Barnaby
the Tortoise had been alive for longer than he could remember, which to him
meant that he had been alive altogether too long. Still, as old as he was, he
wasn’t the old coot of the Tortoise Exhibit in the London Zoo. That was
Francis, a real old wheezer, who spent most of his time putzing about, eating
cabbage, and lecturing the younger tortoises about the coming apocalypse, today
being no different.
“It
will start with lettuce!” Francis preached to gasps and gawking from the
younger, more impressionable crowd. “The Great War approaches! And when the
humans run low on their resources, they will start replacing our cabbage with
lettuce!”
“Pish tosh,”
Barnaby said, in return and piddled off to find a quieter place. He had already
been through several Wars to End All Wars, and the thought of humans killing
each other in droves did not in the slightest bit affect his happiness. In
fact, during the last one, they had moved the animals all off to a nice farm in
Yorkshire, where, yes, it had been a bit colder, but there had actually been more cabbage than there had ever been in
London.
“I
quite hope there is another
bloodbath,” Barnaby said, and then he harrumphed happily. “More’s the cabbage
for me.”
“What’s
that, Barnaby?” Ethel, his shell-cleaning bird asked. “Are you going on about
Francis again?”
“No,
no, my dear,” Barnaby chortled, trying to use merriment to cover up his grumpiness.
“I was just trying to look on the bright side. Always a good tactic.”
“You, looking on the bright side?” Ethel
squawked. “You miserable old git, you’ve been moping around ever since they
sent Ursula to San Diego.”
“I
have not!” he wheezed, and some of the sparrows that had come down to nip at
his cabbage hopped off. Not because the noise had been particularly loud but
because the fog of hot air felt uncomfortable on their backs. “I have not,” he said
again quietly, “and even if I had been, I’d have every right to be upset. They
sent my daughter to the Golden State, and they kept me here in dreary London. I
thought for sure I had earned a vacation in the tropics.”
Ethel
scratched at his shell. “Perhaps you have, my dear, but maybe you’re too old to
be moved.”
“Too
old to be moved,” he echoed. He tried to shake his head, but being a tortoise,
it took him a long time to do anything, so instead he munched with purpose to
show how indignant he felt. “Well, I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Oh
yes, dear?” Ethel laughed. “Next time they’re looking to move someone, you
should submit your candidacy. Assuming they could understand you, I think you
have a good shot.”
“Confound
it all, Ethel, you know I don’t speak human,” Barnaby grumbled. “Don’t you sass
me now. I’ve been hosting your family on my back for six generations. The least
you can do is offer me some respect.”
“That’s
why I speak up, Barnaby. Someone has to tell you when you start sounding
senile.”
“Yes,
I suppose so.” One of his eyebrows rose. “Don’t want to sound like a raging
loony, do I?” He wiggled his shell. “Not like Francis, right? That tortoise
thinks the sun rises and sets with him, doesn’t he? What a loony!”
Ethel
pecked at his back. “You know, it’s not at all kind to be calling someone names,
Barnaby. You’d think in your old age you would understand that.”
“In
my old age I’ve earned the right to be obstinate,” Barnaby said. “You know, the
London Zoo bought me with funds they acquired from Darwin himself? I’m more
than one hundred and fifty years old.”
“And
looking quite nice.” There was a sound like the breeze, if the breeze had
somehow caught pneumonia. Francis was laughing. “When I was one hundred and
fifty, I had far more shell problems than you do.” He smiled and licked his
chops at Ethel. “Perhaps that’s because my shell bird died back in the
Victorian Era.”
“Yes,
yes, we’ve all heard the story. Tragic. Last of her kind. Extinction of her
shell-cleaning species,” Barnaby rattled off. Ethel tapped her foot against his
shell impatiently. “I’ve always said you could borrow Ethel whenever you
wanted, Francis.”
Francis
shook his head very slowly. “No, no. Don’t trouble yourself for an old goat
like me.” Then he smiled. “Did I say goat? I meant—.”
“Yes,
yes, we all know what you meant, Francis. What can I do for you?” Barnaby
asked, munching some more cabbage. “I thought you never came up to these
parts.”
Francis
leaned to one side, opened his mouth, close it again and leaned to the other.
“Oh, it’s been so long since I was here, and what with the end drawing near, I
thought it might be a good idea to visit the old pool again.” He looked at the
stagnant puddle just beyond the cabbage.
“’End
drawing near’,” Barnaby scoffed, but Francis didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll not
even dignify that with a response.”
Ethel
cleared her throat. “Francis, dear, would you like some cabbage?”
