Sniffy & Piggy
An excerpt from my book - just for you!
This is an excerpt from an unpublished book I wrote. It’s called Sniffy & Piggy. You can read more about the book here; My Pig Book. It sits there, in a folder, year after year and gnaws on me. You know? At this point, what the heck — here, read a bit of it “for free” as they say. If you have patience, please let me know what you think. After all, isn’t that what this Substack’s all about? Sharing our writing?
I do love these pigs and their world so so very much, and I hope you will too. It’s completely different than the usual sci-fi stuff you see here on Cabinet of Curiosities. Sniffy & Piggy drift into the Finnish forests and fantasy world of my childhood. Here, I’m sharing the first 20 pages with you now, so you will get to know these diametrically opposed friends as they search for their inner pigs.
Prologue
Before his parents left, they did something very few pigs bother to do; they taught their young son to read. A few days ago a large truck took away all of the grown-up pigs, and now Piggy and other young piglets were left alone in their pens. Piggy missed his parents.
And so for the hundredth time, he read a small lighted sign posted above the wooden door where the farmer appeared in the mornings. Piggy could only see a part of the sign and it read “Entry alarm.”
He tried to stand up on his little hind legs to see more but the other pens blocked his view. Piggy lay back down and sighed.
And that’s when he heard his favorite three notes.
Three notes that did not belong together beeped loudly and Piggy sprung up and danced a little dance. These notes were the highlight of his day. They always sounded right before the farmer entered to pour food into the troughs for the pigs. And Piggy loved food. So he made these three notes into a song he would hum when he was happy.
After the food was dispensed the piglets were let out on the yard, which was surrounded by a fence. Most piglets stayed close by the barn, but Piggy liked to explore. He could never convince the other piglets to come with him to the end of the yard. They thought the fence was scary. Piggy thought it was exciting.
Piggy trotted along the fence until he reached the spot farthest from the barn. He couldn’t believe his eyes: waiting for him, in a dip under the fence, was a perfectly undisturbed mud puddle! Piggy’s second favorite thing in his little world was taking mud baths.
Piggy thought carefully. Was today his birthday? No, he was just a lucky pig!
The mud was cool and refreshing and Piggy let himself sink down into the brown slurry, half inside and half outside the fence. He turned onto his back and enjoyed the sun rays that tickled his belly. He stuck his legs into the air and sunk a bit further into the mud. And then he fell asleep.
It was colder and darker when he woke up. Everything was silent and all the other piglets had already gone back into the barn. It was so dark that some stars were beginning to pop out in the velveteen sky. Piggy no longer thought of birthdays or sun rays that tickled his belly.
For the first time in his life, Piggy was scared. He tried to jump up but he couldn’t. He was stuck! There he was, a little piglet, with his feet sticking up out of the mud, and he was all alone and forgotten.
Piggy felt an itch on his back so he wiggled a bit. It felt better and he noticed that the mud became softer. Piggy wiggled and wiggled and the mud began to loosen up.
Piggy remembered a story his mother told him about how she once swam in a large pond. He began to move his legs, and if anyone had looked at him right then, they’d see a little piglet trying to do back strokes in the mud.
For a moment Piggy forgot that it was dark and that he was alone. He was swimming! In mud! For each stroke he took he hummed one of his three favorite notes. But it was thick mud and each time he thought he was closer to freeing himself, he couldn’t quite get free.
Suddenly he felt a horrible pain in his left ear! It hurt so bad that he scrambled up on all four legs and spun around in agony with mud spraying in all directions. He spun so fast that it sounded like a growl. A really loud growl.
“Well, veni vidi vici! What do we have here?” asked a very ugly, deep voice -- a wolf’s voice.
Another wolf with a higher pitched voice said: “The pig ears here are always tasty, boss!”
Piggy screamed and ran as fast as he could back toward the barn. That voice was terrifying. Piggy ran with all his might and didn’t stop before he crashed into a hard wall. The barn door, he thought! He scrambled to find a way in, but to no avail. It wasn’t a door, it was a big rock!
Piggy had not run toward the barn at all. Instead he’d run in the opposite direction -- into the big and wild forest. Somehow he dug his way out under the fence and was now trapped outside of his own safe world!
Something had bit off a piece of his left ear and he could feel it bleeding and hurting very bad. And the growly voices were still somewhere in the forest behind him. He could hear them growl and howl!
