Presley and the Luckiest Turtle Ever

By Glynn Bennion

Presley found a baby turtle crawling in the garden.

“Look, Dad! I found a baby turtle!”

“Oh my,” said Dad.  “That’s nice.  What do you plan to do with it?”

Presley asked, “Can I keep it?  I’d take the best care of it.”

“I’ll keep it in a box with sand and rocks and a little dish for water, and I’m going to call it, “Terry.”

“Well,” Dad said, “Terry’ll be the luckiest turtle ever.”

Presley put the turtle in a shoe box and then drew a picture of what it would look like when she added sand and rocks and a dish for water.

Then she thought out loud, “I bet Terry will be lonely.  I’m going to need a bigger box.”

“I’ll go hunt in the garden and find a friend for Terry.”

“Terry will be the luckiest turtle ever,” said Dad.

“I’ll plant some grass and flowers in Terry’s box,” said Presley.  “And I’ll need a bigger water dish for two turtles.  I’ll name the other turtle, ‘Tuba.’”

“They’ll be the luckiest turtles ever,” said Dad.

As Presley drew a picture of a bigger box with grass and flowers and a larger water dish, an idea came to her.  “Maybe I can build a terrarium and add bugs and insects for Terry and Tuba to eat.”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Dad,” asked Presley.

“They’d be the luckies turtles ever,” Dad replied.

Presley kept drawing.  “Maybe we could add a cage on top of the terrarium so that we could add a bird or two.”  Presley was really thinking now and added even more to her drawing.  

“I’m going to need more paper, Dad,” said Presley.  So Dad got up and brought her a sketch pad.  

“Dad,” said Presley, “I think we had better build the terrarium-bird cage in the backyard.”  

Presley drew a large cage with a door that she could walk in whenever she wanted to play with Terry and Tuba.  She drew a tiny pond with a goldfish and a frog.

“See, Dad,” said Presley.  

Dad looked at the drawing and said, “They’ll be the luckiest turtles in the world.”

Presley’s drawing got bigger.  Her head began to swell with ideas.  The tiny pond became a lake with trees and a stream.  There was an owl, and a deer, and a dog, and a bear.  And the cage was as big as a town.  “It’s a zoo, Dad!  It’s a zoo,” Presley shouted as she showed her latest update to the drawing. 

“Oh my,” said Dad.  “They’ll be the luckiest turtles ever.”

The ideas began to come faster and next Presley drew mountains and rivers, hills and streams.  She drew fancy fish from the Orient, and eagles from Iraq.

The cage grew into Africa with zebras and cheetahs and hippopotamuses.  It stretched into the Arctic with walruses, polar bears, penguins, and Yaks.  Presley drew deserts with cacti and lizards and dry riverbeds.  

“See, Dad,” said Presley.  “It’s the world's biggest terrarium, the world’s biggest zoo.”  

As Presley kept drawing, it finally dawned on her that her cage had grown to encompass the entire planet Earth.  “Isn’t it grand, Dad?” Presley asked.

Dad looked up and adjusted his glasses.  Oh, yes.  They’ll be the luckiest turtles in the whole wide world.  Indeed, they will,” he said.

Dad looked at the drawing a little more, and then he looked at Presley.  

“You don’t need a cage, or a box, or a zoo, Presley,” he said.  “What you need is to be a naturalist.  And you can begin by studying Terry in his natural habitat--the garden.”

So Presley took Terry back to the garden and let him go.  She took her sketch pad and drew pictures of him.  

“Dad,” Presley said, “I think Terry is happier now.”

And Dad said, “I think he’s the luckiest turtle ever.”