Barnaby
grumbled but moved aside.
“Oh,
yes,” Francis said, humming to himself. “Got to get it before they start
replacing it, you know.”
Ethel
pecked Barnaby’s shell before the old tortoise could even groan. “So I’ve
heard,” she said, transitioning to Francis’s shell. “What a terrible thing to
do. There’s no nutritional value in lettuce.”
“Can’t
fault the humans,” Francis said, a piece of Barnaby’s cabbage dangling from his
mouth. “It’s so hard to see read the Mother Turtle’s energy. They live such
short lives, they’ll never really understand their impact on the Earth or on
their fellow humans.”
Before
Barnaby could compose himself enough to start ranting, Francis had turned away.
“Well, the end is nigh. Enjoy your very last cabbages, Barnaby.”
“Wait!”
Barnaby shouted. “Wait just one frog-eaten minute, Francis. You can’t just say
things like that and walk away. Defend yourself!”
Francis’s
long neck stretched and swayed like a dancing snake. “Surely I can’t trouble
you, my old friend. You’ve always called my theories rubbish.”
“And
rubbish they are,” Barnaby argued, stomping his foot very slowly, slightly
embarrassed that Francis knew what he had been saying behind the old tortoise’s
back. “What evidence have you?”
“Evidence?”
the elderly tortoise sang. “Evidence? Why, my old friend, you need not look any
further than your breakfast. You cannot tell me the cabbage tastes as good or
as fresh as it did in our youth…watery as if it were just…lettuce.”
“No,
I cannot. Might as well be lettuce,” Barnaby admitted, “but that doesn’t mean
the world will end soon. That just means the humans have gotten lazy.”
Francis’s
eyes got very wide. “Does that not worry you?”
Barnaby’s
face scrunched up, which was saying something for an old tortoise whose face
was always scrunched. “As long as they pay to see the creatures at the zoo,
what do we care what they do to their own habitat? It’s their own faults.”
“Silly
Barnaby, you think what they do is independent from what we do?” Francis
laughed, throwing back his head very slowly. “Why, look at my shell! Hasn’t
been cleaned since before the great Prime Minister Churchill! Where have all my
birds gone?”
“It’s
called extinction, Francis. We tortoises survived the last one, didn’t we, what
with all the dinosaurs going the way of the dodo.” Barnaby laughed. “And we
survived the Ice Age and the Romans and the Incans and even the Germans when
they started bombing London. What’s any different about this one?”
“Well,
Barnaby, I believe you have put your foot right on it,” Francis said and
sighed. “Laziness. Indifference. Ignorance.”
“Come
now, Barnaby. Worse than bombs?” Ethel asked. “I think we should have a little
faith in the recent peace. There hasn’t been a major European conflict in
years. Don’t you think that’s a bit pessimistic?”
“Realistic,
my dear,” Francis said. “The word is realistic. Don’t believe me? Ask the Moa.”
“The
what?” Barnaby’s mouth hung open, and regrettably, his cabbage fell into the
dirt.
“Precisely,”
Francis gassed. “Huge bird, wiped out by human ignorance.”
“So
what?” Barnaby had had enough. He marched over to Francis as fast as his
tortoise feet could take him. “So a couple of birds died out. Maybe they had it
coming, Francis. Maybe it was their own fault. Maybe humans are a new form of
evolutionary pressure.” Barnaby paused to take a breath after unloading that
phrase. “In the end, it always works out. I’m sure our ancestors were
particularly incensed by the number of Tyrannosaurs, and look what hapened.
Nature finds a way to even things out. Human laziness will end in human destruction.”
Francis
smiled. “Perhaps, but then, when they die off, who will bring you cabbage,
Barnaby?” He wrinkled his nose happily. “It will start with lettuce. Goodbye,
Ethel. Goodbye, Francis.”
Barnaby
watched Francis go, stunned into silence for long enough that Francis got away,
which is saying something, really. “I rather think lettuce would do him good,
the fat, old buffoon. Maybe a little more lettuce would clear his head.”
“You
don’t think he had a point?” Ethel asked, pecking at his shell nervously.
Barnaby
munched a piece of cabbage thoughtfully. It was
in fact a bit watery for his tastes. “Even if he did, what good is there
worrying about it? I don’t even have thumbs, Ethel. I don’t know what you want
me to do about it.”
Ethel
leapt down and took the piece of cabbage Barnaby was about to eat. “Well, someone
has to do something, Barnaby. I, for one, am going to cut you back on the
cabbage. There’s a start.”
