This is ridiculous. Albert had been acting very strangely for weeks. I can’t make any sense of what he’s up to. Anyway, here’s what happened this morning.
He was waiting outside the window this morning when I opened the blinds. But to my amazement, he seemed to have crawled through a pot of blue paint. His brown shell was streaked with blue as bright as a cornflower. And I could just see shimmering streaks of silver on his two tentacles, as if he had applied some shiny make-up. Looking more closely, I could see that he had borrowed another snail’s shell, which had the owner’s name painted in blue on it. Albert had come in disguise, as a snail called John.
I wanted to ask about his progress on the case, but I could see he was all of a quiver. He seemed for the first time to be interested in something inside the room. Albert was behaving in a very curious fashion. He was doing a snail dance, and singing a snail song, in those familiar grumbly rumbly tones.
Snaily baby
Don say maybe
Say you’ll slip outside with me
I’m not quttin
I’m so smitten
Smitten baby over you
“Albert! What’s going on? Why are you wearing a shell with the name John on it?”
My words gave him quite a shock. It was as if he hadn’t expected to see me on the other side of the window. His head disappeared right back into his shell.
“Albert! Where have you been? And what’s all this Snaily baby stuff.
But there was no enticing Albert out of his shell.
“I’m going to make a cup of tea” I said. “Perhaps when I can come back, you’ll be ready to answer some questions”. And with that I got up from my chair and went away to make the tea.
And do you know what I found when I got back? Only a message on the window, in Albert’s snail-mail writing.
“In disguise. Back on track, soon”
Now what is all this about?” I wondered to myself, sipping the warm green tea I had made.