Piggy ran and ran, all covered in mud. He ran until he could no longer stand on his feet, and by then it was almost dawn in the forest. He was muddy, tired, scared, and very alone. That was the first night he slept underneath a juniper tree. It also was the night he lost his left ear to a wolf and the first night he began to live in the forest.
THE TIME OF PLENTY
When Pigs Meet
Sniffy had been awake since early dawn. It was a perfect day for gardening and he wanted to weed the carrots, water the beets, and support the fast-growing sugar snap peas. There were so many things he wanted to attend to and each day was only so long.
Sniffy was a pig, but a very different sort. He whistled a happy tune that included five melodious notes, and carried a picnic basket with him to his garden. He planned on staying there most of the day.
Upon entering the garden Sniffy surveyed the growing bounty. Then he eagerly set to work on the rows of carrot seedlings. To make it more comfortable he placed a nice thick blanket under his knees. It also kept his crisp white work overalls as clean as a newborn piglet.
As Sniffy slowly made his way down the row, he heard two sparrows, Chirpy and Twirpy, arguing loudly in a nearby mulberry bush.
"How many times have I told you not to bring those horse flies?" Chirpy asked. "They always get stuck in my throat and the babies hate them!"
"What am I supposed to do?" replied Twirpy. "Fly ten miles to get fruit flies? This isn't a five-star restaurant!"
"Why don't you try these carrot seedlings?" Sniffy called out. He had a tendency to offer advice whether or not it was wanted.
An awkward silence followed. Then a loud rustling was heard from the mulberry bush. Finally, the two frazzled sparrows landed on the white fence near Sniffy.
Chirpy and Twirpy were frequent visitors at Sniffy's garden. They had a bad habit, though, of airing their daily arguments in a loud and public manner.
Chirpy inspected her talons while Twirpy called out to Sniffy.
"Well, well, if it isn't the gardener himself! How many times do you have to go over those before you'll be satisfied?"
Twirpy was not very well-educated in gardening and since he had a slightly smaller brain he didn't understand the purpose of weeding. But he did admire Sniffy's sense of order and often stopped by to take a look at the garden.
Piggy, a few years older now, lay in a mud pool in the forest, chasing off the flies that sunbathed on his ears, back and tail. He wasn't quite sure why the flies liked him so much. He had taken a long and thorough bath in the mud earlier and felt as fresh as a newborn piglet.
Piggy didn't know any songs but he hummed three notes that he liked. None of them belonged together in a tune but Piggy didn't know that. He had liked these three notes ever since he was a little piglet.
His ears pricked up, even the half-eaten left one. He heard voices nearby. Through the trees Piggy glimpsed a white picket fence. It awakened a half-forgotten memory in him, and he watched and listened.
Sniffy held out a bunch of tiny carrot seedlings to the sparrows.
"Look here! See these?"
The carrot seedlings swayed back and forth in his grip.
"These, my feathered friends, are nutritious and good! I think you should give them a try. See, what you could do with them is... Well, you could do many things!"
Sniffy had so many ideas and couldn't decide which idea to express first. Finally he regained control over his rapidly moving thoughts.
"Soup!" he said. "I think you should boil these carrots into a hearty soup! No more horse flies and worms! Give your children something easy to swallow -- nutritious, delicious soup!"
Chirpy glanced over at her mate and chuckled. Then she elegantly hopped a little closer to Sniffy.
"How on Earth would we prepare it, hm?" she chirped. "We don't have a kettle. It wouldn't fit in our nest. I've told Twirpy I don't know how many times that we need a bigger nest!"
She snapped her tiny head toward her husband and Twirpy began closely inspecting his talons.
"Anyway, have you ever seen a sparrow peck into a raw carrot? Does it strike you as a comfortable thing to do? Hmm?"
Chirpy's intense stare made Sniffy's carrots move a little slower. She was not a very shy sparrow. And she did bring up some good points.
"I suppose you're right. It just seems like a shame to throw these carrot seedlings away. And carrot soup is sweet. And children like sweets...." Sniffy's voice dwindled as he lost his way on the thought-trail.
He reached for a bottle of lemonade he had brought with him and drank from it. As he wiped his snout he let out a sudden burst of laughter.
The two sparrows jumped, and moved closer toward each other.
"And what is so funny?" asked Twirpy.
Sniffy pointed at the carrot seedlings and managed to tone down his laughter until only his shoulders were moving up and down.
"Yes, carrots," continued Twirpy, a little dryly since he was not amused. "What about them?"
