Prince Toby has started his own diary for National Novel Writing Month. You can follow his adventures here.
Tuesday 22nd November 2022
Weight: 1290g (am hungry!!!), cucumber consumption: 0 slices (not even any cucumber for #TongueOutTuesday), escape attempts: 7 (from bath and up corner to alert Human No. 1 to the fact that I needed my tail cleaning), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for No Reason Whatsoever: 0 (couldn’t be bothered), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for Toilet-Related or Other Emergencies: 1 (and she didn’t notice for ages!)
7.30 am: Aaaaarrrrggghhhh! Missed the football!
7.34 am: Hmmm. Turns out the score was 1-1, so there wasn’t really much point to playing the match, was there? Think draws should be banned. They should just keep playing until somebody wins. Stupid football!
8.00 am: Human No. 2 was supposed to be in charge of my bath this morning, but he’s had to rush into work to do busy and important things. Oh dear. Suppose I’ll just have to miss my bath today. How ever will I cope?
9.00 am: Human No. 1 is obviously far too busy and important to give me a bath today. Lalala!
10.00 am: Human No. 1 has just appeared, looking purposeful. She’s boiling the kettle. There is a human kettle and a tortoise kettle in my Tortoise Parlour. The tortoise kettle is much fancier than the human one and heats the water to lots of different temperatures. Thought she was just coming in to make a cup of tea (did I mention she’s addicted to caffeine?) but that's definitely the tortoise kettle I can hear. It does fancy beeping. Human kettle doesn’t do fancy beeping. It just clicks. This can only mean one thing.
10.15 am: BATH!!!
10.16 am: On the plus side, I have found some ducks for my bath. Hurrah!
10.17 am: Hmmm. Human No. 1 says I can’t put the ducks in my bath. She says I don’t know where they’ve been. I know exactly where they’ve been. In Human No. 2’s study!
10.18 am: She now says there’s no room in the bath for them. Buy me a bigger bath then!
10.19 am: On second thoughts, I don’t think I want a bigger bath . . .
11.00 am: Aaaargghhh! What’s happened to my plants?? They have disappeared! Think Human No. 1 has stolen them. Not sure why. How am I supposed to pursue my lifelong vendetta against Bertie the Tradescantia zebrina plant when he’s not even here? Bertieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
11.16 am: Doing some digging to protest against plant theft and cruel abduction of my nemesis.
11.33 am: Got a bit dirty (and got dirt stuck in my nostrils). Human No. 1 thought that the best response to this was to plonk me in the bath again. Idiot!
11.36 am: Am on dry(ish) land again.
12.01 pm: It’s #TongueOutTuesday but I shan’t do it today – unless Human No. 1 relents and gives me some cucumber . . .
1.05 pm: Cucumber not forthcoming. Suppose I should get back to my literary masterpiece . . .
Prince Toby Presents
Sherlock Tobes and Dr Tortson in
The Tort of the Baskervilles – Part 4
[Second report of Dr Tortson]
Baskerville Hall, October 15th
My Dear Tobes,
What have I got to tell you today? Oh, I had a lovely cucumber omelette for breakfast. Mrs Tortymore really is an excellent chef. And for lunch we had cucumber sandwiches and for dinner we had cucumber stew. It was delightful. As you would expect, the weather hasn’t been very bright. I thought it was going to rain this morning and then it didn’t, but then it did rain in the afternoon, so you just never know, do you?
In other news, I think Mr Tortymore might be playing away. That would explain why he’s creeping round the house in the middle of the night. Turns out he definitely wasn’t spring cleaning because I checked the windowsill where he was standing, and it was filthy. Cobwebs everywhere! Anyway, I spoke to Sir Torty about the whole business and he’s heard Tortymore creeping around at night too and so we’ve decided to lie in wait for him and catch him in the act!
Speaking of catching people in the act, Sir Torty has been stepping out with Mrs— I mean, Miss Tortleton (I’ve been spying on them in a creepy Peeping Tom kind of way) and Mr Tortleton came upon them in a fury and warned Sir Torty off his sister. Very odd behaviour – almost as if she were his wife not his sister! Anyway, he apologised later and invited us to dinner at his house across the moors in the dead of night. Of course, we thought that this was an excellent idea so we immediately accepted his invitation.
