Prince Toby has started his own diary for National Novel Writing Month. You can follow his adventures here.
Wednesday 30th November 2022
Weight: 1274g (if I was Bridget, I think I’d be pleased by my weight-loss progress but, as I’m actually a hungry tort, I would rather be full of cucumber), cucumber consumption: 0 slices (was hoping for some cucumber canapés for my party, but no such luck), escape attempts: 17 (party excitement!), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for No Reason Whatsoever: 17 (didn’t want to overdo it as humans were busy with party preparations), interruption of Very Important Human Tasks for Toilet-Related or Other Emergencies: 0 (not even in the living room where there was a very tempting cream carpet to decorate!)
7.30 am: It’s party day!!! Hurrah!!! Hope that all my super-duper Twitter friends come along as well as my super-duper in-my-house friends. It’s Christmaaaaaaaaaaasssssss!!!!
7.49 am: Actually, I’m a bit sad that this is the VERY LAST DAY of my diary, but what a super-duper time we’ve had and look how productive I’ve been! I have definitely hit my #nananono target. In fact, I think I should do a list of all my super-duper #nananono diary achievements.
Prince Toby Tort’s List of Super-Duper #nananono Diary Achievements
1) Written loads and loads of words.
2) Got a promotion to Editort-in-Chief on The Reptile Files Blog.
3) Made lots of new friends.
4) Written some exciting torty-tales, starring some of my excellent Twitter friends.
5) Created the Sherlock Tobes series and written ‘The Final Cucumber’, ‘The Final Final Cucumber’, The Tort of the Baskervilles and ‘The Empty Shell’.
6) Created two gameshows: House of Torts and Tortmaster.
7) Written super-duper smash hit, ‘Let me Snooze’.
8) Learnt about queerbaiting, fairy tales, picture books, Jack the Ripper – what an academic tort I am!
9) Invented a new catchphrase: bog off!
10) Had a super-duper Tort Christmas party to celebrate!
8.49 am: Gosh. Aren’t I a very busy and important tort? Think I’ll have a pre-party snooze to recover from all that hard work!
9.57 am: Had lots of lovely RSVPs for my party. Am posting the invitation up on Twitter too for those very few people who haven’t managed to read my diary yet. Don’t want them to miss out!
10.19 am: Help! Am in bath again! This is getting so confusing! Yesterday was unbathday. Why the bath today? And why is Human No. 2 doing it again? He did it on Monday too and he really has no clue what he’s doing. Perhaps I can convince him to let me out early . . .
10.23 am: Hmmm. Human No. 1 has arrived to supervise. (Clearly she has as little faith in Human No. 2 as I do.) She says that I have to be nice and clean for my party. Don’t want to be nice and clean. Want to be covered in mud!
10.39 am: Am out of bath. Am covered in mud. Hahaha!
11.01 am: So, the football result didn’t go my way last night. Stupid football! Good job it wasn’t a real World Cup! There will be no more football for me this year (which is fine because Arsenal are top of the league and I would rather like them to stay there).
11.06 am: Actually, as the World Cup always happens at the end of the football season, I’m pretty sure that Arsenal have won the Premier League. Hurrah!!! Something else to celebrate!
11.55 am: My party has started!!! Hurrah!!! Human No. 1 let me into the living room on the condition that I didn’t wee everywhere. Don’t think she trusted me though as I notice she plonked me on a towel and she didn’t let me stay there very long. Still, I got to sit under the super-duper Christmas tree for a bit with lots of my friends and we played musical statues. I WON!!!! Kevin the Carrot was very shocked about that, but then Kevin the Carrot is shocked about most things . . .
12.33 pm: Had to put Feathers McGraw in the naughty corner for a bit because he was bullying poor Timmy.
12.53 pm: He has promised to behave himself now, so I have let him back in.
1.15 pm: There are some super-duper costumes for my party. I’m very impressed with the effort that my Twitter friends have put in.
2.03 pm: I promised some Christmas stories, so I have a good selection here for everyone to read in the library area of the party. It’s near the basking area, so you can go for a snooze afterwards.
2.27 pm: Hmmm. Feel like I should leave you with one last literary endeavour of my own before my diary is ended. Am going to dig into the most Christmassy story of all time for inspiration . . .
Prince Toby Presents
Tort Hard
Starring Tobe McClane and Hans Torter
So, it’s Christmas and I’m on my way to an LA skyscraper to see my estranged wife Holly (see, she even has a Christmas name – this is definitely a Christmas story) and I’m in a limo and everything – very fancy.
