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Tertz...the Red-Earred Slider
The little turtle was lost, the concrete pavement was becoming hot and the rainwater was drying up quickly. No bigger than a fifty-cent piece, it trudged slowly along. No pond, no creek, not even mud could be seen from any direction. The rainstorm had flooded the area and washed the small reptile away from it's familiar surroundings into a parking lot of cars. Large buildings and steaming stacks of tall metal were all that could the baby turtle could see. No brothers or sisters or even a frog were left in sight.
Martin was walking through the parking lot and saw a slight movement, out of the corner of his eye. He was an engineer at the chemical plant and noticed that this was something out of the norm. He stepped closer to the tiny green turtle and picked up the frantically kicking body. "What happened to you, little fella?” He asked the turtle. "I know just where to take you."
Martin knew a woman who worked in the plant laboratory; she had a little boy and he loved animals--especially reptiles. "Patty," he called out as he entered the all white lab. "Hey, Patty are you in here?"
Patty pulled her head out of the ventilation hood, where she had been working on a water sample analysis. "I really was ready for a short break," she replied to his call. "What's up?"
Martin held out his palm and said, "What do you think of this little fellow?"
Patty reached out for the turtle, "Poor thing, he must have been washed out of the creek by that thunderstorm this morning. Are you going to keep him?"
Martin laughed, "Can you imagine my wife and a turtle...you know everything in my house is white and animal free." He chuckled again at the thought of his wife and a pet, especially a reptile. "No, I thought maybe Nick would like to have him."
"Nick would love a baby turtle. I guess I could set-up my old aquarium for him." Patty looked thoughtful, for a moment. "Yeah, I'll take him home and give him to Nick." She strode to her desk, opened the large bottom drawer, and took out a big jar. "Give me the little dude, I will just put him in this jar, the lid already has holes, so he can have air. I'll stop on the way home and find out what to feed him."
That was how little Tertz came to live at Patty and Nick's house. The family got the ten-gallon aquarium from the shelf in the garage and filled it with rocks and sand. Then they filled it with water and got a large rock that sat above the water for the turtle to sit and bask in the heat of the special reptile light fixture mounted on the top of the tank. A book on red-earred slider turtles told Nick that young turtles were both carnivorous and herbivorous. So, after a trip to the pet store the turtle lived with small pink feeder fish and an edible species of plant. They worried that they did not see the baby turtle eat, but one morning they got up and a couple of the fish were missing. Then Nick watched as the turtle ate a fish in one gulp.
The turtle grew larger, ate the fish, the plants, and freeze-dried crickets--sometimes he would even eat floating turtle food. He stayed green and had bright red ovals on the sides of his head. After a year, the turtle had to be moved to a larger tank. His new tank was 40 gallons and he got a bigger rock to sun on. The new flat-topped rock allowed him more basking room. Tertz didn't eat many fish, now. He foraged on the green water plants and the special turtle food sticks. He grew and grew.
Nick woke up one morning and went to look in on Tertz. "Mom," he yelled. "Mom, Tertz is gone!"
Patty heard Nick yelling about the turtle, and went to check out the situation. Both of them looked all over the tank. They looked under the plants and the rocks but couldn't find the turtle. Now, by this time Tertz was no longer little; he was about the size of a 6-inch frying pan. How could he just disappear?
Well, Nick was upset; but, it was a school day and Patty made him get dressed and took him to school. Patty assured him that Tertz was bound to be just fine--but she wasn't really sure. She went back home and tried to figure out where the turtle could have gone. How could he have gotten out of the tank? The aquarium top was about four feet off the ground and the water was a good 3-4 inches down from the top of the tank.
Patty was exhausted by the mystery; she got herself a coke out of the refrigerator and went into the family room to sit down. She had searched for that turtle for more than an hour. She sat back in her large red chair and threw both legs over the left arm. Patty took a drink and glanced back into the kitchen. There on the rug, in front of the sink was Tertz. The turtle was calmly standing there looking at her. Patty knew her mouth must have been hanging open. "How did you get over there?" she muttered to the turtle.
She got up and walked into the kitchen, shaking her head in disbelief. She picked up the escaped reptile and carried it over to it's tank in the next room. Gently placing Tertz into the water, she let him swim to his rock. It was then she noticed how the top of the rock had shifted with the turtle’s weight; it was very close to the large filter that hung on the side of the aquarium. She looked on the outside of the tank and could see where the turtle must have climbed the filter and then slid down the side onto a box that was leaning on the side of the tank stand. Tertz had made it into his own super slide to escape the tank. It was unbelievable, but the only answer.
Looking at the box, she saw that it was the floating platform they had bought a few weeks ago and never put into the tank. The tank just didn't have enough swimming room with the plants and the rocks under the water. The platform was thin and sat on top, leaving most of the water for swimming.
"Well, I guess getting this platform into the tank and removing the big rocks is now a number one priority...Tertz you sure went out of your way to tell us you needed more room in the tank!" Patty giggled as she thought of how Nick would remind her that he had told her they needed to get the new platform into the aquarium.
(c) sutoyou 07/2006
 sutoyou · Sun Jul 16, 2006 @ 04:52am · 0 Comments |
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