Three people sat under an old stone bridge, half-broken and tired in the dim light of an evening shower. A small fire was their light as they huddled round, watching raindrops fall in reddish light.
“I’ve got a story,” said one of them. He was an older man, with a greying beard.
“Go on then,” said a thin woman worn thinner by years and years. “It’s been a while since we had a proper story trade. What kind?”
“It’s a story of the King of the Turtles,” said the older man. “And I tell no lie; nobody’s ever heard it before. No man, no lady, no kid.”
“That’s a hard trade to make,” said the thin woman. “But I’ll wager I can match it. Tell your story.”
“Alright then,” said the older man. He crouched low by the fire, and began to speak into it.
So, back in the day, there was this little kid, alright? Just an ordinary little kid in most ways. Sure, his parents are dead, but that’s not so weird. It’s a nasty world, lots of kids with dead parents out there, no big deal. He coped. Sometimes they do that.
This kid, see, he wasn’t ordinary in one way: he thought he could do anything, and I mean, he really thought he could do anything. You know how they said that anybody could be the president? Like that.
Anyways, the kid hangs around down by the park sometimes. He likes the trees and stuff. And down there, he’s watching a lady feed some ducks. He’s laughing at ’em, because the ducks look so silly with their butts in the air when they dive for some bread that’s sinking. He and the lady don’t know you shouldn’t feed bread to ducks, but that’s sort of okay, and it’s not a big part of the story. No, what the big part of the story is, is when the kid gets bored of watching this lady feed the ducks, he starts to walk away and nearly trips over this big fat turtle that’s sitting by the pond’s edge. And this city boy who likes the park, who didn’t have parents to get him books on animals (D is for dog, C is for cat, T is for turtle), he’s so surprised and he goes “What’s that?” aloud, just like that.
And the lady, who’s jumped a bit and come over to see if this little kid with the nice smile is hurt, she sees what’s surprised him and she says “It’s a turtle.”
Little kid says “What’s a turtle? It looks like a rock with a head.”
The lady, she tells him about turtles. Just the basics, you know – lay eggs, are reptiles, blah blah blah. But the bit that sticks with this little kid, is that a turtle’s shell is like a little fort that it carries everywhere with it. Anywhere’s home for a turtle, and its home is a castle.
“I want to be a turtle,” says the little kid.
Now what do you say to that, huh? Lady laughs a bit, calls him a dear, and she walks off because she’s out of bread. Gives him a dollar, too. Cool lady.
Remember what I said about this kid thinking he could do anything?
So first things first, the kid thinks. Second thing, he picks up the turtle and he asks it “how can I be a turtle?” Straightforward, but the turtle just blinks at him. It ain’t talking.
The turtle, it just laughs at him. That gets the kid mad, so he tickles it, right on the belly, spry and nimble. And the turtle can’t help it – it laughs. And when it laughs, its head pops out, and when its head pops out, the kid grabs it. “Tell me,” he says, “or I’ll yank you right out of your shell!”
“Don’t do it!” says the turtle. It’s got a real gurgly, grimy voice. Like a scratchy old man voice, but with a mouthful of mud. “Don’t take my shell! Leave me my shell! I’m no proper turtle without my shell.”
“Then give me your shell so I can be a turtle,” says the kid, “and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I wouldn’t be a turtle without my shell – I’d rather die! And besides, it wouldn’t fit you! You’re much too big and fat.”
The kid shakes the turtle. “Tell me where I can find a shell that fits!” he says.
The turtle grumbles and groans and whinges, and the kid tickles him for five minutes straight before he gives. “Fine!” he says. “The King of the Turtles has a shell big enough to be a home for a human. But you’ll never get it from him.”
“Where does the King of the Turtles live?” asks the kid.
“Under the giant stone!” yells the turtle. Its head is really hurting now.
“Where is the giant stone?” asks the kid. He shakes it.
“In the lake! In the lake!” the turtle says. “Let me go!”
“If you lied to me,” the kid says, “I’ll come back.” And he winds up and chucks the turtle back into the pond, where it sinks down to nurse its neck.
