Snails actually do eat worms

Rachel Wise

"Snails eat worms" said my 5-year-old grandson as he peered into a plastic container he'd filled with snails and worms.

"No they don't," I replied. "Snails eat my lettuces, my beans and my strawberries. They do not eat worms."

"Yes they do," he insisted.

"I saw it on TV."

I started to explain the difference between giant carnivorous snails as seen on TV, and common old slimy as snails as seen in my garden and then realised it was pointless. Five-year-olds know everything.

This one answers everything with "no it doesn't" if I have said it did, "yes it does" if I've suggested maybe it didn't, and "it wasn't me" when I have dared to suspect that, just perhaps, it was.

He says "I know" a lot.

He "knows" not to put his fingers in the pikelet mix when my back is turned, or so he tells me. He "knows" not to empty out the seed packets when he's helping in the garden. And he "knows" not to enforce semi-violent hugs on Hugo the chihuahua or Frank the cat, or to venture into the puddle on the back lawn.

So of course these things don't happen. Or at least if they do, it wasn't him.

There are few exceptions to the things he knows.

One exception is where his shoes are, ever. Another is where he left my horse training whip after he and his brother tied carrots to the end and used it as a fishing rod to try to catch Granddad's pigs.

The biggest exception is "why".

He doesn't know why.

"Put down the cat, please."
"Why?"
"Because it will scratch you."
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't like being carried upside down with its head dragging on the floor."
"Why?"
"It's probably uncomfortable."
"Why?"

Resisting the temptation to demonstrate on the child himself – for which I awarded myself a gold star on my good grandparenting behaviour chart – I tried to change the subject.

"Let's go and check the chookhouse for eggs."
"Why?"
"To put them in the fridge to eat them later. Because eggs are full of protein. And protein is good for us and helps build our bodies and eggs go well with bacon. And I don't know why they go well with bacon so don't ask. Same as I don't know why anyone would think to put maple syrup and bananas with bacon, but it just works. OK?"
"Wh…"
"And don't say 'why'!"
"W…"

"Just because!"

Sometimes it's more peaceful spending time with his 7-year-old brother, who can at least hold a conversation. OK it's generally about Harry Potter or sharks, but that's cool, to a point, when I then I trade the pair of them in for their 2-year-old cousin who simply runs about giggling, throws stuff in the toilet and yells "wheeeee" a lot.

You know when she's been visiting because the lawn is littered with things she's found interesting, hiked off with and discarded for the next thing. Sort of like a magpie, but pink, chubby and flightless.

That's why, at 4am on a recent morning, I was trudging about on the front lawn with a torch looking for one shoe.

I don't normally concern myself with lost shoes at 4am but we were leaving to drive to Wellington at 4.30am, a trip I really felt warranted the wearing of two shoes. Preferably matching.

The shoe I was searching for was not helping matters by being a black shoe.

I remembered seeing it in the hands of the giggling toddler the previous evening and thinking "she won't take it far" as she headed out the back door.

Well I don't know if she's taken it far or not, now, as I can't find it.

By the light of my torch I did find my walking stick, which she actually hadn't taken far, a cricket bat, Frank the Cat, a dead bird that posed very convincingly as a black shoe until I got close, and a really fat hedgehog.

The hedgehog was trying to heave itself up the front steps to raid the dog biscuit bowl. It looked embarrassed and a bit guilty, caught out mid-heave, and I took pity on it and put a few dog bikkies on the bottom step to save it the effort.

But I didn't find the shoe.

I'll put the grandsons to work looking for it when they come round this weekend.

One of them will explain at length how Harry Potter lost his firebolt and his trunk when they fell out of a flying motorbike, then tell me I wouldn't have lost my shoe if I was a shark.

The other one will just ask me "why?"