Prose | Juna: Raising Turtles

Text/Juna

The husband is allergic to cat and dog hair, and the daughters' desire to keep cats and dogs at home has been frustrated. Grandpa, who loved his granddaughter, couldn't bear to disappoint them both and bought a turtle to come back to chat for comfort.

I don't like other pets much except dogs, especially cold-blooded animals like turtles. Fortunately, raising a home requires low and quiet, almost negligible its existence, the key is that the daughters really like it, so they accept to be safe under the same roof. But the look and feel is still the same, even if you go to the kettle next to you to catch water, it is straight forward and does not squint.

After a while, my understanding of it still comes from the usual small talk of grandchildren: "Every feeding is fun, looking at you with my eyes open, and my mouth is wide open." "It's very clever that you actually dive from a two-layer glass partition." "It will move to eat according to the change of feeding position."

This left me curious, and I gradually began to look at it sideways when I received the water. When someone approached, it crawled over and grabbed at the wall of the cylinder, stretching its neck, and the small black-spotted eyes on the triangular little head stared straight at it, waving up and down with its limbs, as if eagerly anticipating the response of the visitor. A few times like this, it has greatly changed my impression of the tortoise as cold and stupid.

The real difference is when the fish tank is placed next to it. After dinner, Grandma packed up and left before specially explaining that she should beware of the turtle crawling into the fish tank, which it has climbed into several times today. I should have my mouth on it, my heart is not satisfied, the turtle tank on the square cabinet is not much higher than the fish tank resting on the low cabinet, but the tank wall is 20 centimeters, which is almost an insurmountable "mountain" for the small turtle with the size of a palm, really has this ability?

Who knows, I was quickly punched in the face by the facts. After tasting the taste of swimming deeper and warmer fish tanks, the turtle is already "here and the heart is there", and it is extremely persistent to launch one charge after another. It first stood up, followed the wall of the tank on the other side of the fish tank, climbed up desperately to the mouth of the tank, and then stabilized its body and slammed forward with force. Seeing that it was about to fall into the fish tank, the eldest daughter was quick in her eyes, firmly squeezed the shell of the turtle, and put it back.

But it did not stop, and in the process of constantly groping, it found a way to take advantage of it, not only learning to use the height of the sunbathing platform, but also using another turtle that had just been bought to accompany it as a stepping stone and climbing upwards, which attracted our admiration.

In the evening, when you are ready to rest, look back and take a look at the unsupervised little turtle swimming in the water without any accidents. I found a colander, slowly dipped into the water and approached it, and as soon as it touched the shell of the hard gang, it swam into the stone and hid, leaving me with a difficult angle to salvage. I rolled up my sleeves, recharged and scooped again, this time the spoon was steady and fast, just fished in, it flipped out on one side, quickly swam away, upright body suspended in the water, stretched out limbs and turned to look at me, stretching a defiant posture, extremely proud little eyes made me funny and convinced.

I held my breath and reached out the spoon again, scrambling for a while before putting it back in. This is really a little turtle that will never be discouraged, and as soon as it is put down, it starts to work hard again. In the middle of the night, there was silence around, just by the honey yellow light of the backlight, I could see its appearance clearly - the small body struggled upwards, the open claws kept climbing, the narrow and flat hind legs were stable and supported, the very small and bright eyes were firm, and the yellow and green vertical stripes on the whole body lined the stripes on both sides of the head.

Maybe the effort will not be successful, but it does not affect the turtle's passionate, radiant and touching spirit of struggle.

I couldn't bear to watch from the sidelines anymore, and the helper put it into the fish tank. Watching it spread its limbs and swim freely into the thick depths of the water and grass, I felt a burst of relief.

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