by J. M. Snyder
There was a jolt as Tip’s bag was dumped down, none too gently, then the unmistakable slamming of a car door. Tip breathed a silent prayer that the wretched woman wouldn’t head straight for the ferry. If he ended up off the island with no clothes, no money, and no phone…He began to regret eating so much, his stomach churning with nerves. Although it’d serve the old biddy right if he chucked up in her handbag.
Nevertheless, he was relieved to make it to the end of the journey without incident—and more importantly, without hearing any tannoy announcements about lifejackets and car decks. As he felt the handbag lifted out of the car, Tip wondered where he was. The journey had seemed to take forever, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t mind betting that Mrs. Helpful was exactly the sort of old lady who always drove everywhere at fifteen miles an hour, oblivious to the traffic jam forming behind her and the drivers about to go into meltdown.
Where was that impatient old witch when you needed her, eh? Tip wouldn’t mind seeing how Mrs. Helpful liked life as a tortoise, vulnerable to being picked up and dumped in people’s handbags without so much as a by your leave.
Jarred and jolted as she made her way upstairs, Tip was unutterably relieved when he finally felt himself lifted out of the bag and placed on the floor. He looked around. He was in a hotel room, at a guess; it smelled strongly of cleaning products and had that slightly tatty, worn-out feel common to a lot of the lower-priced island guesthouses. And yes—sand, firmly ingrained into the cheap nylon carpet.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Helpful cooed. “Safe and sound. Now, you’ve had your lunch, so you’ll be all right here for the afternoon, won’t you? I’m going to go for a little walk along the sea front—such a shame to waste this lovely weather we’re having—but first I’ve got to call my sister. She does worry so.”
Yes! Tip felt an un-tortoise-like urge to punch the air. With any luck, she’d be out long enough for him to change back. Granted, he’d then be naked in a stranger’s hotel room with no idea where he was, but if they were that near the beach, he could just wrap himself in a bath towel and pretend he’d been swimming and had his things stolen. Then it was simply a matter of finding some kind soul to lend him a phone. Janey wouldn’t exactly be pleased to have to leave the café and come and get him, but she wouldn’t just leave him here, either. Probably.
He watched impatiently until the door slammed behind Mrs. Helpful, then frantically tried to think human thoughts. He didn’t have a clue if it would help, but it certainly couldn’t hurt, could it? Plus, he’d always had a vague idea that maybe magic was just a really complicated sort of hypnosis, and if he could only convince his body it was supposed to be human, then it’d change back out of embarrassment. Or something.
Five long hours later, that theory was looking ready for the wastepaper basket. Tip paced restlessly, or at least as restlessly as he could manage in his present form. Honestly, he was going to go mad cooped up in here. Nothing to eat, nothing to do—not even a TV to watch. How cheap did a hotel have to be to not even have a TV in the room? Not that he could have reached the controls in any case, but he could at least have whiled away the hours trying to come up with a plan to get hold of the remote.
The monotony was broken only by the return of Mrs. Helpful, bearing lettuce. It was iceberg, which wasn’t his favourite (Tip preferred a nice cos, or rocket for a treat), but he munched it hungrily anyway. It looked like he was set for a marathon session as a tortoise this time—there was no set pattern to his changes, but they tended to be either disconcertingly short or inconveniently long, with no middle ground. The suit he’d bought for his sister’s wedding three months ago had been a total waste of money; he’d spent the whole event in tortoise form, worried he’d either change back suddenly or get trodden on. At least Janey had vetoed Mike’s suggestion that they tape the rings to his back and have him lumber up the aisle to present them. Tip still had nightmares of suddenly appearing, naked, in a crowded church…
Tip began to worry Mrs. Helpful would have him off the island and settled in a cardboard box somewhere before he changed back. Apprehension flared as she picked him up—but it was the bathroom she took him to. He panicked briefly, limbs flailing, as she lowered him into the bath, and then felt like an idiot when he realized there wasn’t any water in it. Apparently tortoise-drowning was not to be tonight’s entertainment.
“There we go, dearie. You’ll be safe for the night in there.”
Dumped in the bath without even a spider for company, Tip gloomily surveyed the walls of his porcelain prison.
He barely slept a wink that night, terrified he’d change back in his sleep and the first he’d know about it would be Mrs. Helpful screaming when she found a naked man in her bath. After all, old ladies generally had to get up in the night, didn’t they? His old gran had regularly woken him several times a night when she came to stay at his parents’ house, clomping across the landing to the bathroom with her walking sticks. Mrs. Helpful proved to be made of sterner stuff—but it was all beside the point, as Tip stayed resolutely grey and shelly.
* * * *
“Good morning, dearie!” Mrs. Helpful’s irritating trill jarred Tip out of the fitful doze he’d finally fallen into. He felt himself being lifted and blinked his eyes open to gaze blearily into her wrinkly smile.
Tip was never at his best after a sleepless night, and after everything he’d endured lately, he felt he was entitled to a bit of a sulk. He drew his limbs and head firmly within his shell and refused to come out no matter how Mrs. Helpful tried to coax him. Maybe she’d get bored with him and take him back?
“Oh, dear. I thought you were looking peaky,” she muttered, setting him down on the bed and patting his shell absently. “What am I going to do if you’ve died? I suppose I’ll have to bury you somewhere.”
