(The brilliant artwork on this page is courtesy of Chloe May Smart)
This is Mitten The Squitten, half squirrel, half kitten. He is a champion of the fairies and elves and lives with them in a big ash tree (that's tidy and trash-free). There, he has his own smart bachelor-pad, where he enjoys a tranquil existence and gets on well with all the neighboring woodland folk.
Mitten is a well known and highly successful private detective, who played important roles in both ‘Fairy Save’ books. In a previous case, Mitten The Squitten had traveled to the far away, enchanted land of Mangolo Pongolo, where he recruited a number of local inhabitants to assist him in the very troublesome case of the ‘Squitten that Squawked.'
All did not go to plan, and the whole episode disintegrated into 'a pack of nonsense,' much like the following verse, written in the style of Lewis Carroll’s brilliant nonsense poem, ‘The Hunting of the Snark.’
THE SQUITTEN THAT SQUAWKED
The birds in the air and the beasts of the field
Came mostly by bus, though some walked,
Each one was exhorted to keep their eyes peeled,
And look out for the squitten that squawked
Two dozen blackbirds trilled sweetly on flutes,
Thirty five llamas played drums,
The crustaceans and reptiles were all in cahoots,
against those with opposable thumbs.
The shamshanks were swarming to swindle the swine,
When upbraided, they showed no contrition,
But laid out their shamsticks in one, long, straight line,
In remarkable juxtaposition.
In the midst of this turmoil, a tall turtle talked
And finally agreed to confess,
That he'd seen for himself the squitten that squawked
And could thus put an end to this mess.
He issued directions, with maps, graphs and notes,
With longitude lines sketched in blue,
And all the protagonists took to the boats,
Though none of them knew what to do.
At length they made progress, and hot on his track,
With grappling hooks, crampons and slings,
Apprehended the squitten, escorting him back,
To face justice and other such things.
Mitten himself, overcome with contrition,
Pitied the squitten that squawked,
When the prisoner acknowledged the legal position,
Mitten arranged that he walked.
Maggie Smart
This poem is dedicated to my old school friend, Sue Hibbert, who has been so encouraging and supportive during my battle to get this blog off the ground. I remembered that she enjoyed nonsense rhyme, so decided that she should have some.
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