"I just thought," Sniffy said, still stifling his laughter, "about what a funny sight it would be to see you peck at them -- and then get your beak stuck in the carrot!"
And despite Sniffy's best efforts, he emitted another laugh.
"Well!" Chirpy huffed. "I have never been so insulted in my entire life! Twirpy, let's go!"
"No, wait!" Sniffy said. "In my thought I saw your beak stuck into the carrot. And yes, it was a funny thought indeed. But I apologize if it was funny. I mean, I'm sorry if I thought about a funny thing. Just... sorry?"
Sniffy sighed and sat down to reassemble his thoughts. Sometimes he wanted to say something but it didn't come out quite as he wanted it to. He felt frustrated and misunderstood.
Twirpy and Chirpy shook their heads at what they'd just heard. They knew Sniffy loved to give advice, and they were used to his unusual ways. But this, this was just too much.
"He must have suffered a sun stroke," whispered Twirpy to his mate.
"I have never seen him this way before!" whispered back a teary-eyed Chirpy. "Let's go before he gets any more crazy ideas!"
The sparrows took a last look at the sad pig in a row of carrots and then flew back into the mulberry bush. After a little leaf-rustling everything grew quiet.
Pig inspection
Piggy had never stood so still in his whole life. He had kept holding his breath over and over again so he wouldn't be noticed by the sparrows or the pig in the white overalls.
But the mud was drying on his skin and becoming itchy. All he wanted to do was roll on the grass and grunt loudly and stretch like a pig. Finally, he couldn't resist the urge anymore.
Piggy was not known to be a very self-restrained pig. He usually acted on whatever impulse he felt, and avoided difficult things as much as he possibly could.
"Ah!" he grunted. "Uh!"
His grunts seemed to herald a happy summer day. And it was nice and sunny.
Piggy was now squirming joyfully on his back in the wild grass, trying to rub off dried mud. He continued a while and finally expelled a determined grunt and rolled back onto his feet.
Piggy never inspected himself, but if he did, he would have found himself looking oddly spotted. The area around his eyes was clean while the rest of the face was covered in crackled mud. It made him look like an aviator pig.
Piggy smiled. Life was pretty good, if you asked him, because the itching was gone.
Of course, all of this noise had attracted the attention of the trio in the garden and mulberry bush. Two sparrow heads poked out of the bush and quietly observed the event.
Sniffy quietly moved toward the white fence while carefully making sure he didn't step on any of his precious vegetables.
The fence reached up to Sniffy's chest so he stepped down on all four legs and peered through the gap in the planks. Another pig stared back at him. A now quiet and quite dirty pig looked right back at him.
Sniffy was so surprised that he let out a quick and uncertain grunt. The sparrows in the bush looked at each other in amazement, and then quickly turned back to watch the action by the fence.
They saw everything from above, so it looked as if each pig stood in front of a mirror, gazing at himself. The only problem with the mirror image was that one pig was very, very clean, and the other one very, very dirty.
"Hello!" said Piggy, and waited.
His parents had taught him to greet pigs by looking them straight in the eyes and then say a clear "Hello!"
This was, of course, a long time ago, before Piggy's parents left him alone while they took a long vacation onboard a large truck and never came back.
Still in a stunned state, Sniffy managed to blurt out,
"Good day, good day!"
This was the first pig Sniffy had met in a very long time, and he was both a little scared and a lot happy.
Piggy reached a half-muddy foreleg through the fence and his words tumbled out.
"Hello, I'm Piggy! Nice garden. Why do you wear those overalls?"
Sniffy automatically reached out his foreleg too, and they tapped them together three times, in the customary way pigs always greet. Then suddenly he realized he had tapped feet with a very muddy pig, and so Sniffy wiped his foot on his white overalls. He immediately felt ashamed for doing so but he could not help himself.
"Look!" said Piggy. "Now your overalls got dirty! Why do you wear them? They would get dirty in a second out in the woods."
This made Sniffy even more self-conscious.
"Well, I'm gardening today, you see," holding up the carrot seedlings that the sparrows had rejected.
Piggy's eyes lit up in his muddy aviator's face.
"Well, a pig's left foot - those are carrots, aren't they? I haven't seen real carrots since I was a little piglet, and then I was too young to eat them," he said a little wistfully.
Then he perked up. "But I always suspected that I would love carrots if I ever saw them again!"
Sniffy knew a bit about Pigspeak and how pigs sometimes say one thing instead of another when what they really mean is, "Can I have some carrots?"
