It was a very rainy day in September 2003. The horrors of integration and differentiation were beginning to affect the lives of Ian and Liza, and the prospects wer looking grim. But then, after a bowl of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Les mysteriously came into the world. He was just a baby then, although he was already fully grown due to the necessity be packaged and forced into the cardboard womb, picked up and dumped into a trolley, then carried in the back of a car without sustaining damage to his vital organs.
Des was soon to follow. As an example of Kellogs' political correctness in producing slugs, he is a dark brown colour, about the same colour as dark chocolate but not quite as tasty. But the essential organs are identical, in that they both are the proud owners of fantastic sets of wheels, which are a lot more efficient (and sexually attractive) than having one squelchy leg. Anyway, Des and Les were soon a partnership, inhabiting the pencil case of a lower sixth-former from William Howard School, and frequently getting a run-around in boring maths lessons, and also in any other lessons that the pencil casehappened to be open.
But then disaster struck. No, there was no salt in sight, but instead a gang of vigilantes decided it would be cool to smash up the fragile life of Les and Des. They had an assault planned, and it all looked very grim fo our friendly duo. However, a stroke of luck befell them. In a money-making wheeze, another lower 6th-former (unnamable for legal reasons) sold a replica of Les to the vigilantes, one of the millions produced by Kellogg's with no soul or life. Being the coolest people that ever lived, the gang of vigilantes took 'Les' round the corner, and spent a good 1/4 of an hour burning and disintegrating the lifeless bit of plastic. The funniest thing was the way they took it so seriously (and still do), acting very sheepishly (go on then, sluggishly ho ho ho) and seeming as if it was the ultimate act of coolness to commit the attempted murder of a slug. Maybe if their combined IQ was above 47 they might have realised that there actually was more than one plastic Les made.
Anyway, Des and Les continue to enhance the life of Ian and co-owner Liza, bringing luck in exams and generally being the best guys around. And despite the fact that Liza no longer does maths, the subject that made Des and Les feel welcome, they are still living life to the full, despite having to be slightly protective of their identities at the moment due to the high level of media interest in the pair. Des and Les would like to take this opportunity to categorically deny all rumours in the daily express about their sexuality, both insist that they are in long-term relationships with snails, apparently the partner of choice at the moment due to the extremely high house prices for first-time buyers. Despite this hectic private life, however, they are managing to make several cameo appearances a week in rather bizarre places, trying to shake off the bad name both of these two special characters and the entire slug population in general.
Other news on the slug front: despite a request to Kellogg's no more slugs from the promotion were forthcoming, this leads us to believe that Des and Les are in fact pretty much unique in the UK (the rest, plastic imitations, having been thrown out either at the time of opening the cereal packet or after 2 minutes of wondering why they were giving out slugs anyway), however any relatives of Des and Les out there wo are REAL and would like to attend a conference entitled 'Edible garden vegetables and where to find them' are more than welcome, details on slugfax page 532.
The sudden cult interest in Des and Les was of course not a shock to us, who recognised their potential from the start, but to Des and Les themselves it was completely unexpected, thrust out of a normal life as crude oil somewhere in the North Sea into a life full of paparazzi, pellets and problems. And so they would like to state that they will be uncontactable during the next few weeks due to a holiday in an undisclosed location. If you see slugs flying past your window it was probably Florida. If you hear of Mafia killings involving two persons about 17cm tall it was probably Sicily. And if you find a pair of eyes on your drainpipe it was probably the North Sea. But do not fear, the celebrity slugs are here to stay - "for I have seen mornings, evenings, afternoons, / I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" which when you're a slug, is actually quite big.
TO BE CONTINUED...