Tortoise Interruptus Read online

  Tortoise Interruptus

  By JL Merrow

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2017 JL Merrow

  ISBN 9781634862851

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  NOTE: This book was previously published by Torquere Press.

  * * * *

  For Sandra Lindsey, who, when told of the real life incident that inspired this tale, said, “Tortoise-napping? Sounds a good start for a silly story…”

  * * * *

  Tortoise Interruptus

  By JL Merrow

  “So, that’s a Tiptree’s Tasty Ham Salad Roll, and an Isle of Wight Elderflower Juice,” Janey said cheerfully. “Can I interest you in a packet of red squirrel flavoured crisps? No? That’ll be six pounds seventy-five then, please. Tip, you ready with that ham salad roll? Tip?”

  Tip shook his head. There was an unpleasant rushing in his ears, and his sister’s voice had started to sound like it was coming from underwater. “Sorry—got to go.”

  Janey sighed, then bellowed to her husband, “Mike? Can you give us a hand? Tip’s having one of his turns.”

  “You don’t have to shout it to the whole café,” Tip muttered, untying his apron with shaking hands. “You make me sound like a Victorian spinster. They’ll be offering to unlace my stays.”

  “Moan, moan, moan. Just get out of here before you come over all peculiar, will you?” Janey’s eyes narrowed as she tapped her foot in impatience. “You’re already starting to look a bit grey.”

  “It’ll be all that standing up behind the counter,” the plump, white-haired woman waiting for her lunch said kindly. “You shouldn’t ought to work him so hard, young lady. You can see he’s delicate.”

  “I am not—” Tip bit back the comment. Don’t upset the paying customers. It was the first rule Janey had drummed into him when he’d come to work for her at Tiptree’s Treats. But it still rankled—just because he wasn’t over-tall and, okay, maybe he was a bit skinny, and all right, his family routinely referred to him as “the pretty one,” which annoyed his sister no end…okay, maybe the lady had a point. But he didn’t have to like it. “Sorry, Janey. See you in a bit.”

  “You should take the rest of the day off, dear!” Mrs. Helpful’s voice followed him through the crowded café as a sea of customers craned their necks to examine this rare specimen of Flora Delicatis Unmanlius.

  It could be worse, he repeated to himself as he reached the office and shut the door behind him. It could be worse. After all, there were lots of less pleasant things the old witch could have cursed him to turn into. A slug, for instance, would still have fit in with the mad biddy’s idea of the punishment fitting the crime. Or a snail. And he’d seen what birds did to snails…Tip shuddered. And she could have been more proficient with her curses, too—he might have been doomed to stay in animal form for the rest of his unnatural life, instead of just popping into it now and then at inconvenient moments.

  Pulling his shirt off and flinging it on a chair, Tip realized he’d left it too late to get his trousers off. He could feel that weird, sucking-in sensation he always got when it happened, coupled with a sort of stiffening of his back, and he knew from experience his fingers would have lost what little dexterity he possessed at the best of times. Resigning himself, Tip got down on all fours, wincing a little at the hardness of the floor on his admittedly not-very-well-padded knees. Just in time, as the change rippled through him.

  He often wondered if he should get Janey to film it some time, so he could see what it looked like from the outside. Just looking in the mirror didn’t work—his eyes went all out of focus while it was going on. Trouble was, if the visual effects were particularly hideous, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. And if he just looked stupid, he definitely didn’t want to know. The enforced shape-shifting was bad enough; he didn’t want to feel like a complete numpty as well.

  As his limbs shortened, the pressure in his back increased, until with a soundless pop it released. Tip breathed out. It was over. He’d changed. He stretched his altered limbs carefully and waggled his little tail for the hell of it before cautiously edging forward in the familiar, wide-legged gait. He’d once tripped over his clothes at this point and ended up on his back, see-sawing on the curve of his carapace. It had been absolutely mortifying when Janey came to check on him.

  He was still lumbering free of his trousers when the door opened. Janey stood in the doorway for a moment, hands on hips, tutting at him. “I suppose I’ll have to hang your clothes up, as per usual.”

  One of these days, Tip was going to learn how to make a rude gesture in tortoise form. He settled for opening his jaws wide and extending his tongue. Unfortunately, Janey was too busy folding his trousers to notice.

  “Right. How about we take you out for a bit of sun, then?” she said in that cooing voice she reserved for small children, the terminally confused, and Tip. “You can go and charm the customers in the outdoor seats.” Scooping him up with a hand under his plastron, she carried him through the café and out into the garden, depositing him on the lawn by the tables. “There we go.”

  She wasn’t all that bad, Tip thought as he munched a blade of grass. As older sisters went, that was. There weren’t many employers who’d be so understanding about him having to take emergency “sick leave” at a moment’s notice several times a week. And she hardly ever teased him about it, possibly because she’d had protruding ears as a child and knew what it was like to have a physical abnormality. Tip drew his head in guiltily as he remembered all those “Dumbo” jokes that’d seemed so funny at the time. Yep, she was definitely better than he deserved.

