Remember what I said about Hubert's "grip on life"? It turns out that Hubert had the spirit of a conqueror, because he wanted to subdue everything in life, everything in his path. The success he'd experienced thus far had emboldened him, made him feel larger than life, larger than people around him. He could control everything his eyes saw and easily manipulate groups of children as he wished.
Pa began to teach him some fiddle, and he picked it up like a charm. How can a turtle play a fiddle? Don't ask me how, but Hubert plays it. Can turtles run, jump, play, sing, and dance too? Because Pa taught him all those things just as well, and although he wasn't especially adept at the former three, he knew nothing of his own limitations. And that's all that matters. (Don't worry, this author won't venture to tell you how Hubert fiddled and danced, because he himself knows nothing of the matter. But who cares??)
Hubert was walking down a dirt path. This dirt path was high up in the mountains. Birds he'd never heard before called out to each other up in the trees, strange (but tasty) creepy crawlers scuttled about, and even the wind whistled a new tune. Little Hubert hobbled along with his walking stick to aid him, because when he stood up, he could see a lot more of the world around him. Standing up was getting easier for him, and he less afraid of it than before. The life-threatening mistake of falling backwards still loomed over him, but he figured he should (and would) learn to find a way to deal with that dilemma.
He even sat down one night and gave it a good thinking. "How would I ever get back up if I fell?" Afraid to experiment, he just drew pictures in the moonlit dust with a twig, thinking through them. Nothing came up.
Another time he found two turtles fighting in a creek. One was apparently the aggressor, the other merely defending itself. The bully wouldn't relent; he finally landed a good bump to the other's shell and flipped him over, rendering him helplessly drowning in the water. Horrified, Hubert rushed to the victim's aid and turned it back over with his walking stick before it was too late. Then he looked at the other indignantly and, picking it up (wanting to fling it downstream, but refraining), carried it far away from its target. He set it down in the grass a good couple of stones' throws off and hoped the two would never meet again. Then he picked his stick back up, wandered through the woods, and resumed his merry journey to who-knows-where for who-knows-why.
This mountain trail was a thousand miles from home. Back at home, frantic Pa had no idea where he disappeared to, and he ordered the police to scour the countryside for him. Being the influential community man that he was, the police complied willingly. The newspapers displayed his face in the "Missing" column. Hubert had not shown up in class for over a month, and even the teachers who couldn't stand him were starting to get very worried. Classmates spread rumors that he'd gotten kidnapped, or that he'd been murdered, but none of these rumors were true. Hubert was alive and well, healthier and happier than he'd ever been in his whole life, and he wasn't kidnapped. Truth be told, he forgot all about his teacher and classmates.
You see, it happened like this:
Hubert had wandered out to the creek after a heavy deluge had swept across the land. He fooled Pa that morning with moans and groans about a fever, and stumbled around feigning dizziness. Babysitter Betty was summoned, and Pa quickly paid her and rushed out the door, late for work.
Betty hauled the TV from the garage (Hubert's bedroom) into the living room to get sapped up on her favorite soap opera. As if soap operas weren't repellent enough for fun-loving turtle boys who were perfectly happy with life… So Hubert went outside and headed for the stream.
The nearer his waddling feet plodded to the stream, the louder the hissing of the rushing waters grew; this thing wasn't a gentle gurgling stream anymore. As he came still nearer, the hiss grew to a roar. Then, as it came to view, Hubert's jaw dropped to the ground.
The place where he and Pa had sat many Saturday mornings was three feet underwater. As he came up to the water's edge, which had risen well above the bank, he wondered at the fearsome display of heavy tree branches drifting down this angry river's path. It had been raining for a week, just raining and raining, and this was the storm's wrathful creation. A bunch of simple little raindrops from the sky got together and started a mob here.
People look at these kinds of things and say, "Oh, that's dangerous!" or "Make sure you don't fall in!" Hubert didn't think any of these things... You see, Hubert is a turtle, and turtles... well, they think differently. Hubert turned around and looked at where he'd come from, his triangle-toed footprints in the mud walking backwards to the tiny dot of the house off in the distance. Way over there, he thought, that pea-brained babysitter's watching her stupid TV show, not getting to see any of God's awesome power out here. But I kinda like seeing it by myself this way.
Then he swiveled back around. Suddenly an impulse took hold of him, and his legs were possessed by a spirit. They began moving forward. Slowly at first. A little faster. Then faster. Then faster, until they were full-out running. His left foot struck the last of the dry ground with a force only heavily burdened turtle legs can have, and hurtling through the air he shrieked with delighted excitement. Shell and all plunged into the torrent, bubbled, and up he resurfaced with sheer thrill coursing through his whole body. "Daggum it, when you get to see the awesome might of a rushing flood, you don't sit there and watch. You get off your boring butt and dive in!" This, anyway, was his turtle logic.
The noise like a rumbling stampede enveloped him; the sound of a million bubbles bloating and bursting and wind blowing-- that's all it sounded like. He looked behind him and imagined the babysitter seeing him floating down the river, going frantic on shore like a furious chicken, screeching things unintelligible to him over the roaring water. He smiled mischievously at this imaginary apparition and turned back ahead. The soaked little brown floater, all fours tucked in and head craning over the water, was enjoying the ride. "How come other people aren't doing this?" He laughed for no reason, full of delight, and his spirits soared as the river stole him away.
Hubert later got bored of the water, especially with there being nobody to share it with. So he wrestled himself out and found himself at an opening in the woods, a parting that revealed a field he had never seen. The same spirit that had taken hold of him before again ordered him to move forward. So he did.
Then he saw a train coming. All of its boxcar doors were open, and the train was slowing down for something, so when he saw an opportunity, he wrestled himself up onto one of the boxcar floors. (Any time Hubert gets out of something, if you were to see it, you would agree that "wrestle" is the only word for it. He was a good wrestler.)
The train sped up just then, as if it had purposely slowed to invite Hubert to hop on, and Hubert looked out the door at the yellow-green blur of the land rushing by. He shrugged and spoke by the spirit of adventure: "Well, that's it. Guess this is goodbye for a while. Goodbye Pa. Goodbye Betty. Goodbye school. Goodbye Miss Gladstone." And he said goodbye to every classmate whose name he could remember, until he could speak no more and was lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the train tracks. Fast things make turtles very tired.
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