Chapter 1: The Giant Man Meets a Croco-diamond & Makes a Plan of Action
One morning, as the sun was just rising, the giant man woke up to the sound of crunching. It was not normal crunching. It was very loud crunching.
He sat up in bed and peered out the window of his attic bedroom down to the courtyard below. There he saw in the growing light a croco-diamond lying on his back in the purple hammock. He had a round light green belly covered in corm crumbs, polished nails at the end of his webbed feet, and thick teeth covered in patterned white gold. Down his spine was a sparkling array of aspen diamonds, cardentine emeralds, star garnets, marlonian opals and a De Le Va Dorn ruby once owned by a real King. In each foot were 5 corm crisps which the croco-diamond daintily placed in his mouth before snapping his snout shut with a loud munch and chomp.
Beside the croco-diamond was the basket of corm crisps the giant man had made just the previous day. The basket was almost empty.
The giant man was puzzled for two reasons. The first – no one had seen a croco-diamond in years. They had moved deep into the swamp because fortune hunters would remove the jewels that made up the spines of the croco-diamonds while the croco-diamonds were sleeping (they sleep very deeply). The second – though croco-diamonds are known to eat mash pies, squiggle salads, applecorn buns, broccolintine casseroles, eggy guild torts, okre berry soup, and jellied can cakes they had never been seen eating corm crisps.
“Delightful morning!” called the croco-diamond, spying the giant man at his window. “I shall rest here for a bit and then I must to do something with these nails. A warm bath would be wonderful. Do you have any bubbles?”
“Just a minute, I’m coming down,” said the giant man, proceeding to put on his robe and walk down the narrow staircase from the attic, careful to duck his head to avoid the ceiling. Arriving in the courtyard he found the croco-diamond brushing the crumbs from his belly with an elegant but worn cotton square. He put the last corm crisp in his mouth and then looked at the front of his feet.
“I had such a nice pair of gloves for my trip, seem to have misplaced them and walking on tile is so hard on the nails…” The croco-diamond stopped speaking because he noticed the giant man was staring at the path behind him that led from the courtyard out to a barn. The path was strewn with baskets. Empty baskets.
“Five, six, seven… Eight! Nine!” said the giant man to himself, counting the baskets. The croco-diamond covered the front of his snout and burped into the cotton square.
“My corm crisps! All of my corm crisps!”
“I was hungry. Sometimes I do eat too much.” The croco-diamond wiggled his tail in an attempt to sit up. The attempt failed. “And now it’s hopeless. I’m afraid I’m stuck in this hammock.” His snout sagged open and a small trail of drool dropped to his tummy. “Perhaps I’ll have a bath later instead of now.” His eyes started to close and he yawned a big croco-diamond yawn.
“But you’ve eaten all of my corm crisps! All of them!”
At this the croco-diamond’s sleepy eyes suddenly opened, and with a great effort he managed to roll over onto his right side so he could more easily see the giant man.
“I don’t understand. Is there…a problem?”
“Of course there’s a problem! I sell corm crisps every Thursday at the market. Now there’s nothing to sell!”
The croco-diamond blinked and then stared at the tall figure in front of him flapping his bath robed arms around at the empty baskets. Due to his large size, strong teeth, well polished nails, and general aura of royalty, no one had ever yelled at the croco-diamond before. He was unsure what to do. A feeling of sadness replaced the happy feeling of just moments before from having eaten nine baskets of corm crisps. He put his front foot to his face and pressed it against the side of his snout.
“I just…I just don’t know what to say,” he sniffed. His large tail thumped down dully onto the hammock and his rear feet curled into tight balls of webbing.
The giant man realized the croco-diamond was going to start crying. And the worst thing is when a croco-diamond cries. First it goes “sniff sniff” and the eyes get a sad gleam. Then the croco-diamond makes a noise like “kak, kak”, clearing the lungs. One, then two egg shaped tears will roll down his cheeks, followed by a lowly murmured “neuuuuuuuu!” Sobs follow.
Croco-diamonds have a large supply of tears and can cry for a month without stopping except to eat and polish their nails (very difficult to do through a curtain of tears but somehow they manage). The giant man had once heard the story of a croco-diamond that cried so much, for so long, that the croco-diamond’s snout had to buy an umbrella and galoshes.
“Oh no. Don’t. No don’t do that. It’s okay. Don’t cry. Please. Don’t cry!” pleaded the giant man as the croco-diamond’s chest puffed forward and his front feet covered his face. “It’s…it’s okay. We…we’ll make some more corm crisps. With two of us…it’s…it won’t take long. Please don’t cry.” The giant man flapped his arms even faster in his robe. “Oh please please please! Please don’t cry!”
The croco-diamond thought for a moment, noticed his chipped nails again, and decided it would be best to delay his tears, at least for the moment. He stared at his front feet, and then his back feet, uncurling them and then wiggling each webbed digit nervously. Was he supposed to apologize now? Croco-diamonds don’t like to apologize.
“They had such a nice zing and a delicious crunch and I hadn’t eaten except for a tiny pot of cactar jam, it dries out the throat you know…” The croco-diamond coughed a tiny cough and put his snout almost to his belly. No, he wasn’t going to apologize.
The giant man sighed. He knew there was no point in yelling. So he said “I’m going to get dressed and make some breakfast. You should join me at least for some fruit because jam and corm crisps are not a balanced diet. After breakfast we will discuss what to do next. We need a plan of action!”
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