SOS! I’ve Committed Torticide!

I must confess I made the gravest mistake today. Folly is jollying off on a Hiding Weekend with the ‘Nervous Branch of the Girl Scouts’. Bench became dreadfully fractious on the yoghurt pot phone and threw a total hissy. I was conned into aggreeing to look after Wesley.
Wesley is a tortoise.
Despite the name of my blog, I don’t fare well with these creatures. This particular shelled joy looks like Douglas Hurd when he’s pondering something very carefully.
It’s so frustrating, he doesn’t ‘do’ anything. Well, actually, that’s a slight untruth, he did at first. His head came out, he moved his mouth like an elderly man demanding sustenance, then retreated when he saw me. Now he is dreadfully quiet.
Aunt Bench should have kept him, especially as he belongs to her daughter. Unfortunately Bench is as a spa this week with Aunt Claymore and Cousin Girda. Aunt Claymore is being waxed (head to toe), Cousin Girda is being waned, and Bench is having some splendiferous conditioning jollop carded into her beard by a Tibetan throat singer.
So I’m lumbered with a sedentary tortoise. He doesn’t appear to enjoy entertainment.
I decided to ditch the ‘flinging’ idea at two o’clock due to his look of total disdain, in the
hope he might like some light music. So I put on La Tapatia radio from Mexico. But he didn’t move. I performed shadow puppets, I made a batman mask by turning my hands inside out over my eyes. Nothing. I did the classic – here is the church, here is the steeple – but the ungrateful little boggart gave me nothing to work with.
So I thought – food.
I had flageolet beans with goat’s rue and tree bark for dinner.
And thought he might like some……………………..

WHAT AM I GOING TO TELL THEM!?!?!?
My shrieking classes start in a week, and I’ll be done for Torticide. I’ll be imprisioned for taking the life of a small dry thing (by mistake), and sentenced to community service. This is a horror, as it means being present in the community. I’ll have to sort jigsaws for a jumble sale (most have a missing piece and I just want to hurl a stool at the donator). I’ll have to make pleasantries (speaks for itself). Worst of all, I’ll have to ‘unwhelk’ myself and do ‘people’ – that could end in a fight, so I need to tackle the issue alone.
I can’t use the ‘hibernation’ excuse, as I did that with the last one. I can’t say he ran away, as he’s got a tracker built by NASA. I can’t say he’s dead because Bench will get Aunt Vom to get a Triad to kill me.
So I need options.
I have killed tortoise with either flageolet beans, goat’s rue or tree bark.
Or all three.

So I’ve blown the candles out, I’m sitting in my hedge with an emergency torch
and the Radio Times and some Bovril, because I’m in hiding until I
know what to do. I’ve also got my hands placed over my eyes so no-one can see me.
If any of you dear people have any suggestions, please share them with me – I’ve still got time on my side. Bench isn’t back for three days, and Folly’s weekend hiding thankfully only ends when someone finds her.

Yours in fearful imancipation,
MAB

p.s. If anyone could post some Twiglets I’d be well chuffed (just put my name, hedge, Trebollocks). Also, if you possess the newflangled contraption of a yoghurt pot phone and you are a solicitor offering free advice, my number is St Vitus 201.