  A bee bumbled around, stopping every now or then to visit a flower, and Tip watched it thoughtfully. He liked bees. Might he be able to persuade Janey to keep a hive? When he’d changed back, of course. They could serve fresh, home-made honey at the café. And Tip would be able to get one of those outfits, with the net veil and the gauntlets…Yes. Definitely worth a try.

  * * * *

  The outside seating at Tiptree’s Treats was set in a sunken area of the gardens, bordered by the lawn, so Tip’s little patch of sunlight and grass was pretty much at table level. He’d become quite adept at scrounging bits of salad from people’s sandwiches—tortoises might not exactly have a head start in the cute stakes, at least not compared to furrier fauna, but Tip reckoned he was pretty good at working with what he’d got.

  He lifted his head to survey the scene, wondering which table to amble over to. He was midway between a family with two small children and the elderly lady from earlier. Kids w
ere generally pretty susceptible to his reptilian charms, but Tip had been a bit wary of them ever since a toddler had picked him up for a cuddle and almost dropped him on the flagstones. He’d had nightmares that night about eagles snatching him up and dropping him from great heights, as if he were a particularly tasty nut that needed cracking. He’d opened his eyes to find Janey standing over him with a grim look on her face; apparently he’d woken everyone up shouting, “Please don’t eat me! Eat my sister, she’s much fatter than I am!”

  Mrs. Helpful it was. After all, she’d felt sorry for him in human form; hopefully she’d be just as soft-hearted toward tortoises. He lumbered over, eyed the old lady, and tilted his head to one side in what he hoped was a winsome look.

  “Oh, aren’t you just adorable? I’m sure you’d like a little something tasty, now, wouldn’t you?”

  Another one bites the dust. Tip munched smugly on not just the cucumber from her ham salad roll, but the much harder to come by slice of tomato. He ambled closer and rested his head on the table, earning himself a lettuce leaf and a scrap of ham, which he wasn’t actually all that keen on when he was in this form, but ate anyway to be polite.

  He received a constant stream of tidbits as Mrs. Helpful (the nickname now no longer ironic in Tip’s mind) finished her lunch and washed it down with her glass of Isle of Wight Elderflower juice. Janey prided herself on stocking local produce. Tip felt quite well-disposed toward the old lady as she delicately dabbed her lips with a paper napkin, fussed with her spectacles, and generally got ready to go.

  He was about to amble off in search of dessert when she spoke. “You know, I’m sure they don’t really look after you properly here—you seem half-starved, you poor little thing. Never mind. I’ll take good care of you.”

  To his horror, Tip felt himself lifted—and then plunged into darkness. The bloody woman had stuffed him in her handbag!

  Surely someone must have noticed? Drawing in his limbs in fright (and also to avoid major lacerations from an industrial-sized nail file) Tip waited anxiously for the calls of Stop! Thief! Unhand (or perhaps Unbag?) that tortoise at once! Keys and lipsticks poking him in uncomfortable places, he waited in vain. Rattling in his shell as the bag lurched from side to side, bumping against the woman’s ample hips, Tip started to wonder if he really should have listened to Janey’s suggestion that she get him microchipped.

  She wouldn’t even be able to report him missing. Tip could just imagine how it’d go at the police station: “Yes, Miss? You say your brother’s been kidnapped? Can you describe him, please? I see. Six inches tall, grey in color, with a hard shell. Any distinguishing features? Oh, just that he’s a tortoise? Thank you, Miss. Can I just remind you of the very severe penalties for wasting police time?”

  No, he was on his own here. He’d just have to hope the change back wouldn’t happen while he was still in the handbag—with his luck, it’d be Tip who’d find himself in jail, not this interfering, tortoise-napping old baggage. People seemed to get so uptight about naked men appearing from nowhere.

  There was a jolt as Tip’s bag was dumped down, none too gently, then the unmistakable slamming of a car door. Tip breathed a silent prayer that the wretched woman wouldn’t head straight for the ferry. If he ended up off the island with no clothes, no money, and no phone…He began to regret eating so much, his stomach churning with nerves. Although it’d serve the old biddy right if he chucked up in her handbag.

  Nevertheless, he was relieved to make it to the end of the journey without incident—and more importantly, without hearing any tannoy announcements about lifejackets and car decks. As he felt the handbag lifted out of the car, Tip wondered where he was. The journey had seemed to take forever, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t mind betting that Mrs. Helpful was exactly the sort of old lady who always drove everywhere at fifteen miles an hour, oblivious to the traffic jam forming behind her and the drivers about to go into meltdown.

  Where was that impatient old witch when you needed her, eh? Tip wouldn’t mind seeing how Mrs. Helpful liked life as a tortoise, vulnerable to being picked up and dumped in people’s handbags without so much as a by your leave.

  Jarred and jolted as she made her way upstairs, Tip was unutterably relieved when he finally felt himself lifted out of the bag and placed on the floor. He looked around. He was in a hotel room, at a guess; it smelled strongly of cleaning products and had that slightly tatty, worn-out feel common to a lot of the lower-priced island guesthouses. And yes—sand, firmly ingrained into the cheap nylon carpet.