So he held the carrots out to Piggy through a gap in the fence.
"These are for you, if you like."
Piggy couldn't believe his ears (even the half-eaten one). A stranger had just offered him carrots! Delicious carrots! Could this be true? Perhaps some globs of mud were still trapped in his ears that distorted the sound?
Piggy threw himself on the ground and immediately began rubbing his ears on the grass. One side was rubbed vigorously and then the other side. Then he held his head still and listened. Everything was silent. Piggy was overcome with fear. He was deaf!
He whispered to Sniffy,
"Say something, friend."
"Carrots?" Sniffy responded.
Piggy's face lit up and he sprung up like an acrobat.
"I can hear! I can hear!"
He moved around in a circle so fast that bits of crusty mud fell off in sprinkles around him. Then he gathered himself and returned to the fence. The carrots exchanged ownership and Piggy's day was a happy one indeed.
"Thank you! Thank you...?"
Piggy tried to remember the other pig's name but could not recall if he had said it or not.
"Sniffy," said the other pig, "and you are most welcome."
Invitation to tea
Piggy took some time to chew the carrots. The sound was so loud that Chirpy and Twirpy gave each other an irritated look and retreated back into the mulberry bush. Piggy thought it might be best to eat them all at once because who knows when he would ever get another chance to eat such a treat?
While he was eating he surveyed Sniffy's lot. Before Piggy, on the other side of the well-built fence, was a tidy and well-organized vegetable patch. On the other end of the patch was a little red shed. Well, it looked more like a tiny cottage, because it had two windows and a chimney. And further up the small hill was a larger red cottage, with four windows facing the garden and two chimneys on the roof.
That must be Sniffy's house, Piggy thought to himself while crushing the last carrot between his teeth. A bit of orange-colored juice ran down his chin, and he absentmindedly wiped it off with one of his front feet.
"Do you always live here?" he asked, trying hard not to assume that this indeed was Sniffy's house.
"Yes, this is my home," Sniffy said with some amusement in his voice. "I don't have the pleasure of meeting other pigs that often anymore. May I ask where you live?"
Piggy turned his head toward the thick forest that bordered the garden patch and said, "There."
Two sounds that can only be described as sparrows' snorts suddenly emitted from the mulberry bush. Sniffy gave them a stern look and they immediately became silent. Sniffy had gained a calm composure all of a sudden. The sparrows were surprised. Sniffy was usually very flustered and worried. Now he seemed determined, as if he knew exactly what to do.
"See," Twirpy whispered to his wife. "At least we have a nest to come home to. That pig from the forest, he has nothing, not even a home." Chirpy nodded quietly. She understood.
Sniffy was thinking something similar. Sniffy was too polite to ask Piggy why he was named Piggy instead of a real name. He doesn't have a proper home, Sniffy thought to himself. He doesn't even have a proper name.
Sniffy knew how he got the name Sniffy. Aunt Frilly had told him the first thing Sniffy did when he was born was to sniff a fallen apple. In fact, he would always sniff his food before he ate it, to make sure it was good. He was always sniffing things, just to make sure they were okay, or for no reason at all. And that's how Sniffy got his name.
Twirpy was not bashful so he asked, "How come your name is Piggy?" Sniffy looked quite terrified and glanced nervously at Piggy. Piggy responded, "Well, I'll tell you, in a pig's breath!"
And then he took a few steps toward the mulberry bush so he could better see the birds.
"See, my father used to say, 'Tradition is important, remember that.'"
The sparrows nodded and thought about what Piggy had told them. Chirpy got a bit impatient and asked, "So that's why your name is Piggy? Because of tradition?"
"In a pig's breath!" said Piggy with a smile.
Twirpy lit up.
"I get it! You had pig's breath and that's why your parents called you Piggy. Because all parents love their babies no matter how awful their breath is! Right? Right?"
Sniffy's face now changed from terrified to horrified and he had to hold on to the picket fence so he wouldn't sag down to the ground out of shame. But Piggy just chuckled at the birds. He knew some sparrows and they could be a bit peculiar at times.
"No, see, it was like this. I came from a family of pigs, and my parents named me Piggy. In honor of my species!" Piggy said, bursting with pride.
"Since you are birds," he added, "you might have been named Birdy! See?"
The sparrows nodded and instantly felt better that their parents had the good sense to name them something other than Birdy. Then they slowly hopped back into the bush and became quiet.
Sniffy realized there had been a long pause and looked at his pocket watch.
