'The Girl who Sings to Snails' - The beginning

Hello, I'm Bob!

I'm still writing my story 'The Girl who Sings to Snails', but as it has been a few days since I posted about this in my post Snail Party I thought I'd share with you the first draft of the beginning of the story.

'The Girl who Sings to Snails' - The beginning

Overnight the plants in the garden had their leaves nibbled and munched so much that they now resembled paper doilies. Lucy’s mom was in despair at the sight of her veggie patch.

‘’Something has to be done about those pesky snails!’’ Lucy's mom declared as she stomped inside the house to search through the pages of her gardening books for tips on snail removal.

Lucy looked at the leaves, she thought they looked rather pretty and held one up to the sky. The light shone through the holes and danced on the palm of her outstretched hand. She could hear her mom inside the house slamming down books and grumbling on about greedy snails.

From over the fence the sound of giggling was being carried. A group of girls were playing in the back garden, building a den from blankets and bean poles. Even though they were the same age as Lucy they didn’t ask her to play with them, in fact no one really played with Lucy. There was no real reason for this apart from Lucy was new to the area, and in their eyes this made her a little odd.

Lucy walked over to the patch of dandelions and picked the largest silver one she could find, as she twirled around in a circle scattering the seeds she began to sing a little song to herself. All over the garden little pairs of eyes on the end of tentacles looked up, peeking over the edges of leaves and plant pots. Something had caught the attention of the snails, a beautiful sound was creating mesmerising vibrations. Slowly glittering tracks of silver began to appear all across the garden, they shimmered as they wove from one shady spot of the garden to the next. A spiral of hundreds of glittering trails began to form, leading straight towards Lucy. At the front of each trail was a snail, as hundreds of snails were heading towards the hypnotic sound vibrations.

Lucy stopped twirling and looked down at her feet, 300 little pairs of eyes looked up at her. The dandelion slipped from her hand, scattering its seeds as it fell to the floor. The first feathery seed floated down and touched one of the snails, his tentacles retracted quicker than Lucy could blink, and like a domino effect around the garden the other 299 pairs of eyes disappeared too. 300 colourful shells lay at her feet like pebbles on a beach. Lucy bent down carefully and placed her index finger next to one of the shells.

‘’Hello,’’ Lucy said softly.

The skin of the snail quivered slightly and a pair of eyes popped out and looked up at Lucy. Slowly he slid on to her finger, and Lucy stood up bringing him to her eye level.

‘’Hello,’’ Lucy said again, ‘’I’m Lucy it’s nice to meet you’’.

The little snail raised the front of his body off her finger and then curled his head downwards, as if greeting her with a bowed head. Lucy gave a curtsy, as she did so the other 299 snails at her feet followed the same actions of the first snail, raising their bodies and bowing their heads. They had found their snail queen, and Lucy now had 300 new friends.

To be continued …

Words and images by @opheliafu

If you want another story to read while you are waiting for the next part of 'The Girl who Sings to Snails' then you might enjoy my other stories The Rain Fairy and the Armies of Ants and The Star Thief.