The Heart of the Dales by Gervase Phinn

like to continue, Joshua?’ I said, not wishing to engage in a debate about the technicalities of the English language with a six-year-old.
    The boy read on: ‘Sandy raced off. Let’s follow his tracks.’ He stopped again, his finger beneath the sentence he had just read. ‘Mr Phinn, snails can’t race. They’re very slow creatures.’
    â€˜It’s supposed to be funny,’ I told him. ‘The writer knows snails move slowly and has used “raced” to make us smile.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Joshua, his small brow furrowing. He was clearlynot amused. He shrugged and continued reading: ‘“Good morning, Mrs Dragonfly. I can’t stop now. I’m so excited! Mother has a big surprise for me!” “Lucky you!” whirred the Dragonfly. “Maybe it’s a munchy mosquito.”’ Joshua paused again. ‘This writer uses a lot of exclamation marks, doesn’t he, Mr Phinn?’
    â€˜He does,’ I agreed.
    â€˜Mrs Hartley says we shouldn’t use too many exclamation marks.’
    â€˜Does she? Well, let’s not worry too much about that at the moment, Joshua. Shall we get on with the story?’
    And so the saga of Sandy Snail continued with our little slimy friend meeting a whole host of interesting mini-beast characters in the course of his travels, including Mr Caterpillar who chomped his way through the juicy cabbage leaf, and Mrs Bee who had a liking for poppy flowers filled with nectar.
    â€˜I don’t think bees like poppies that much,’ said Joshua, looking up from the book. ‘They much prefer foxgloves.’
    â€˜I wonder what creature Sandy will meet next?’ I asked, anxious to change the subject. I wasn’t very informed about bees.
    â€˜It better not be a Frenchman,’ he said.
    I was intrigued. ‘Why not a Frenchman?’ I asked.
    He looked at me as if I were simple-minded. ‘Because they
eat
snails,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Didn’t you know that? When we went to a
gîte
in France last year, my father ate some snails. They’re called
escargots
in French. Disgusting!’
    The child read on until he came to the final page where Sandy Snail meets his mother. ‘“Here I am. Where’s my BIG surprise? Can I have it now, please? I’m so excited!” “See if you can find it!” said Mother Snail. Two little snails, one with a blue shell and the other with a pinkshell, popped up from behind a leaf. “We’re your big surprise, your new brother and sister!”’
    Joshua snapped shut the book and shookhis head.
    â€˜You read that very well, Joshua,’ I told the boy. ‘You’re an excellent reader. And wasn’t it a delightful story?’
    He scowled. ‘I didn’t think much of it.’
    â€˜Why is that?’ I asked.
    â€˜Well, for a start, snails don’t have blue and pink shells. They are more of a greeny-brown colour. And for another thing, snails and those other creatures can’t talk.’
    â€˜No, but then neither can Peter Rabbit, nor Mole and Ratty in
The Wind in the Willows
, or Mickey Mouse or some of Enid Blyton’s animals. It’s only a story.’
    â€˜And another thing,’ said Joshua, not really listening to me, ‘you can’t have boy and girl snails.’
    â€˜Why not?’ I asked innocently.
    â€˜Because everyone knows that snails are hermaphrodites,’ he said.
    I smiled but said nothing; I thought of the words of Oscar Wilde who once observed that a child ‘has a disgusting appetite for facts’.
    At afternoon break, the teacher told me that Joshua was a mine of information on natural history. ‘Of course, you would expect as much,’ she told me, ‘his father being a professor of biology.’
    The Chairman of the School Governors, Archdeacon Richards, a cheerful little cleric with a round red face and white bushy eyebrows