"Well, it looks like it's tea time," Sniffy said. "Would you like to join me for tea? That is, if you drink tea. I also have lemonade. That is, if you drink lemonade. Tea?"
Sniffy felt a return to his usual state. He liked things to be organized and well-planned. Today he was supposed to garden for exactly two hours before taking a tea break. And now that plan had been absolutely ruined because only an hour and a half had passed. Then this practically feral pig from the forest shows up. Sniffy was not angry. He was simply not used to things interrupting his routine. He walked over to a gate in the fence and opened it for Piggy to enter.
"Thank you! Oh, thank you! I think I drank tea once, but I have only heard of lemonade."
Piggy walked as fast as he could through the gate just in case Sniffy would change his mind. Piggy didn't remember too much about his home. But he remembered his parents, and that he had a home once. Not as cozy as this, of course, but a home nonetheless.
They walked quietly toward the main house, mostly because neither could think of anything to say, even if they both were thinking a lot of thoughts. As they passed the smaller cottage Piggy asked, "Is this your second home?"
Piggy did not know for sure how it worked with houses. Piggy had two food stockpiles hidden in the forest, a main supply and a reserve. He rarely used the reserve stash, but it was there just in case. Perhaps this was something similar, though it was a bit silly to keep a second house so close to the first house. At least that is what Piggy thought. He knew little about houses, but was extremely excited to visit one today.
Sniffy thought for a second and said, "A second house. Yes, perhaps this can be called a second house. That one up there is the first house and that would make this one the second one. I understand."
It sounded like Sniffy was mostly thinking out loud instead of answering questions. He was still feeling jittery since his schedule had been disrupted. But then he added:
"This is my guest cottage. It is a place for guests when they visit."
"Do you have a guest visiting in the cottage now?" asked Piggy.
"No," said Sniffy, and for some reason he understood that Piggy meant something else with his question, "would you like to see it?"
Piggy nodded vigorously and almost skipped a little as they walked down the short but very pretty row of stepping stones to the door of the little cottage. Sniffy fished out a keychain and selected one of the smaller keys and unlocked the door.
Piggy almost rushed in, but heard Sniffy cough and point toward the door mat. Piggy did his best to rub off as much dry clay and dust as he could before entering the cottage. He did a fairly good job, because no footprints were left on the floor when he walked in.
The cottage smelled vaguely of firewood, and it made Piggy feel cozy at once. He quietly looked around, and saw a table with two chairs, a fireplace and a small kitchen, and to the side a bed and a reading chair.
It was a small and very cozy place, thought Piggy. Everything looked very neat and tidy and very clean. He felt a sense of calm spreading through his body, and following it was a tickling happiness. So this is what a home looked like, he thought.
Piggy glanced toward one of the windows and behind the lace curtains he could see the thick, dark-green forest. Piggy knew this was pretty but he also knew it was best to be on guard. He felt his own dirty body and sighed and smiled a little.
"It's a perfect little cottage home," he said to Sniffy. Piggy had never said anything like that in his whole life. He was a bit puzzled himself at how he was able to judge a cottage as a perfect home since he did not know what perfect was.
Sniffy smiled and said:
"Thank you, it. It is quite comfortable and has the bare necessities. I have the rest up at the house. Shall we go?"
Another invitation
The bigger cottage was just as cozy and tidy as the smaller one. It had three rooms; a combined kitchen and living room with a large fireplace, a separate bedroom, and a little bathroom. Sniffy pointed to the kitchen table:
"Please, feel free to sit down while I make us tea."
Then Sniffy began his careful ritual of preparing tea and looking for a selection of tasty lemon cookies to go with the tea. Sniffy hummed a little tune while he was working in the kitchen, and it gave the room a cheery atmosphere.
Piggy looked around. Every item in the room had a place and a purpose. Even the rug on the floor was placed in a way so that it would cover the route Sniffy took most often; from the kitchen to the reading chair.
Sniffy had a lot of books. Several bookcases stood along the wall near the reading chair. Piggy's eyes wandered across the room toward the entrance they had just walked through, and he noticed a wall dedicated to a series of three small billboards. Each billboard had written notes neatly pinned on them.
Piggy's parents had taught him to read when he was very little. He was immensely proud of that fact, but equally sad that he very rarely got a chance to read anything. There was nothing to read in the forest. Piggy looked at the billboards and read the sign above each of them: "Calendar", "TO DO", and "3 Secrets to Success..."