Now, the lake is right next to the city. It’s a big lake, though, and even if a stone is a giant, that’s still one stone you’re looking for. Tough job. But this kid, he has a plan. He hikes all the way down to the lake – three days from the end of the city he’s at – and by the time he gets there, he’s got it all worked out. So he uses that one dollar that lady gave him to buy some cheap french fries, all grease and no potato, and he goes down to the water’s edge.
“FOOD!” he hears above him. Lookithat, it’s all the seagulls, all come clamouring. “FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!”
“I’ll give you my food,” says the kid, “if you can find the giant stone for me.”
“NO! FOOD!” they scream, and down they come. But the boy’s clever and quick, and he jumps and dodges and bullies his way through the whole flock without a scratch, and he kicks three of them to the ground with bruised butts and ruffled feathers.
“Now I’ll give you half my food,” says the kid, “if you will tell me where the giant stone is.”
“FOOD!” they yell, and they all come at him again. This time he kicks half the flock, and the flock leader to boot, and laughs while he does it.
“Now I’ll give you one french fry if you tell me where the rock is,” says the kid. “And maybe I won’t finishing beating you up.”
“FINE!” say the gulls, out of breath, winded, and fed up. “FINE!” They’re sick of this kid and his rotten attitude and his quick feet, and they just want him to go away now. So they flap up into the sky and float around, and gull eyes aren’t too great but they can’t help but see that big rock over there from up there.
“IT”S OVER THERE!” they call.
“Here,” said the kid, and he drops the fries on the ground (all except for one) and leaves them to pick them over.
Now the kid had to swim. But he decided it couldn’t be that hard.
Remember what I told you about this kid?
So he makes it out a ways, lord knows how. And down there beneath him is the giant rock. He holds his breath and dives, but the rock’s edge snaps tight to the bottom of the lake the moment he gets close. He tries five times, and every time this happens. And he’s getting tired.
“Could I steal a big breath from you?” he asks the sky. “Just one. I’ll pay you back, honest.”
“I’ve been watching your deals today,” said the sky. “You were generous with the seagulls, but harsh to the turtle. I don’t know if I should trust you.”
“I promise. I’ll pay right now,” says the kid. And he sounds like he means it, so the sky’ll let that slide.
“Open your mouth,” it says, and he opens his mouth and a big cloud filled with the most perfect breath of air he’s ever felt jumps down into his lungs. It’ll last him for hours. And when he closes his mouth, he feels funny and then he sees the sky took all his teeth. It uses teeth for hailstones, you know. That’s what happens with all those teeth you lose when you’re little. Some guy in Finland’s getting them dumped on his head.
So the kid is hanging around down at the bottom of the giant rock, and just like he did last time he tugs really hard on its base after it snaps. He pounds and pulls and nearly puts out his back, and then he turns around, right? Like he’s going back up for a fresh lungful. And right as he turns his back on it, just as it’s opened up to see when he’s coming back, he flips around and dives, and ZOOM he squeaks right under the rock’s edge. Boy was it mad. Slammed down behind the kid WHAM just like that, but it was too late: he was in.
Inside was the palace of the King of the Turtles. Real nice place. Not a castle, a palace – the difference is in the decadence, you know? They made the word “lavish” for this stuff: carpets, tapestries, candelabras, everything all made of anything you’d find on the bottom of a pond – sticks, stones, all that sort of thing. And in the center of it all, a really big throne made out of a rock. On that rock there was the King of the Turtles, three times bigger than a man and something like three-and-a-half times bigger than a lady. And a lot bigger than a skinny little kid.
“Who are you and why shouldn’t I eat you?” he asks. Not the best way to start a conversation, you know what I mean? But the kid, he isn’t freaked out. He knows what to say, so he says it. “I am here to take your shell,” he says.
The King of the Turtles throws back his head and laughs ’till he was nearly sick. “You’d have a better chance of eating the clouds,” he laughs. “Go and do that first, then we’ll talk about my shell.”
“I already did that,” says the kid. And he opens his mouth and spits out the cloud. It fills up the whole palace with fog, and nobody can see anything.
“Clever!” says the King of the Turtles. “But irritating. And anyone can beat a cloud; they’re nothing but wisps of water! Why don’t you lift my throne, then we’ll talk.”
