Turtle Boy: Part Three

The turtle ambles toward the light.

“RJ’s morale is more important than whatever rules they have here about pets. I’d say he needs to know it’s there.”

“RJ needs the turtle?” I ask, incredulous.

He sits back in bed, blinking toward the ceiling, as if savoring the talent show within the muscles of his own body.

I run through and clamber up the dirt mound which is frozen solid, and I can see straight down to a row of construction trailers.

Somewhere, a couple of cardinals are calling to each other: One cries, “Cheer, cheer, cheer,” and the other replies, “Birdie, birdie, birdie.”

At that moment, a rustling comes from the trees, and from between the leafless trunks near the pond comes a figure, limping.

Obviously, I don’t mention the lesions or the soft spots on its shell.

We have some important planning to do, and we think you can play a significant role.

Instead, he looks exhausted, thin, almost brittle.

Someone has tried to cheer up the room with a plush Thanksgiving turkey, dressed as a pilgrim.

I use a small scoop to remove some cricket carcasses and half-eaten vegetables.

“And sure, you can waste your money on frozen mice,” she says. “But why do that when you can breed ’em yourself? Grow your own snake food.”
“Cute little mice?”
“Yummy, nutritious little mice,” says Gwen, a bit condescendingly.

I guess that means winter break is in limbo, but I don’t feel like explaining any of that.

“This is what we’re going to do,” she says definitively. “I’m going back tomorrow. I’m going to clean off the rot and apply antibiotic and change the water and install proper lighting and a better dry area for it to bask.”

I’ll source an ethically raised turtle: a box turtle or musk turtle, one that isn’t endangered.

The couple turns and looks at the approaching group with surprise and apprehension.

“This is the Blanding’s turtle,” I say, my voice quavering, holding Mom’s phone up for the officials to see.

Notice the signature bright yellow chin and throat. And also, on the carapace, the upper shell, those yellow flecks on a dark background.

“We aren’t irrational people,” says the woman. “If there is an endangered species dwelling on county property, one that would block our ability to develop the land, we certainly want to know about it.”

“Dolores, they’re fleecing us,” says the man. “Who knows where they found that thing.”

“They absorb oxygen through a cavity near the end of their digestive tract.”

I climb up—not as nimbly as Max—and I follow the path he took.

She gently digs her gloved fingers around a sluggish turtle.

Not a minute later, we sift through another pile of leaves and find another—speckles on the shell, golden chin and throat.