I changed corm crisps to cringle crisps. Still not perfect but good enough that I was finally able to write again. Also, chapter 1 title changed to The Giant Man Discovers a Croco-diamond in His Hammock.
Chapter 2: The Giant Man Makes a Plan of Action
The croco-diamond popped the last bit of cananacot in his mouth. “Delicious!” he said to the giant man. “Did you grow that on this farm?”
“I grow everything on the farm and then sell it at the market. I like to work outdoors.”
“And you live here alone?” asked the croco-diamond, noticing, now that the sun was fully up, that the giant man’s house, while well made, was, to be honest, a little dirty.
“I’ve lived here alone for a long time.”
The croco-diamond thought about that. He had never been alone. Croco-diamonds travel together so there’s always someone to eat with or to have a nap with or to talk with. That was why he had gone to the swamp, to be with the other croco-diamonds.
But he hated the swamp. It didn’t smell very nice and the food was NOT good. His nails were always getting mucky. There was no where to buy cotton squares. He spent most of his days cleaning swamp mud from his jewels. Finally he had decided to leave, which is how he came to the giant man’s house.
Normally, after a fruit dish, which croco-diamonds serve as the last course of a holiday meal, everyone would retire to a large field and tell the stories of their jewels. Each croco-diamond had a unique set of jewels, some won from dueling with pirates, others bestowed for valor, a few given as payment for scholarly works, and the rest handed down through the generations. All of the croco-diamond’s star garnets were inherited from his father, who had received them as payment for a series of books he had written about engine design. Croco-diamonds can be very mechanically inclined when they aren’t being lazy.
But the giant man had no jewels to tell stories about. That made the croco-diamond feel bored. He thought about returning to the purple hammock for some sleep. But the giant man had other ideas.
“What we are going to do now is go out in the field and pick some more cringle roots. Then we will go into the kitchen and make the cringle crisps. I think we can make at least two bushels before market. I have some gloves you can borrow.”
At first the croco-diamond was not sure at all that he wanted to go into a field to do manual labor. The giant man watched as the croco-diamond lowered his snout and made a “kkkech, bleccch” noise. He wrapped his tail around his body and looked as if he would turn into a giant ball and bounce away.
So the giant man said “I suppose no croco-diamond before has ever picked cringle roots. You would be the first. And it isn’t easy. It requires a person of enormous intelligence who has a sense of adventure. With your dexterity it’s possible that you will be the best cringle picker ever in all of the worlds. But…maybe cringle picking isn’t right for you.”
The croco-diamond raised his snout up. Of course he would be the best. In fact, he would probably have to give the giant man a few suggestions on technique.
So they went into the field. In fact, the croco-diamond was much faster at picking than the giant man. Being lower to the ground, with his long nails, he could easily pull the cringle roots that had turned purple, meaning they were ripe, out of the ground.
The giant man had to bend down 20 feet to the dirt where the cringle roots were. He would stick his big fingers in the dirt, fumbling because the cringle roots were much smaller than his fingers. Because of his height it was hard to see the ground, so he would have to bend even lower, saying “oof, my back”, to make sure he only picked ripe cringle roots.
The croco-diamond was able to pick 10 cringle roots in the time the giant man picked just one. Though he was later heard to brag that he picked 20 in the time the giant man picked one that only happened after he had been picking them for a week.
Because the croco-diamond was faster at picking the giant man busied himself making the cringle crisps. In less than two hours they were ready to go to market with five baskets of cringle crisps.
They put the baskets in the giant man’s ticky tap tap. And although there was room for the croco-diamond to sit in the front seat he decided instead that he wanted to sit in the ticky tap tap bed with the cringle crisps. The giant man strung the hammock up in the bed.
“You see, this is how my people travel,” the croco-diamond told the giant man as he climbed into the hammock (with a little help from the giant man, who made a step with his hand). “I am used to being carried in a royal litter by eight sloth toed land fish. A flamencio bird walks in front with a basket of flower petals to mark my arrival.” The croco-diamond looked around hopefully, but there were no flamencio birds or sloth toed land fish to be seen anywhere. “You do at least have flower petals? Red is my color but what ever you have on hand will do.”
The giant man worriedly scanned his yard. No red flower petals. The closest thing he had was a daisy oops bush and that wouldn’t flower for another month.
“I have an idea! I saw it in a book! I can tie red streamers to the front of the car. That way everyone will know there is a very important person in the car.”
The croco-diamond genteelly nodded his head in agreement. Quickly the giant man tore the red bandana he wore around his neck into strips. The streamers were attached to the bumper and they were off to the market.
As the giant man drove he could hear, from the back of the ticky tap tap, a muffled “crunch crunch”. But when he looked in the rear view mirror the croco-diamond always pretended to be asleep.