So the kid ran up to the big rock that the King of the Turtles sat on, and he yanked as hard as he could at it. Won’t budge, though. But the kid has an idea, and since it’s hard to see, he yanks out a stick from the table next to the throne, and he uses it as a lever, see? If it were any rotten old branch, that wouldn’t have worked, but the King of the Turtles uses the best in his home, and it was okay. Lifts the whole throne up nearly half a foot.
“Trickster!” seethes the King of the Turtles. “Nobody can lift my throne but me! Let’s see how clever you are when my jaws are around your shoulders!” And he reaches down to grab the kid. But the kid was expecting something like this, so he jumps out of the way and the King of the Turtles grabs the table instead of him. And at first he just thinks that kid was even skinnier than he looked – but after that first bite, he’s changing his mind. Got a table leg stuck in his mouth and a howl that makes the ceiling shake. And right as he’s standing up and reaching into his mouth, the kid kicks out the stick he’s wedged the throne up with, and the King of the Turtles falls over and stabs himself right in the head through his mouth. That’s that for him, so the kid rolls him out of the shell and rolls into it just like that, snug as a house for him, layer on layer.
“This is a good place,” says the kid. He lived down there on the bottom of the lake for a month, drinking that fine turtle wine and eating good turtle food. He grew a decade’s worth in thirty days, and filled up with good strong muscles. And when he came up from down there, that big old shell tight as a snug suit around his shoulders, he saw that a whole decade HAD passed. Ten full years, just like that.
Well, the kid decided he’d make the best of it. And he decided the best thing he could do right then was to be what he wanted, and what he wanted was to be the King of the Turtles.
I told you about how that kid thought he could do anything, didn’t I?
“Now how’d you know that?” asked the thin woman.
“I talk to the seagulls time and then,” said the older man. “One of them, on the end of his wings, he told me a bit about this sort of stuff.”
“Seagulls are liars,” said the thin woman.
“That’s right,” said the older man. “But not when they’re about to die.”
The thin woman threw up her hands. “If you say so. But now I’ll tell you my story. And my story comes from a solid source. Can’t trust birds, old man.”
“Older man,” he corrected.
“Whatever. Now, listen up. This one’s as new as yours.”
Right, we all know the sorts of things the King of the Turtles did. He fought a year-long duel with the King of the Frogs – and he won it, too, when the frog tried to swallow him whole and his shell tore its throat right out. He swam to the bottom of the bottom of the ocean, to prove that he could, and brought back pearls bigger than whale-eyes. He demanded tribute and respect from cities across the world, whenever they laughed at him, he swallowed all the water of those cities and wouldn’t give it back until they bowed and scraped.
But those were the later things. The first thing he did – the first BIG thing – was when he came out of the water and spoke to the people on the shore. There were only a few people around the lakefront that early morning; two women and a man.
“Who are you?” asked the first woman.
He scratched at his shell. “I’m the King of the Turtles now, I guess,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” asked the man.
He thought. “I’m coming to see the city again,” he said. “It wasn’t a good place to me when I was little. I think I’ll see if it’s gotten better.”
“What are you going to do?” asked the second woman.
He shrugged. “I’ll find out,” he said, and he walked through the streets of the city that he’d grown up in. The first woman and the man followed him. The second woman turned and ran away.
Every footprint left a puddle, and every time he stopped and looked at something – to see a street sign, or a new building, or anything – he left a mudhole that sank right through the concrete. Where he breathed deeply, bullrushes sprouted. When he laughed, the smell of rotting reeds and pond scum filled the air. It made some people sick, and he just laughed harder at them.
“This city isn’t so big after all,” he said. “I was small, that was all. It doesn’t look so good now.” And he spat in front of city hall, and it turned into a marsh; a cabinet of cicadas singing on the background of a mayor blackbird.
“This city isn’t so scary after all,” he said. “I was scared, that was all. It doesn’t look so frightening now.” And he spat on a factory, and it withered up into a huge old rotting log, filled with all sorts of surprised animals.
All the people were running now, of course, and many of them were screaming. This irritated the King of the Turtles, especially when some of them began to shoot at him. The men in the little black and white cars tickled, but some of the big guns that were starting to appear, in big trucks driven by big men – they hurt. Itchy-hurt, not burning-hurt, but hurt nonetheless.
