Chapter 2: Growin' On Up

:

        Hubert grew like a weed. From the time he was old enough to show recognition of his father entering the room— bouncing up and down wearing a big, bubbly grin emitting squeals of excitement and delight (he loved his daddy!)— to the time he was taught by Pa how, with confusing coordination, to trade four limbs for two like the rest of the human race (Pa saw Hubert as a person and wanted to keep it that way), Hubert exploded in size. The father therefore was seen more and more often stumbling through the door looking like a walking grocery-sack tree to feed this growing stomach.

        Luckily, our wishing well was too dim to know about turtles’ absent jaws. Hubert defied nature and developed two full rows of them, as each poked out of the gum one by one. (Pa, however, not knowing much about the species either, didn’t think anything of it.) Learning to speak therefore didn’t challenge him; in fact, Hubert pronunciated words with impressive clarity, and with, more noticeably, a certain characteristic and easygoing slowness that made him even more likable to Pa. It soothed Pa’s ears—they were always sick of enduring coworkers’ chitchat about the most amazingly boring things—“Look at my new coffee mug my wife bought me,” or “So, how about the game last night? What’d you think of the new quarterback?” (when Pa thought no more about sports than he did of how the economy must be faring in Kazakhstan) or, in worst case scenarios, “So yeah, I got a new shirt.” (Great, let’s talk about your new shirt. There must be a million things I can say about that!) Every evening he escaped from that cave of screeching office bats into a calm, quiet house out in the gorgeous countryside, wherein the air was filled with the soothing little voice of a turtle boy. Each day he returned home from work, handed the babysitter her due, and joyfully watched his son waddle up to him. He could tell too that Hubert had to think painstakingly about things before exerting the drawn-out effort to say them, because he was so slow and didn't want to waste time repeating sentences; just for this he loved him all the more, for he sometimes smiled unconsciously when listening to him.

As years passed by, Hubert’s shell began to require grunts and groans of laborious effort to squeeze through cramped doorways; traversing the household became more and more of a burdensome ordeal to him, until at last all such endeavors skidded to a standstill; one morning he awoke and couldn’t exit his own bedroom! In distress he called out to Pa for help, and so Pa had to call in sick to work that day.

Hours later, Pa was sorry for the gaping hole in the wall where Hubert’s window had been, wrenched completely out with a thundering thud after he’d wrestled Hubert’s bulging frame through, along with debris of plaster and snowing pink fluffs of fiberglass insulation. Hubert was going to be homeless outside for a few days and nights, but being a turtle, this was alright.

So Pa had an idea. The garage door yawned open early one Saturday. Hubert stood by his dad's side, looked up at him, and wondered what he was about to do. Then with an intimidatingly mighty display of zeal and force, Pa took it by storm; he ripped out everything that uglified, tore down the cobwebs, and gassed the pesky spiders, rodents, and roaches into oblivion. Go live in your own habitats! 


This was before he knew Hubert would eat them, making the room all the more suitable for him. Hubert hardly cared whether it was humanly habitable or not; he had not yet picked up the many strange fears and tastes of people, which are usually acquired rather than inherited. Would you care to buy new clothes if people around you didn’t condemn your faded old ones with holes in them—if they themselves wore rags and hand-me-downs? Later on, Pa would walk in on Hubert munching on a handful of squirming roaches, and Hubert, surprised and confused, with his cocked head and inquiring eyes would watch his grimacing, retching father reel in disgust and clamber backwards through the door. A few long minutes passed in suspense Then he sauntered back out apologetically, wiping his mouth with an honest grimace, saying, “You're goin' to take that outside next time, you understand me?” Hubert didn’t understand, but he lied and nodded his head. Pa got scary when he was mad.

Beyond the well-trimmed and mown backyard stretched limitless golden plains, through which the father and son had ambled many a sunrise after breakfast and sunset after dinner, holding hands. Pa each time enlightened curious little Hubert a little further on the mysterious details of life, or enthralled him with charming stories of his own childhood capers and adventures. Hubert knew that someday he himself would go on adventures like these, and even better ones too. It planted a new seed in him.

        Trudging together man and beast down the half-mile path, they'd come to a quiet little stream.

        On weekends here they’d often plop down their lazy Saturday morning bodies there and doze off in the shade of their favorite apple tree, which seemed to exist for the sole purpose of providing a resting place for two friends, the way its inviting trunk was shaped; they’d let go of themselves there, munch on a few handfuls of nature’s juicy red sweets, and inevitably be lulled into a bit of blissful shut-eye by the gentle, serenading song of the stream's gurgling. Nothing in the world was ever wrong in those times, and Hubert sometimes wished they’d never leave. He always hated it when his dad made his habitual loud yawn, which always meant he was about to climb to his feet, stretch, and prompt Hubert awake, though he nearly always already was, only pretending to be asleep, soaking in every moment of it as best as he could. Sometimes as Pa’s hands would reach for the ground to boost himself up, Hubert would reach out and take a hold of him, shake his head, and plead, “No, let's do it longer!” Now and then Pa acquiesced, but most of the time he’d say that it had to end sooner or later. There was a time for everything that made it beautiful, but when that time passed, it just got plain boring. Children, however, when not as used to some things as adults are, have a larger capacity for remaining in those moments than grown-ups do. Hubert didn’t understand this and began to think that people must get more and more boring as they aged. He secretly decided he wouldn’t be this way.

         So went Hubert's early childhood. Pa loved Hubert dearly, and Hubert dearly loved his Pa.