 'the Fears' made them feel all bold and scary (the male Giants anyway), even though most of them preferred to put their feet on their mantelpieces and read the papers over cocoa.
Just as the humans who lived beyond the Giants' village had their own name for it, the Giants themselves had a name for the humans.
Weenies.
Yes, that's what they called them.
Weenies.
Mr and Mrs Wrinkly-Bott of Bottom-in-the-Mire were weenies, of course, and as I said at the start they weren't happy about having a Giant in their fridge. But how did a Giant of the Fears (for he was one) get in the Wrinkly-Botts' fridge?
Well, I'll tell you.
His name was Grumbletoes. Grumbletoes was a pretty typical name for a male Giant. Even Giants who would rather sing in high voices than scare the tights off weenies had names like that. It was a tradition. Here are the names of some other male Giants of the Fears.
Giant Toughnut
Giant Buttsplatter
Giant Grimchops
Giant Tumblebum
Giant Thunderguts
And female Giants? What kind of names do they have?
Well, female Giants have much gentler names. They're big by weenie standards, certainly, but unlike the males, female Giants are pleasant to behold. From gorgeous babies, the females grow into extraordinarily pretty girls and from extraordinarily pretty girls they grow into quite beautiful Giantesses. Even in old age, Giantesses are rather striking. There are exceptions, of course, but we won't bother with them just now. What we must bother with is how Giant Grumbletoes got into the fridge and how he was rescued, and who by.
One very fine day in the excellent month of something-or-other, Grumbletoes was out picking daisies. He wanted the daisies for a chain to sling round the neck of his beloved, whose name was Sweety Pluckheart. But the only daises he could find were itsy little weenie-sized ones, which would make no more than a bracelet, so what he did was set off for the Even More Gigantic Lands to the north, where a bunch of Truly Frightening Giants grew utterly ginormous daises.
Good plan, you might think, and I would agree with you but for one giant snag. The giant snag was that Grumbletoes had no sense of direction. I mean ABSOLUTELY no sense of direction. And because he had no sense of direction he got lost that day by turning left when he should have turned right. This meant that instead of going to the Even More Gigantic Lands to the north, he strolled into weenie lands.
It was a hot day. A very hot day. So hot that every weenie for miles around was indoors, waving a fan, or snoozing. But Grumbletoes wasn't indoors. He was out in the steamy sun, and so over-heated that the sweat ran out of his armpits and drowned cows.
So stupendously warm did Grumbletoes become in his search for big daisies that didn't exist hereabouts that he eventually sat down to chill out. He set his back against a convenient building which just happened to be Mr and Mrs Wrinkly-Bott's garden fridge. The outer walls of the fridge were so cool that Grumbletoes opened the door, bent down to try and find out why, and saw all the ice inside.
'Cool!' he said.
The door was quite big for a weenie door, so Grumbletoes crawled through it. He found it so refreshing in the Wrinkly-Botts' fridge after the hot sun that he leant against one of the ice-covered walls and in very little time at all dozed off. And while he dozed, ice formed upon him, and soon covered him from head to foot to nose to bottom.
Froze him solid, in fact.
Absolutely, utterly solid.
Next day, Mr and Mrs Wrinkly-Bott opened the door of their big garden fridge, and stared.
In horror.
'Uh?' said Mr Wrinkly-Bott.
'Couldn't have put it better myself,' said his wife.
'What are we going to do?' cried Mr Wrinkly-Bott.
'I know what I'm going to do,' said his wife. 'I'm going to make a nice pot of tea and pretend I haven't seen this.'
Not at all happy to have a Giant in their fridge, the Wrinkly-Botts did nothing about him, nothing at all but grumble, and while they grumbled, months passed.
In those months, the frozen Giant dozed on and on, and on and on some more, and on and on even more than that, except when he woke up and found that he couldn't move. When he woke up and found that he couldn't move, he said 'Cool' again, and went right back to sleep.
And stayed asleep until...
... the day he was rescued by Snott.
Who?
Snott.
I'd better tell you about him, hadn't I?
Read on!
