The third main character in this novel called Slubes is Cherry, a 23-year old slube. She’s the only one of the three born and raised in Nottle, yet despite being from the quietest hometown she’s the most outgoing. She has a real gusto for life and wants to get out and find excitement. Although I often refer to her as the competent one, she can be rash and doesn’t always look before she leaps. She’s confident in all areas except for her father (although, quite frankly, the same could be said for him).
For most of her life she’s been restrained by her ever-worried father, a situation that has caused tension between them. She was allowed to take karate lessons when she was younger, but for the rest of the time he’s been overprotective. In going out on this adventure, she hopes to show her father that she can take care of herself, although hopefully he doesn’t have a nervous breakdown from it.
She’s also the one to have done research on the origins of the crystal—legends of a demon ravaging the islands that Zeth believes to be nonsense. Whatever’s really going on, these three heroes are out to get to the bottom of it—but the answer really lies at the top. In three days my novel comes out, and on that day I will post an introduction to the instigator of this crisis and our protagonist.
“Look!” Cherry said, pointing to the farm. A shard had landed near a pond. A white fish larger than a slube called a carpple—another carp, this one with ears and a snout similar to cattle—was poking it with its snout.
“Let’s go get it, then,” Zeth said.
“We can’t go in there!” Numer yelled. “Old farmer Monaco will kill us!”
“He will!?”
“Of course he won’t,” Cherry said, getting out of the Transpide.
“But… he might hit us with a Garden Weasel!” Numer yelled but climbed out and went after her; she was already inside the farm. Three seconds later came a shrill cry:
“WHO’S THERE IN MAH PROPERTEH!?” The old, wrinkled slube farmer, wearing a straw hat and patchy overalls, slid his way out, holding a Garden Weasel in the air. “I’ll tell ya, I’ve got me a Garden Weasel here, and IIII’m not afraid to use it!” What is with them and garden weasels!? I doubt anyone reading this even knows it’s a tool like a pitchfork, except with three sets of sharp, rotating prongs. … Well, I guess now they do.
“Put that down before you stab your eye out,” Cherry said to him, arms crossed.
“Listen here, little missy! I ain’t gonna take nothing from no one on my own land!”
“No, no, no, no!” Numer cried, dashing over between the two in panic. “If you’re going to hurt her, you have to go through-” The world tilted as Cherry pushed Numer to the side; he finished with a confused, “-me?”
“Do you know who I am?” Cherry asked the old farmer. “I’m Cherry! Mayor Caleco’s daughter.”
“You- Er, what? Mayor Caleco’s daughter!?” Monaco slid back a little. Although officially the mayor of Nottle, everyone knew Mayor Caleco’s power extended through the whole of west Hackney. In fact, together with the mayor of east Hackney, the two mayors were the highest authority on the island.
“That’s right,” Cherry continued, “and all we’re here for is the crystal that fell in your farm.”
“The what?”
“This,” Numer said, picking up the crystal near the pond. The carpple that had been poking it mooed.
“That’s all we wanted,” Cherry said. “You can go back to being a crotchety, old farmer now.”
Duth Olec's Cuckoo Cosmos 