A Turtle's Travels

Lester felt something was missing. He felt a yearning, a tug in a direction away from the pond. He really couldn’t see anything special in that direction, but then, if you’re a turtle, you really don’t see anything very far away anyway. He tried to put it out of his mind, but he couldn’t. He wondered if the others felt it. So he asked Ma and Pa.

And his adventures began.

Lester was a turtle. There was no doubt about it. His Ma and Pa were turtles. His brothers (of which there were nineteen) were turtles. And he had that turtle look. Green skin, green legs, green tail, all with just a bit of yellow streak here and there. Oh, and a shell, top and bottom. Kind of flat on the bottom, kind of round on the top. It seemed to work.
Lester couldn’t remember much about learning how to be a turtle. Kind of came naturally. When the sun came up, he’d pull himself up on a log to snooze. Seemed like there was always somebody else on the same log, but no problem. The sun was up there, the log was down here, and it felt so good just resting there with a few other turtles. When he got hungry, he’d just slide down into the warm water and hide in the coontail plants or the eelgrass, holding his breath, just waiting. Waiting for some juicy, unlucky fish.
He could never believe his luck, or maybe how really dumb some fish were. Here he was, just settled in a bit at the bottom, but not really hiding. Some nervous, silvery little fish would worry about, here and there, doing that thing with its mouth, the way fish do. Open and shut. Open and shut. He’d be looking all nervous, like everything was out to eat him. Then with his fins fluttering, he’d drift right in front of Lester. Lunch. It was always over just like that. Worked every time. They never learned.
No, there didn’t seem to be too much to think about. The sun came up every day and warmed the pond. Dragonflies would zip this way and that. The birds chattered and quarreled. The fat, furry raccoons came to the water’s edge feeling about for clams. The eelgrass and the cattails were always there when you needed a place to hide. The fish were always there when you got hungry. The frogs would chirp and trill at night as Lester drifted off to sleep. Life was good.
Yet somehow, Lester felt something was missing. He felt a yearning, a tug in a direction away from the pond. He really couldn’t see anything special in that direction, but then, if you’re a turtle, you really don’t see anything very far away anyway. He tried to put it out of his mind, but he couldn’t. He wondered if the others felt it. So he asked Ma and Pa.
“There’s nothin’ you need that ain’t right here,” said Pa. “Don’cha be gettin’ any big ideas. You got all you need right here.”
“Don’t be a fool, Lester,” said Ma. “I worry about you so.”
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“Well,” said Lester. “Has anyone gone that way? Has anybody tried to find out what’s out there?”
Pa shifted uneasily on the log and cast a wary glance both right and left. “Yeah, there’s been some that tried. A few.”
“And?” inquired Lester. “What happened? What did they find?”
“Nothin’!” snapped Pa. “That’s all I got to say about it and that’s all you need to hear.” He closed his eyes in that way that turtles have, either napping or signifying that they wished to nap if only certain young turtles would just hush up. Not a very satisfactory answer for an inquisitive turtle.
Lester was not to be put off. He asked his peers, but they did not seem to be interested. No. “What put that into your head?” they asked. “We got fish here. We got duckweed and arrowhead plants and elephant ears. Heck, we got the best lily pads right here, too!” They seemed pretty sure about it.
“How do you know? You been outside of this pond?” Lester was pleased with himself. He had them stumped.
“Everybody knows,” they said. “Nobody can prove otherwise.” It was their turn to feel smug. They sure had him there. Some turtles just don’t know what everybody knows to be true. Some turtles just don’t fit in. And besides, everybody knew that somebody had a relative who had a foolish notion to go wandering…and who never returned. That fool was always in somebody else’s family. Everybody knew, but nobody would own up to it.
Well now, that should have been the end of that. But the others were right about one thing: some turtles really don’t fit in. Lester was beginning to realize that.
Lester made up his mind. There was only one thing for an ambitious turtle, a resolute turtle, to do, so he did it. He set out on his journey of discovery.