“Okay, guys, listen up,” Bert, the turtle, called out to all the members of his bale. “We’ve got a situation on our hands and we’re all going to have to pitch in to come up with a solution.”
All of the turtles in the bale swam over to Bert, their leader, and listened carefully. “Do you see that young duck over there on the north shore? Well, his name is Danny and he has a sad story. You see, he was orphaned when the last hurricane blew through here and he then got separated from the rest of the ducks in his waddle.”
A murmur rose up with the bale of turtles. One yelled out, “Yes, that is, indeed, a sad story, but what does that have to do with us?”
Bert responded, “With no mother or father and sisters or brothers around to teach him, Danny never learned how to swim, so he has been lonely and landlocked. But Danny recently heard that some other members of his waddle who survived the hurricane that separated Danny from his family and friends have settled down on this large pond’s south shore. Danny really wants get back to his waddle, but he can’t swim and it’s too far and too risky for him to walk all the way to the other side of the pond.”
“So how can we help, Bert?” a different turtle called out.
“I’m glad you asked,” Bert said to the turtle who asked the question. “Here is what I want us to do. I want us to line up single file to form a straight line from the north shore to the south shore and we can let Danny Duck walk across our backs to the other side of the pond.”
“But there aren’t enough of us to make it all the way to the other side of the pond,” another turtle said.
“I know, but as soon as Danny passes over each turtle’s shell, those turtles shall quickly swim from the back of the line to the front,” Bert said. “I think this will work. So who’s with me on helping another member of our pond’s family?”
There was another murmur from the members of the bale and in unison, they shouted, “We are!” and immediately started forming a single-file line of turtles from the pond’s north shore to its south shore.
And Danny, the appreciative orphaned duck, started scampering across the backs of the helpful turtles on his way back to join the other surviving members of his wadde.
Written for Christine Bialczak’s Simply 6 Minutes Challenge. Image credit: Ryan Sims/Comedy Wildlife 2022
After having terrorized the village for decades, the monster had finally been subdued and caught. The villagers took the still living creature to the swamp, where they plunged it into the murky, algae-surfaced pond up to its waist, anchored its feet, and secured one arm to a petrified tree.
As a child, the little princess had always been a handful for the king and queen. Once she turned eighteen, her parents decided that the best way to deal with her would be to find a suitable prince and to marry her off. “Let her be someone else’s problem,” her father, the king, lamented.
“There are so many, Mommy,” Sara said as she and her mother looked down at the tropical pond from the catwalk high above.
This, That, and the Other 