Piggy was immediately drawn to the third billboard which promised three secrets to success, and they were written directly below the sign but the text was too small to read from this distance! Sniffy must have a very secure house if he dared have three secrets posted in plain sight on the wall. Piggy marveled a bit at this thought, and thought about his pile of twigs beneath the thick juniper tree in the forest. His home. Piggy never felt entirely safe in the forest.
He didn't hear Sniffy the first time so Sniffy called out again:
"Tea is ready! Come and join me." Then Piggy woke up from his deep thought and trotted over to the table. Just as he sat down he realized he had forgotten to read the secrets. It frustrated him and he crossed his legs as a reminder to remember to read them on the way out.
The tea tasted unusual, thought Piggy. He suspected it was excellent tea and was overcome with a feeling of shame for not knowing what good tea tastes like.
"Thank you, this tea is very tasty!" He decided to say that to seem proper.
Sniffy's eyes lit up and he pointed toward the lemon cookies.
"I made it myself. It is camomile tea, and it goes very well with these lemon cookies that I also made."
Piggy ate five lemon cookies and could have eaten five more, but there were no more left on the platter. He had not eaten this much in a very long time, and it felt like a true feast.
"Well, a pig's ear! I ate all your cookies!" Piggy exclaimed when he realized what he had done. He quickly stood up and got something sad and rushed in his eyes and said:
"You have been so kind to me, but I have to go. I live there," he pointed to the window facing the forest "and I should head back before it gets dark. It's always best to head back before dark."
Piggy walked fast along the rug on the floor, and when the rug ended at the reading chair he stepped off it and walked toward the door. Sniffy followed him quietly but quickly. Sniffy was nervous and tried to think of how to respond.
"I have more cookies! I can put some in a bag so you can take them with you. It was nice to meet you. I don't meet pigs very often, anymore, and even if I didn't get to do all my garden chores today it was very nice to meet you. No wait, I did not mean that, garden chores, but I have a schedule I follow you see," at this time Sniffy pointed to the billboard labeled "Calendar" "and I follow it, every day, and then you showed up... and it is very nice to meet a fellow pig... yes, very nice!" Sniffy tangled up his words.
Piggy looked at Sniffy. They could be brothers, because they were so similar, except Piggy was in need of a long bath. Water bath, not mud bath. In the forest it was best to be covered in mud and twigs. It hid the scents better so that things that liked pigs couldn't find him.
Piggy knew he had to go, and yet he could not move, not yet. The happy go lucky pig that he had been, standing there at the fence earlier in the day, that pig was distant now. Another pig was now standing inside of him, and that pig did not whistle.
Piggy heard himself say:
"One time I lived in a house, but it had only one large room, and my family shared it with many other families. It wasn't as nice as this house, and we never had tea. But I think it was a home."
Sniffy waited to see if Piggy would continue his story. He did.
"One day, when I was little, my parents told me they had to go on a vacation and that I would have to stay home. I cried and cried and begged them to take me with them, but they said no. My mother told me that it was very rare for a pig to be able to read, and that I should not brag about it. I promised that I wouldn’t brag.
My father told me something strange. He told me that if anyone tries to tell me to go on a vacation, I should not go. I could not understand. I had always wanted to go to the beach. He made me promise not to go on a vacation, and I promised.
The following morning all parents in our house went on a vacation in a big truck and I never saw my parents again. One week later I was taking a mud bath near the fence and noticed that I had sunk so deep in the mud that only my head stuck up. I couldn't get unstuck.
First I panicked and screamed, but no one heard me or saw me. I was sure I was going to die. It became evening and everyone went inside. I was stuck no matter how much I kicked and kicked. It was pitch black and I was getting cold. Right then it bit me, this creature. See my ear?” Piggy pointed to his ear that was missing a piece. “It wanted to eat more but I got away. That’s how I got unstuck. I was so scared that I got unstuck! You know, there are things out there that want to eat us.” Piggy nodded toward the tall trees and the forest. Then he continued:
“I ran as fast as I could toward what I thought was the house. But I never got back to the house. I had come out on the other side of the fence and was standing in a meadow outside the big house.
A thought came to me. It said: "Run as fast as you can into that forest, and hide there! Run now! Run!" And I ran. I ran..."
Piggy turned the door knob and opened the door. It was twilight and the forest and garden were covered in a velvety green mist.
"Wait," said Sniffy almost to himself, "would you, would you like to stay in my guest cottage?"
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