6.8: A snail hunt

Furious, the three chevaliers grab whatever weapons and appropriate garb (for a lynching?!?) they can, and rush after the fleeing snail. 

Now this is a point of some importance for the reader, who will have to decide how fast Fabian can really move. Later, we will learn that he signed into the Potting Shed as ‘Fabian, Racing Snail’ and that this status matters to him. But he is only a snail. How fast could even a ‘racing snail’ slither? 

All four charge (modulo the above question) over fields, criss-cross through trees, shrubs and brambles, being pricked and tugged at by thorns, often turning topsy-turvy and gathering up a covering of leaves and vegetable matter. 

“Grew!” shouts Lottie. 

“Toucher...ucher!” cries pTravis in sympathy. 

“I quite like it” says Masongill. “Wormy!” 

After as long as it takes for a responsible reader to think plausible, the chevaliers manage to head Fabian off ‘at the pass’. Here, however, with almost a cheerful grin, he flicks off the scarf and offers it to pTravis who notices that tangled in it, alongside his precious sponge insignia, is another. A graph, with three dimensions of pointing axes, of a folded surface. What can this mean? Did the snail manage to pin it on during the headlong chase? Or did it somehow get attached to the scarf in the bushes?

Ignoring this for now, they turn away from Fabian and stomp off with showy irritation.