Klubbe the Turkle and the Golden Star Coracle by Philip Dodd

                                             Chapter One

                               Dawn of an Idea

Deep in the midst of the cosmos, the planet Ankor spins. It is, as yet, undetected, even by the most powerful telescope, and undiscovered, even by the most far searching spacecraft. Huge, rounded, as all of them are, for some geological, astronomical reason, it is rather primitive, largely due to its guardian race, who are not very advanced. Turkles they call themselves, being close cousins of turtles, who they like to observe resting and flopping about on the shores of their oceans and seas. Unlike them, they walk on their hind legs, and they have the gift of language, and the ability to create their own culture.

  On the west coast of Crustacea, the most massive mass of land on the planet, there lived a young turkle called Klubbe. He lived alone, because he was a hermit. His house was a round mound, like an igloo, built of blocks of hard sand, rather than ice, and it was named Lone Lodge. It stood in a dip between two sand hills, which were covered in patches of shiny, green blades of marram grass, near the edge of the Accumtumba Ocean, with its ever approaching, numberless lines of waves.

  Like all of his fellow sisters and brothers of his turkle kin, he had thick, tough, wrinkled, yellow golden skin, the same colour as the hard, dome shaped shell on his back.  His bald head rested, like a turnip, on his short neck, and he had large lidded, clear brown, green speckled eyes, a broad, beak like nose, small, well whorled ears, a wide mouth, usually creased in a contented smile, stout legs, and fairly long, flipper like arms.

  Only recently left school, he had decided to live as a hermit, to give him the solitude and space he felt he needed to master his skills and decide what his future occupation should be. He loved living in his house by the ocean, preparing seaweed stew and green bean soup in his pans in his kitchen for his meals, going for a float on the waves in his coracle, made of golden reeds and willow shoots, strolling on the shore, and drawing sea glorbs and salavandarva fish in his sketch book, as he watched them brood, wriggle and dart about in the jewel stone rock pools, left behind by the tides.

  On his school leaving certificate, he was pleased to note that his best subject was technical drawing, for which he got a gold star. It also made him beam with pleasure to see that he got a silver star for his experimental science work, fundamental arithmatic, basic cookery, original prose and poetry composition, hill walking, common gardening, primitive nature study and general sports, but he was disappointed that he only got a copper star for history, geography and woodwork.

  "Not normal, bound to be an exception. Expect to be alarmed by him in the future. Creative in the arts, stands tall in the sciences. A popular pupil, who will no doubt contribute well to the general nut brown wholesomeness of turkle life," wrote Mister Winkle, his headmaster, in his final comment.

  If a turkle traveller, wanderer, wayfarer, old friend or family member did happen to pass Lone Lodge by, Klubbe would invite them in for a bowl of soup and a cup of star berry leaf tea or maybe a tall, transparent glass of oyster wave wine or maybe, even, a mug of honey hill mead.

  Often he liked to go for a long float on the ocean inside his coracle.

  Once, while resting his paddles, far from the shore, letting his gaze wander over the vast, watery deep, he was overturned in his coracle by a succession of huge, white crested waves, caused by the sudden surfacing of a great globb fish, which are peculiar to the oceans and seas of his planet, as are much else to be found in them. Globb fish, being so massive, of great bulk, were sometimes mistaken by turkle mariners for whales or even kloons, which are ocean mammals, even bigger than whales, but they are infact more rounded and bulbous in shape than whales or kloons, with bright yellow scaled skin, large, wing like fins, long, tall ended tails, and big, exceedingly humorous looking, glinting, deep blue eyes.