A/N: Short, general story about the boy who bought the four pet turtles in the first place. First-person point of view, something I rarely use. Please tell me if it works out.
(Bear in mind English isn't my mother language, so please notify me of any grammar or spelling mistakes. Spell check said everything is okay, but you know how reliable those are.)
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Many people forget the non-furry pets they've had over the years. Nameless fish are flushed down the toilet after perishing in their too small bowl, never to be remembered by their owners. For some reason, a lot humans find it hard to connect to reptiles and fish, maybe because of their un-huggable nature and skin.
But not me. I like reptilians, with their scaly skin and unique abilities. Sure, we had a cat named Fluffles at home when I was a kid, named by my younger sister. But somehow, the mammal did not appeal to me. It'd purr and mewl for attention, wrapping my family around its little white paw.
I, however, wanted a turtle.
I remember when I found out turtles could be kept as pets, it was one of the happiest days of my life. I ran to my father and begged him to buy me a turtle. A red-eared slider, like the one in the pictures of the library book on reptilians. I'd feed it and nurture it, so it could grow and become a huge turtle like the ones on the Galapagos Islands.
My father just lit his pipe and smiled at me with his fatherly smile.
"You're eleven years old now, why don't you work for it? Ask around the neighborhood for chores you can do, and earn your turtle."
And work for it, I did. Countless blades of grass fell under the fury of my lawnmower, I washed windows, took out the trash and did all the jobs an eager eleven-year old would do for money.
Twice a week I'd go to the pet shop and look at the turtle I was working so hard for: a female red-eared slider, seven months old and with an unusual pattern on its shell.
Finally, finally I had enough money to buy my dream pet. Hannah, I'd call her, and she'd gaze at me with her dark eyes which held all the answers to my desires.
Imagine my horror when I entered the shop and found out Hannah had been sold! I turned and ran home, and I remember crying so hard it seemed it'd never stop. My mother tried to console me, but all my dreams had been pinned on that turtle.
I now know that of course you shouldn't do that, but hey, it was fifteen years ago, give me a break.
After a day of moping, my dad, tired of me moping I guess, dragged me to the pet shop and asked if they had any more turtles. They did, fortunately, they had four tiny turtles, recently hatched.
At first, I didn't want anything to do with them, I wanted a bigger turtle. These would grow a bit, but they'd always stay small. So small, I could never pick them up and not be afraid I'd accidentally crush them.
In the end, my desire for a reptilian pet won over my fear, though my father may have had something to do with that. He pointed out to me turtles had a shell for a reason, and crushing a turtle is quite a feat.
So I returned home with four tiny turtles.
My little sister took one look at them, yelled "eew!" and ran to her room. Thank God the turtles wouldn't wind up with names like 'Tiny Green' or 'Shellonia'. I still refused to call Fluffles by its name, because it was a fat huge male cat with a dominant streak. Fluffles just didn't suit him. It was like calling a sumo wrestler a featherweight.
Very carefully I set them down in their new home, lovingly prepared with food and fresh water. And I studied them. Dear Lord, how I studied them.
Every move they made was documented, and if anything out of the ordinary happened, if any of them was slow to wake up or didn't eat right, I dove into the turtle-care books.
You'd think a boy my age would've lost interest after the first month, but I kept it up for four whole months. My sister still refused to even look at them, so I could finally name a pet myself.
The most aggressive one I called Raptor. He was rather fast and spent a lot of time glowering at whatever moved.
One turtle spent most of the time lazing under the basking lamp and was the first to explore anything new I introduced into their territory. I called him Monkey. Yeah, I know, silly name for a turtle. Curious George, that's what it was based on.
The third turtle had a whole other personality. It was curious as well, but held back a lot. It seemed the most intelligent, so far a turtle could be called intelligent. It did work out pretty fast when feeding time was, and was the first to react when I approached with food.
Dr. Einstein was its name.
And I called the fourth turtle Larry, after a friend of my father. That was because Larry was an overseer, and this turtle was as well. It kept its head raised high and surveyed what the other three were doing, all the time.
For four months I fed them, cleaned them and was fascinated by everything they did. They were starting to grow larger and I kept record of every quarter inch they gained.
124 days after I had bought the turtles (I kept track!), disaster struck.
It was a show-and-tell day at my school, and of course I had brought my turtles. My classmates were less than enthusiast, but I never noticed that at the time. With much vigor I told them all kinds of facts on turtles, but only when the glass jar containing them was passed around did anyone react.
Kids need something to hold on to before their curiosity is poked, I know that now.
Anyway, when I was walking home, did disaster strike.
It all happened so fast I'm still not sure exactly what took place. I remember a huge truck blaring its horn and people waiting for the pedestrian light were startled, including me.
And stupid, stupid me was holding my turtle jar in my hands instead of in my backpack. Of course, it got knocked out of my hands and shattered on the unforgiving street. A recent shower had created a small stream in the gutter and Dr. Einstein, Raptor, Monkey and Larry were carried away by the water.
Before I could react they had disappeared in a nearby grate leading to the sewers.
I remember my heart skipping a beat as I knelt in the gutter. I still have the scar from when my knee was stabbed by a shard of the turtle-jar glass, but at the time I didn't even feel it. I called for them, but of course no answer came.
The grate remained dark no matter how much I peered into it. I heard the water clatter as it entered the sewer, and I could only hope my turtles hadn't broken any limbs when they fell down. Still in panicking-mode I searched for a manhole cover. If only I was fast enough to rescue them, this could just be food for nightmares instead of the real thing.
As you probably know, an eleven-year old is no match for a manhole cover. I found one and tried to lift it, but no matter how much adrenalin I got from watching my turtles being washed down, the cover didn't budge.
And that's when the nerve-endings in my knee decided to signal that there was a large shard in it, please to be removed NOW.
I didn't want to abandon my turtles, but I had little choice. Perhaps my father could lift the cover, but the sewers are a dangerous place to crawl around in unguided and unprepared. He probably wouldn't risk going down there to look for them, for he was a very cautious man.
Crying my eyes out (again), I limped home and was whisked away to the hospital by my mother. I made my father promise to look for them, but to this day I don't know if he ever did. Sure, he stayed out and came home late in the evening, but he probably just spent the evening at a friend's place.
"I'm sorry, son, I couldn't find them."
He said gravely and held me when that spurred a new set of tears. I was a bit of a crybaby.
I mourned them for a long time, but when I got a big red-eared slider turtle for my 12th birthday, I moved on. Though I never forgot them.
Even now, fifteen years later, I still remember their names, their existence. I know it's silly, but I loved those turtles to death.
It's a moonlit night as I stare out the window of my apartment. I'm not really seeing the view of the rooftops, lost as I am in my memories in a rare contemplative mood.
My current turtle, Vert the box turtle is unusually active. I watch it move about when my attention is drawn back to the rooftops by four shadows disturbing the night.
They're too far for me to really see them, but they move like the wind and are very acrobatic to boot. Within seconds they're gone, and I'm left wondering if I should call the police.
Vert noisily crushes some baby clams with powdered coral calcium in its beak and my thoughts once again turn nostalgic.
I know it's childish, but sometimes I like to believe my first four pet turtles are doing okay, living in the sewers. Happily munching on whatever food they can find to grow big and strong, and live for ever and ever in the sewers of New York.
I mean, stranger things have happened, right?