“This whole city is just one big mess,” he said. “And this is taking too long. I think I’ll fix it all at once.”
So he climbed to the top of the highest building in the city – it was a big smokestack. He looked down on all of it from up there, all the brick and mortar and struggle and bustle and hustle, and he stomped his right foot three times. And each time his foot hit the chimneytop, a third of the city sank into the water, until there was nothing left but a big bog.
“You people are messing up my new home,” he said to the people all floundering in it. “If you won’t leave, you’d better listen to me then.” He stomped his left foot three times, and each time his foot touched the chimneytop a third of the people of that city were turned into turtles, until there wasn’t a single human left for miles.
“That’s almost it,” he said, and he climbed down from the chimney and slapped it once. The chimney bowed and bent and wriggled and it turned into a huge tree like nobody’d heard of before. Its branches dripped rivers and its leaves were shrubs; frogs jumped in its canopy and birds nested in its pools. It was a swamp-tree, and it was the biggest thing in all the new bog that the King of the Turtles had made.
“Now listen to me now,” he told the turtles, who were still very confused. “I am your king – I am the King of the Turtles. The old king was lazy, and he stayed at home. He let strangers push around his people, even if they were just little children. But I’ll take care of you now, because it looks like you’re my problem. Go out there and eat!”
And so the people of the city went out into their new home and ate. There wasn’t much else they could do, and at least there was plenty of food.
“That’s messed up,” said the older man. “Turning all those people into turtles. Who’d he think he was, huh?”
“The same thing he was when he was little,” said the thin woman. “Just bigger. Just like most people. And I didn’t say he did a good thing. Just a big thing. A whole city made into turtles sounds pretty big to me. He thought he could do it, and he did.”
“And how’d you know that story, eh? You couldn’t have been there.”
“I was the second woman on the beach,” she said. “And I didn’t feel like hanging around after that conversation. I was just outside the city limits when I watched it sink into the swamp.”
The last man stood up. “Those are good stories,” he said. His voice was thick and slow, like sticky oatmeal; his skin was raddled with bruises. “But I have one more. And it’s a true one too, and a new one. And it is about the King of the Turtles. But that isn’t his name anymore.”
Now, this wasn’t as long ago as the last two stories. The King of the Turtles had grown older, fatter, stronger, more lazily confident in his own strength. He ruled over the waters that were little, and the waters that were middle-sized, and even some (a bit, mind you, no one could claim all of them) of the deep blue endless waves. Wherever his subjects wore shells, he was there, and he was always on the lookout for a new morsel; for dinner, for knowledge, for hoarding. He threatened and blackmailed and coaxed and strongarmed and gained wealth greater than any human had ever dreamed, and he piled it in the walls of his palace – which he had moved from under the giant stone to the bottom of the big bog, under the roots of the swamp-tree. The very most prized of his possessions he filled his shell with, and they sank into his sides and his shell with the years like candies into a cake. They filled his head with dreams as he slept, and he slept long and often, dwelling on his deeds and wealth.
People like that can last for a long time. But sooner or later, they stop paying attention for just long enough, and it all falls apart with one little thing.
One little thing was a girl with a missing engagement ring.
You see, her fiancé came staggering in the door in the dead of night, barely able to stand. After a toweling-down and a cup of horrible-tasting stuff, he told her the story.
“I was in a pub,” he said.
She nodded. And narrowed her eyes.
“No, it was just a night after my work. But this guy, he challenged us to drink.”
“And you said yes,” she said. Flatly.
“It wasn’t like that. He was a big guy – eight foot and nearly as much across the chest. Friendly, sure, with a nice smile, but, you know, that kind of friendly where it can stop real fast. So we said sure, and he said he’d down a glass for each that any of us took.”
She nodded. Her eyes sunk farther into slits.
“And you know I’m not a lightweight – none of us but Pete are – but man, he out-drank all of us at once. We woke up outside, and the ring was gone.”
“Which pub?” she asked.
