Tortoise Interruptus

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.