When I get inside, it turns out my wife has changed her name from McClane to her maiden name, Tortarro (which makes me mad, but is actually a key plot point, so I’ll forgive her) and there’s a Christmas party going on and it’s a bit too posh for me.
Anyway, then some German torts rock up and say they are terrorists but really it turns out that they are just thieves (exceptional ones, at that, or at least the main one is). While everyone else is busy screaming, I decide to abandon my wife (she shouldn’t have changed her name, should she?) and run around the building in a vest and no socks. (Torts don’t wear socks anyway, so I’m not sure why this is significant, but it is.) Anyway, so far everything is very Christmassy.
Turns out that the evil head tort is called Hans Torter, so I kill most of his henchtorts and torment him via walkie talkie, because that’s also a very Christmassy thing to do. At one point, I decide to put a Santa hat on one of his dead henchtorts and write ‘NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN, HO - HO - HO’ on his jumper so that he’s wearing a festive outfit, which is very charitable of me, I think, given that he tried to kill me.
So, I run around with a machine gun for a bit longer (which is quite a feat for a tort) and then I come across Hans Torter, who does some sort of weird Mark Hamill impression (I think he’s trying to fool me into thinking that he’s just some dumb American who works here, but it’s quite obvious by the look of him that he’s an evil German thief posing as an evil German terrorist). So anyway, I give him a gun and he tries to shoot me but it turns out that the gun isn’t loaded, which is lucky. So, I duck into my shell to hide from him and he runs off to steal some bearer bonds and tell the FBI he wants a helicopter to escape in.
Oh yeah, Hans Torter has also found out that I am Tobes McClane, but because Holly is using the name Tortarro, he doesn’t realise we are married until our stupid children are on the news complaining about how much they miss us and asking who is going to make their tea and then Torter realises that Holly is actually Holly McClane and holds her hostage.
Anyway, I distract Hans Torter by shouting some absolute nonsense (which I won’t repeat here because it’s a bit rude), then I shoot him and push him out the window, just to be sure. And then ‘Let It Snow’ starts playing because this is a very Christmassy story and Tobes McClane (that’s me) has saved the day and gets to ride off in a limo with Holly. Hurrah!
And we all live happily ever after – except for Hans Torter and all his henchtorts because I killed them all. HO - HO - HO.
THE END.
4.47 pm: Wasn’t that lovely and Christmassy?
4.53 pm: Was going to play hide the sprout, but I can’t find any sprouts.
5.01 pm: Hmmm. Can’t play pin the dandie on the chin, either, because I might accidentally eat it and I’m not allowed to eat anything whatsoever!!! (Am pretty sure Albie would win!)
5.08 pm: Started playing charades but had to abandon it eventually as Kevin the Carrot just kept doing Home Alone, which got a bit tedious after a while.
5.15 pm: Human No. 1 didn’t order my lilo in time, so I couldn’t play the (somewhat perilous) guess-how-long-the-tort-can-float-in-the-bath game.
5.18 pm: Having a nice game of pass the parcel now. Feathers was doing that thing where you go really slowly so you get to unwrap the present, but he wasn’t very happy when I explained our pass the parcel rules, which didn’t involve any presents at all. As he already has a rubber glove on his head (for some reason), he didn’t want to put Bernard on his head as well and he refused to sing at all.
5.54 pm: Some latecomers have arrived at the party and they don’t all look pleased to see each other. There are two wizardy-looking men who you’d think would get on as it looks like they go to the same hairdresser and cloak designer, but they really don’t seem to like each other. I fear that poor Smaug the dragon will have to act as peacekeeper all night.
6.53 pm: Have just performed a stirring rendition of ‘Let Me Snooze’ with Bernard on the triangle and a dance break from Kevin the Carrot and Penelope the Mouse. It was really quite something.
Let me snooze! Let me snooze!
When I rise then it will be Spring.
Let me snooze! Let me snooze!
Just let me do my thing.
I’m tucked in, so please go away,
Let me go to sleep,
The cold always bothers me every day.
8.11 pm: It’s time for me to say goodnight and goodbye. Thank you all for reading my diary and for being such good friends. I will see you over on Twitter for a little bit before I settle down for my Winter snooze and there will be a grand final Tortmaster task tomorrow. But for now, it’s time for me to tuck myself up and lay down my pen for the year.
8.23 pm: Oh, I suppose I should thank my humans for looking after me and Human No. 1, in particular, for helping a tiny-weeny bit with my diary.
8.41 pm: The party is winding down. I’m ready for my nap. And so, there’s just one thing left to say as I tuck in my head and scrunch up my eyes:
BOG 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, look out for the grand final Tortmaster task on Twitter tomorrow (1st December 2022)!