Oh, and we found out what was going on with Tortymore. He wasn’t having an affair – he was just harbouring a fugitive. Remember the crazed murderer, Tortden, I was telling you about? Well, funny story, he happens to be Mrs Tortymore’s brother, so they’ve been giving him food and they’re helping him escape to South America! What kind souls the Tortymores are! I was greatly moved by their story. So, anyway, I decided to take Sir Torty out onto the moors in the middle of the night to chase down the crazed murderer. We nearly got him, but he was too fast for us. And then we heard the great moan of the Tort of the Baskervilles and then I saw the silhouette of a tort wearing a deerstalker and inverness cape standing up on the hill. I can definitely 100% say that I didn’t recognise this tort. In fact, I’d be willing to swear that I had never seen him before in my life. I wonder who the mystery tort is? If only you were here, Tobes, I’m sure we’d have our answer!
Yours,
Dr. Tortson.
Hmmm. Tobes isn’t writing very satisfactory replies to my letters. He’s not responding to any of the many very significant details I have sent over to him. In fact, his replies are so generic that it’s almost as if he had written them in advance and has asked someone to post them for him while he is off somewhere else entirely doing goodness knows what. He really can be infuriating sometimes. I wish he’d take a bit more of an interest in this case!
Anyway, I’m bored of sharing letters, so I’m going to move to my diary recollections instead. There’s something about a diary that just feels very familiar.
October 16th
Found out from Tortymore that, on the night of his death, Sir Torts Baskerville was meeting with a mysterious woman with the initials TL.
October 17th
Tortymore knows about the mysterious tort on the moors. He says Tortden has come across this tort several times, and that a young urchin tort (a tortchin?) brings him food.
Nope, I’ve given up on the diary format. It wasn’t working for me. This is what happened the next day:
TL is Torta Lyons. She was very cagey but finally admitted that she wrote to Sir Torts to ask him to meet her (apparently for some money for her divorce proceedings, which seems a bit cheeky, if you ask me), but she claims that she didn’t keep the appointment. She wouldn’t tell me why. All very suspicious.
I spotted a young tortchin crossing the moors. He must have been taking food to the mystery tort. I followed him and came to a row of old stone dwellings from days of yore.
I went inside one of the dwellings. It was empty, except for a pipe and a deerstalker hat and particularly out-of-tune violin. Oh, and a lovely watercolour of a tort that looked an awful lot like me, running across the moors late at night with a tort that looked startlingly like Sir Torty, and they were both being pursued by a giant tort covered in phosphorus— erm, I mean a spectral giant tort who was 100% supernatural and definitely not just a normal giant tort covered in phosphorus. In the background, I could just make out the silhouette of a tort wearing a deerstalker hat and inverness cape.
I was so transfixed by the painting that I barely heard the clawsteps until they were upon me. ‘Do you like it, my dear Tortson?’ asked a very familiar voice. ‘It took me all afternoon to paint that!’
To be continued . . .
3.17 pm: Why is Tortleton being creepy about his sister? What secret is Torta Lyons concealing? Why does Dr Tortson keep changing the format of his narrative? Tune in tomorrow for the (probably) final instalment to find out. Same tort time. Same tort channel!
3.33 pm: Phew! Am tired now! Snooze time.
4.30 pm: Human No. 1 is still trying to get a #TongueOutTuesday pic but I am asleep and, also, there is no cucumber.
6.00 pm: It’s bedtime, so of course the humans have come in to cook dinner and make as much noise as possible. Bog off!
6.07 pm: They have bogged off.
6.39 pm: Now they’re back again.
7.01 pm: In the words of little Timmy in Jurassic Park when his stupid sister is shining a torch right in the escaped T. rex’s eye: ‘TURN THE LIGHT OFF!!!!!’
You can follow Prince Toby on Twitter @PrinceTobyTort (and Instagram, where he is now frantically trying to learn the ropes in case of Twitter explosion, also @PrinceTobyTort). Also, play Tortmaster on Twitter! The prize task is now open! Look out for a new task every Thursday night during the first break of Taskmaster.
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