The Nose Snatcher


This was a story I told my nephew when I was in the UK last, he liked it and asked me to write it down. This is what it became. My first attempt at a fairytale :-) 

Once upon a time in a kingdom not very far away, lived a wicked old man that they called the nose snatcher. The nose snatcher had grey hair and a grey beard and some people said he looked like an old tennis ball that had lost its bounce. Maybe that was why he didn’t like little children making a racket. 
Now, this wicked old man was very grumpy and very nasty and he lived on top of the mountain that overlooked a town called Newport. Three times a year the nose snatcher would swoop down to the town and in the dead of night he would steal noses from children as they were sleeping. The nose snatcher would only steal from the children who picked their nose and ate it. But what he did with all these noses no one was quite sure, if fact no one knows.
One morning Gethin woke up with and itchy nose and felt like he needed to sneeze.
‘Aitch …’ he said, but he couldn’t sneeze, he couldn’t sneeze at all, the nose snatcher had stolen his nose. He looked in the mirror and there it was… gone. He checked again, two eyes, two ears, one mouth but no nose.
‘Mum, mum, my nose has gone!’ He shouted. His mum came running up the stairs.
‘Well there’s a thing,’ his mum said, looking at the place on his face where the nose had been just the night before.
‘Mum, I have no nose,’ Gethin said, ‘how do I smell?’
Gethin’s mum sniffed the boy, ‘terrible’ she said.
But Gethin was having none of it. 
‘It’s not fair.’ He said. ‘I can’t go to school with no nose. I’m going to climb the mountain and get my nose back.’
So Gethin’s mum phoned the school and told them that Gethin had a nose job to do and wouldn’t be in school, and then packed Gethin a crisp sandwich for the journey. Crisp sandwiches were Gethin’s favourite sandwich, so he set off with a smile on his face, even though there was no nose on his face.
The mountain was tall and hard to climb. Gethin was tired out; it was difficult to breathe with no nose especially when you had a mouth full of bread and cheese 'n' onion crisps. But Gethin was determined to get his nose back; he wasn’t going to blow it now.
Eventually, he reached the front door and he looked for the bell, but there wasn’t one, there was just a honker. So he honked the honker, and waited. 
The door swung open and the old man with the tennis ball head stood in front of Gethin. Gethin had never seen someone who looked so much like a tennis ball in all his life. He even had the word Slazenger tattooed on his forehead.
‘What do you want?’ The man said in his evil voice.
‘I want to know why you steal children’s noses.’ Gethin said, he was trying to be brave, but he was shaking inside.
‘You nosey little boy,’ the man said.
‘Listen mister, little boys and girls need their noses, you can’t go around stealing them. I want my nose back.’
‘If you can answer three questions, I will give you your nose back.’ The man said.
‘Okay’ said Gethin, he was a clever boy and he knew he could answer questions, as long as they were sneezey.
‘Why is a nose like a cheap padlock? The old man said.
‘Why is a nose like a cheap padlock?’ Gethin repeated the question. ‘Easy, because they are easy to pick.’ Gethin replied.
‘Hmm,’ said the old man. ‘That’s right! Okay question two. How is a nose like a big poo?’
‘Ooo’ Gethin said 'How is a nose like a big poo?’ Because both of them smell’ Gethin said as quick as a flash.
‘Grrr,’ said the old man. ‘Okay question 3. Why is a nose like soft boiled egg?’ The grumpy old man asked.
‘Oh' Gethin didn’t know. 'Why was a nose like a soft boiled egg?’ Gethin thought and thought, he’d got the first two questions right but now he didn’t know the answer to question three. ‘Because they are both runny.’ Gethin said. ‘Yes, I got them right.’
The old man stamped his foot in indignation. ‘’S not fair’ he said.
‘Give me back my nose,’ he said, ‘ you promised.’
‘Okay, the noses are in that trunk.’ The nose snatcher pointed to the trunk in the corner of the room. ‘Pick your nose.’
‘Ha ha’ Gethin said, ‘I thought you didn’t like us picking our noses.’
Gethin opened the trunk to find hundreds of noses, big ones, small ones, ugly ones and pretty ones. When the nose snatcher wasn’t looking, he grabbed them all and put them in his bag. Then he ran away, running down the mountain and back to the town. In the town people cheered and clapped as Gethin gave all the children their noses back until there was only one left.
‘Who’s nose is this?’  Gethin said. But no one answered.
‘Someone knows whose nose.’ Gethin said, but still silence.
‘No one knows whose nose?’ Gethin said
Then everyone pointed at Gethin.

‘It’s yours,’ they said. In all the excitement Gethin had quite forgotten he didn’t have his nose back.

4 comments:

  1. Hasn't Gethin got any noses left? Mine is big and ugly and awfully runny so I need a replacement! :-)

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  2. That is a good one :-) You should write more

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  3. The writer definitely nose what he's talking about.

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  4. Maybe the archive story today should be the story written not by your nephew, but for your nephew. Being an adult, it doesn't mean i didnt enjoy it :-) quite the opposite. I love it :-) seems inside i am still a child. ..

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