She went to the pub. She smelled the swampwater in the air, and she saw the damp footprints, and she wondered and mulled it over. And she phoned her grandmother, who’d always known about this sort of thing.
“Was there a smell?” asked her grandmother.
“Like swampwater,” she said.
“Ahh. Ahh. Ahh. Were there footprints?” asked her grandmother.
“Damp ones. Big ones,” she said.
“Ahh. Ahh! And tell me, what was he like?”
She thought about that. “Friendly, with a nice smile.”
“The King of the Turtles has your wedding ring,” said the old, old woman. “There is no doubt in my mind at all. If you want to get it back, you’ll need to find him in his home. It lies under the roots of the swamp-tree, in the heart of the bog that was a city. You’d better start walking fast, before he tucks that ring into his shell for good.”
The girl was fast. She drove, then biked, then walked, abandoning each in a safe place as first the road, then the trail, grew too bumpy and uneven. She pressed on and on, through thickets and mires, past the big still eyes of alligators and the reedy chorus of treefrogs. And finally, she came to the swamp-tree, a swamp-above-a-swamp, and she knew she was near.
“Now how do I get in there?” she asked aloud, and she felt the wind whisk away her question and carry it up to ears that were as big as the horizon.
“With my help,” said the sky.
“At what price?” said the girl. She wasn’t stupid. Her grandmother had told her stories, remember.
“None,” said the sky. “The King of the Turtles has stolen back the price he paid to me fairly for my aid. I wish revenge. I will give you a breath large enough to take you to his lair.”
The girl took a big breath, and the sky filled her lungs up to the brim. She made it down to the palace of the King of the Turtles at the bottom of the bog with plenty to spare, and snuck into his hall.
But the King of the Turtles was not an unaware ruler, even in his slothfulness. He woke the second her foot crossed his door, and laughed to himself as he saw her enter. “This will be very funny!” he said. “The last thief I had was years ago, and he was most amusing. I will wait for her to entertain me before I dispose of her. Maybe she’ll get lost and start to cry, like he did!” And so he went back to sleep, chuckling. He thought he could do anything, you see.
The girl wasn’t foolhardy. She kept to the sidepassages and sidecorridors, she stayed out of the light. She got lost, of course, but kept her head and got her bearings as best as she could, right up until she stumbled into the kitchen, where a fat old frog and a tough old blackbird were slacking at their duties to share a pipe and a gossip.
“Now who’s this?” asked the frog.
“A busybody,” said the blackbird. “Trust me, I’ve seen plenty. I know the type.”
“I am here to reclaim stolen property,” said the girl. “Keep your accusations.”
“Wasn’t deploring you, sunshine,” said the blackbird, flicking away ill-kept feathers. “The more ill-will you bear, the more power to you. I was the mayor of this dump until the big lug did his thing. If you want to make trouble, be my guest.”
“And he defeated my lord in a duel,” said the frog, “and conscripted us, his loyal subjects, to servitude! Do what you like.”
“I’d like to steal back my ring,” said the girl.
“Good luck to that,” sneered the blackbird. “He’s been bragging about a ring for days. It’ll be stuck inside his shell for good now. Best give up on it.”
“We could help,” said the frog.
“Help and be caught for our pains once she mucks it up. Never rely on the public for anything,” retorted the blackbird.
“Getting caught can’t make our lives much worse, and she might even do something properly about all this. I say we help,” said the frog.
“Fine. Be that way.” The blackbird threw up its wings in disgust and paced away, muttering.
“What kind of help?” asked the girl.
“We can give you some medicine to slip into the King of Turtles’ dinner,” said the frog. “It will put him fast to sleep, and you can pick out your ring if you’re quick about it. But there’s a problem: his highness orders a banquet every evening, and we never know what he eats. You’ll need to find out what he’ll eat up entirely, or he won’t be put to sleep soundly enough for you to do your work.”
“When’s the meal?” asked the girl.
The frog waved his arm at a serving cart, loaded down with trays and dishes. “In five minutes. Hurry up.”
The King of the Turtles heard the blackbird bang the kitchen door shut in its anger, and he saw this happening. But he wasn’t worried. “I’ll punish the cooks later,” he said. “She will never discover what my meal is, anyways.” And so he went back to sleep.