  “Here we are,” Mrs. Helpful cooed. “Safe and sound. Now, you’ve had your lunch, so you’ll be all right here for the afternoon, won’t you? I’m going to go for a little walk along the sea front—such a shame to waste this lovely weather we’re having—but first I’ve got to call my sister. She does worry so.”

  Yes! Tip felt an un-tortoise-like urge to punch the air. With any luck, she’d be out long enough for him to change back. Granted, he’d then be naked in a stranger’s hotel room with no idea where he was, but if they were that near the beach, he could just wrap himself in a bath towel and pretend he’d been swimming and had his things stolen. Then it was simply a matter of finding some kind soul to lend him a phone. Janey wouldn’t exactly be pleased to have to leave the café and come and get him, but she wouldn’t just leave him here, either. Probably.

  He watched impatiently until the door slammed behind Mrs. Helpful, then frantically tried to think human thoughts. He didn’t have a clue if it would help, but it certainly couldn’t hurt, could it? Plus, he’d always had a vague idea that maybe magic was just a really complicated sort of hypnosis, and if he could only convince his body it was supposed to be human, then it’d change back out of embarrassment. Or something.

  Five long hours later, that theory was looking ready for the wastepaper basket. Tip paced restlessly, or at least as restlessly as he could manage in his present form. Honestly, he was going to go mad cooped up in here. Nothing to eat, nothing to do—not even a TV to watch. How cheap did a hotel have to be to not even have a TV in the room? Not that he could have reached the controls in any case, but he could at least have whiled away the hours trying to come up with a plan to get hold of the remote.

  The monotony was broken only by the return of Mrs. Helpful, bearing lettuce. It was iceberg, which wasn’t his favourite (Tip preferred a nice cos, or rocket for a treat), but he munched it hungrily anyway. It looked like he was set for a marathon session as a tortoise this time—there was no set pattern to his changes, but they tended to be either disconcertingly short or inconveniently long, with no middle ground. The suit he’d bought for his sister’s wedding three months ago had been a total waste of money; he’d spent the whole event in tortoise form, worried he’d either change back suddenly or get trodden on. At least Janey had vetoed Mike’s suggestion that they tape the rings to his back and have him lumber up the aisle to present them. Tip still had nightmares of suddenly appearing, naked, in a crowded church…

  Tip began to worry Mrs. Helpful would have him off the island and settled in a cardboard box somewhere before he changed back. Apprehension flared as she picked him up—but it was the bathroom she took him to. He panicked briefly, limbs flailing, as she lowered him into the bath, and then felt like an idiot when he realized there wasn’t any water in it. Apparently tortoise-drowning was not to be tonight’s entertainment.

  “There we go, dearie. You’ll be safe for the night in there.”

  Dumped in the bath without even a spider for company, Tip gloomily surveyed the walls of his porcelain prison.

  He barely slept a wink that night, terrified he’d change back in his sleep and the first he’d know about it would be Mrs. Helpful screaming when she found a naked man in her bath. After all, old ladies generally had to get up in the night, didn’t they? His old gran had regularly woken him several times a night when she came to stay at his parents’ house, clomping across the landing to the bathroom with her walking sticks. Mrs. Hel
pful proved to be made of sterner stuff—but it was all beside the point, as Tip stayed resolutely grey and shelly.

  * * * *

  “Good morning, dearie!” Mrs. Helpful’s irritating trill jarred Tip out of the fitful doze he’d finally fallen into. He felt himself being lifted and blinked his eyes open to gaze blearily into her wrinkly smile.

  Tip was never at his best after a sleepless night, and after everything he’d endured lately, he felt he was entitled to a bit of a sulk. He drew his limbs and head firmly within his shell and refused to come out no matter how Mrs. Helpful tried to coax him. Maybe she’d get bored with him and take him back?

  “Oh, dear. I thought you were looking peaky,” she muttered, setting him down on the bed and patting his shell absently. “What am I going to do if you’ve died? I suppose I’ll have to bury you somewhere.”

  Tip’s head shot out of his shell so fast he was surprised he didn’t strain something.

  “There you are!” Clearly delighted with his reappearance, Mrs. Helpful tickled Tip under his chin. He tried to glower at her, but unfortunately being a tortoise rather restricted his range of facial expressions. “Now, you be a good boy while I go down to breakfast, and I’ll bring you back a treat.”

  She picked Tip up again, and he struggled briefly but fruitlessly. Bloody hell, was it back to the bath? He’d go mad looking at those four white walls any longer!

  “I think we’d better hide you under the bed,” Mrs. Helpful said. “Although I’ve half a mind—”

  Never a truer word, thought Tip uncharitably.

  “—to leave you in the bath. I’m sure those chambermaids never clean properly. It’d be a good test of whether they really take pride in their work. Still, we can’t have you being discovered, can we?”

  On the whole, Tip was inclined to agree. Things would be much simpler if he was just left to his own devices. So when she popped him under the bed, he drew in his limbs obligingly.