He tried to see where the goat had gone, but he couldn’t, for some reason, see much at all. Every time he lifted his head, all he could see were the tips of the grass and just the bottom edge of the goat pen. He strained his neck as high as it could go – it felt, strangely, like he could in fact stretch his neck further up from his shoulders than usual – but he still couldn’t see more than a foot or so above the ground.
Well, of course, Malcolm thought, it’s because I’m lying down. I can feel my tummy and hands and legs on the grass. On, it must be said, the wet and muddy grass. So let’s stand up.
This turned out to be much more difficult than usual. Try as he might, Malcolm couldn’t seem to get off all fours. He pushed and pushed with his arms, trying to get himself up, but nothing doing. It was exhausting.
One more push, he thought. One big heave.
He summoned up all his strength, and started, yes, genuinely started to get up – he even, for a second, saw a tiny bit of goat horn peeping over the pen fence – before tumbling over and ending up on his back.
And then it really seemed impossible to get up. Lying on his back, looking up at the sky, all he seemed to be able to do, however much he tried, was wobble from side to side. He felt like a Weeble. His arms and legs were gyrating, uselessly, in the air. He must look, he thought, like a beetle or a cockroach when they get stuck on their backs.
It was at this point Malcolm noticed something about his arms, which were the only limbs he could actually see. He noticed that they were … kind of green. And kind of … elephantine. Not in the sense of large. More in the sense of small, but really like an elephant’s. Which was odd, seeing as the main thing about elephants is that they are big.
So, he thought – mainly to think about something so as not to just start screaming in terror – what isn’t an elephant but has legs and arms a bit like an elephant’s, only much smaller … plus when they roll over they can’t turn back again … plus is: green?
He felt like the answer was right there, just beyond his reach.
“Hello …” said a deep, low voice next to his ear. “You in a bit of a pickle, mate?”
Malcolm looked round to see where the voice was coming from. Despite everything else he might have thought at that moment when he saw where it was indeed coming from, what he actually thought was: of course.
That’s what’s smaller than an elephant but with similar-shaped arms and legs and gets stuck on its back and is green.
A tortoise.
And then, finally, he screamed in terror.
About a minute later, Malcolm stopped screaming. Maybe I imagined it all, he thought.
He closed his eyes tight, and opened them again.
Then he looked at his wrinkly green arms, and thought about how he’d rolled on to his back and got stuck there.
He craned forward, and saw a section of something that was clearly on his back. It looked a bit like a World War Two German soldier’s helmet – only greener – and more, well, shell-like. Tortoise-shell like.
Then he started screaming again.
The tortoise – the one who wasn’t Malcolm – just watched him curiously the whole time. Then he said:
“Well, it’s not that bad.”
“Yes, it is!!” said Malcolm. “I’m a tortoise! I’m a tortoise!”
“I know that. But it’s happened to all of us at some point …”
“Has it?”
Malcolm, through his fear, felt a glimmer of hope. It happens to lots of people? This tortoise was also a human who had somehow ended up a tortoise? Of course! That’s why he could speak! Then there must be a way back to being hu—
“Hey!” he said, as the tortoise broke Malcolm’s train of thought by nuzzling his snout somewhere under Malcolm’s shell.
“Hang on!” said the tortoise.
“Hang on to whaa—” said Malcolm, as he felt himself being lifted on to his side. And then perched on his side. He rotated slightly like a very slowly spinning coin. The tortoise backed away, and retreated inside his shell.
“What are you doing?” said Malcolm. “Don’t leave me on the edge! On the edge of my … edge!”
“Just taking a breather,” said the tortoise, emerging from his shell. “You’re not exactly terrapin-sized, are you? And besides, I need you to keep spinning round until I’m facing your shell-side.”
“Can’t you walk round to my …” Malcolm couldn’t believe he was saying it, “… shell-side?!”
The tortoise blinked. “Do you want to stay like that until next year?”
“Er …”
“No. Thought not.”
Malcolm continued to revolve. Helplessly, he watched as the tortoise disappeared from view.
“Right!” said the tortoise’s voice. “Try and stay like that. I’ll take a bit of a run-up.”
About fifteen minutes passed.
During those fifteen minutes, Malcolm thought about what on earth could have happened. These were the options as he saw them.
A) He was dreaming. But he didn’t think this could be right, as he normally only dreamt about computers. And never about animals. Plus, it really didn’t feel like a dream.
B) He was having some kind of hallucination, brought on by extreme boredom following a whole day – a whole life, it felt like – of people telling him about animals.
C) He had turned into a tortoise.
He was mainly going with option B, option A being dismissed for the reasons explained within option A, and option C, being, um, not possible.
Either way, he thought, it was best to just go along with what was happening, and assume that, eventually, everything could be got back to normal. The only alternative, after all, was screaming in horror, and there was a limit to how long he could do that for.
Then Malcolm felt a bump as the other tortoise finally reached him.
Gradually, more or less at the speed that the Bailey family car-boot door shut when not slammed, he came back down: the right way up.
“Ooofff!” he said. He looked to his left. The tortoise was still there.
“Thanks,” said Malcolm, because that was what the tortoise looked like he was expecting.
“No worries.” The tortoise, satisfied, began to turn round.
“Sorry … um …?”
“Benny.”
“Benny? You’re one of the farm tortoises …? With Bjorn?”
“Yes. Course. I’m not a wild tortoise.”
Malcolm frowned, although that wasn’t something that was easily noticeable. Basically,