Truffles, sandwiches, roasts, gravies, salads, soups, and fish, loaded up to the brim and beyond in each bowl. The girl felt dreadfully hungry after such a long trip, but she bottled it up and considered her options. There were too many, and she nearly despaired, but then she spied a little covered bowl shoved in at the bottom of the cart, almost as an afterthought. Opening it up, mind turning over, she found a little bowl of porridge. And just like that, she had her answer all ready.
The King of the Turtles ate well that night – a bit from every dish, a bite nibbled everywhere. Not so much as a mouthful from anything… except from that porridge. Just as the girl had guessed, it was the only thing that his toothless mouth could swallow without hurting fiercely, and he drained it to the last drop, along with every bit of sleeping medicine the girl had sprinkled into it. Before midnight had come, he was snoring away, and the girl crept out from her hiding place underneath the cart to pick through his shell. It was a tight fit, but her hands were small, and she saw the thousands of gleaming treasures sprinkled throughout it. The pearls the size of whales’ eyes, the precious shells, the golden ingots from Spanish galleons, and there, right under the King of the Turtles’ chin, was her engagement ring. And right then, just as her hand was about to close on it, was when she sneezed.
It was more than just bad luck, of course. The King of the Turtles smelled so strong of swampwater it was a miracle she could breathe next to him, even with the good breath the sky had lent her. But, small sneeze though it was, excusable though it was, it was still enough to wake him up, and he laughed and laughed and laughed as he watched her run to the door.
“This is even funnier than I thought!” he said. “I’ll catch up to her nice and slow, and grab her just outside my front door. That way she’ll think she got away, and it’ll be all the more entertaining for me.” So he lumbered forwards slowly and roared and waved his claws, and amused himself greatly.
The girl was not amused. She wasn’t frightened. But she was very intent on her purpose, and she knew she didn’t have her ring yet. Escape though she might, she wasn’t leaving the kingdom of the King of the Turtles until it was back in her hand, and she was already trying to think of a new idea as she ran out the front door back to the bottom of the bog.
“I need something to stop him,” she said aloud. “I need to take his shell off.”
“The chimney, the chimney,” cried a tiny voice. The girl looked, and saw a very small turtle tucked into the roots of the swamp-tree. It was old, old, old, even for a turtle, and covered in moss.
“I am the first woman that the King of the Turtles spoke to,” it called, “and you must stop here if you want to escape alive. The chimney! You must let out the chimney again! Strike it with your hand!”
No sooner was the turtle’s warning complete than the doors of the palace burst open, and out came the King of the Turtles, laughing and roaring, shell spiked for war and beak snapping. He paused there for effect, taking his time. He knew he could catch the girl. He could do anything.
And right then, the girl slapped her hand against the swamp-tree. It groaned, creaked, wailed, and fell apart into a thousand crumbling bricks, held together by no mortar and gnawed bare by an age’s-worth of still water and slime. And every single one of those bricks landed on the King of the Turtles, and his beautiful shell cracked, splintered, and chipped with each until the very last brick fell, and then it burst apart into a million pieces. The ring was the last to fly free, and it landed right in the girl’s hand.
“My shell! My home!” he cried. “This wasn’t going to happen! Why did it happen when I knew it wasn’t going to?”
“We all say that, sometimes,” said the girl. “It doesn’t fix it.” And she left him there, stuck under a pile of old, burnt clay, at the bottom of the bog.
“That’s a new story, alright,” said the older man.
“Yes,” said the thin woman. “I haven’t heard it. There can’t be many who’d know it.”
“Stuck at the bottom of the bog, that’s straight harsh,” said the older man. “Down there forever.”
“Maybe not forever,” said the last man, sadly. “Maybe just a long time.”
They were all quiet for a while, and watched their fire.
“We live with what we’re given,” said the thin woman at last, laying down on her side, wrapped tight against the night. “And we do our best with it.”
“I know that,” said the older man. He leaned back and took his hands as a pillow. “And you know that too, that it’s true.”
“And he knows that now,” said the last man in his thick, slow voice, wrapping himself and his thousand bruises up carefully in his old, worn blanket, layer on layer. “He knows it now.”