Tip’s head shot out of his shell so fast he was surprised he didn’t strain something.
“There you are!” Clearly delighted with his reappearance, Mrs. Helpful tickled Tip under his chin. He tried to glower at her, but unfortunately being a tortoise rather restricted his range of facial expressions. “Now, you be a good boy while I go down to breakfast, and I’ll bring you back a treat.”
She picked Tip up again, and he struggled briefly but fruitlessly. Bloody hell, was it back to the bath? He’d go mad looking at those four white walls any longer!
“I think we’d better hide you under the bed,” Mrs. Helpful said. “Although I’ve half a mind—”
Never a truer word, thought Tip uncharitably.
“—to leave you in the bath. I’m sure those chambermaids never clean properly. It’d be a good test of whether they really take pride in their work. Still, we can’t have you being discovered, can we?”
On the whole, Tip was inclined to agree. Things would be much simpler if he was just left to his own devices. So when she popped him under the bed, he drew in his limbs obligingly.
“There’s a good boy! Now, don’t worry, I won’t be long.”
She bustled off, and at the sound of the door closing, Tip poked his head out again, instantly alert. His chances of escape, presuming he remained in this form, depended on the chambermaid coming in while Mrs. Helpful was at breakfast. It was a narrow enough window of opportunity as it was, so he couldn’t afford to miss it. He’d have to keep his eyes peeled for the first signs of their arrival, ready to spring into action. Insofar as a tortoise could spring, of course, which admittedly wasn’t very far at all.
Tip lumbered to the hanging edge of the bedspread and peered through the tassels. No matter how long it took, he’d be ready. He yawned—last night was definitely catching up with him. But he couldn’t give in to it: he had to stay awake. Just a little…bit…longer…
Tip awoke with a jolt. A noise like a Boeing 747 assaulted his eardrums, and a reek of overheated dust led a parallel attack on his nose. Drawing back and blinking rapidly, Tip realized it was the chambermaid with the vacuum cleaner. Fortunately for him, she stopped just short of the fringe of
the bedspread, presumably working on the principle that out of sight was out of mind. It was a principle that Tip heartily approved of at that moment.
When she moved round the bed, Tip risked a peek out into the room. Yes—he was in luck. The door was propped open. Did he dare…? This could be his only chance of escape. What would be worse—blowing it by acting too soon, or missing it entirely by acting too late? Tip was in an agony of indecision, but fortunately for him, the chambermaid gave one last half-hearted go over the carpet by the door and then disappeared into the bathroom.
Hoping Mrs. Helpful would be proved wrong as to the amount of time she’d spend in there, Tip took his chance. Adrenaline coursing sluggishly through his veins, he lumbered through the door and down the corridor. What if the chambermaid saw him? The best that could happen was that she’d put him back in the room. What if she called the RSPCA, and he ended up in a cage somewhere? How the hell would he explain that when he got back to his usual form? Tip needed to find cover. Somewhere he could wait out the change. And, hopefully, somewhere he could find some clothes to borrow before he got arrested for indecent exposure.
He thought fast—at least, a damn sight faster than his stubby little legs could carry him. His best bet would be to hide in another room, he realized. Rolling his eyes at himself, metaphorically speaking as it wasn’t very easy to do physically in tortoise form, he retraced his steps and, daringly, clambered with some difficulty onto the trolley the chambermaid had left outside the room, hiding himself amongst the clean linens.
There was a mind-numbing wait while the woman did an unnecessarily thorough job on Tip’s kidnapper’s bathroom—well, all right, maybe the bath did need a particularly good scrub this morning, but it wasn’t Tip’s fault; it wasn’t like he could have got out of it to go to the toilet—but apart from that, the plan went swimmingly. Tip was able to ride on the trolley to the next room and hop off while the chambermaid was occupied in the bathroom. He swiftly hid under the bed with the dust bunnies, hoping the zeal she’d shown in the previous room wouldn’t extend to vacuuming properly under there for a change.
Once again his luck held. Tip was left in peace, and the dust bunnies lived to dance and shag another day under the badly-sprung mattress. When he was sure the woman had gone for good, Tip poked his head out cautiously from under the candlewick bedspread. He was in a single room, barely less cramped than his shell. The shirt on the sole, hard-backed chair and the socks left carelessly on the square inch of nondescript carpet indicated it was a man’s room. Excellent—Tip would be able to steal some clothes when he finally changed back. He lumbered forth, eager to see what else he could deduce about the man in whose shoes he would shortly be standing.
There was a paperback on the bedside table, placed so that the end of it protruded a couple of inches over the edge. Studying what he could see of the cover for a moment, Tip was almost certain he was looking at the naked man adorning the latest James Lear novel. If so, that said rather interesting things about his unwitting, absent host. Frustratingly, the paperback’s spine was turned at an angle from him.
Tip had only got halfway through his copy of the book before Janey had confiscated it, telling him that even if it was his tea break, that sort of stuff was far too racy to read in front of the customers. Maybe if he could get it down somehow, perhaps by clawing his way up the bedspread, Tip could find some way of turning the pages? He was desperate to find out who Mitch would shag next. Still, better make sure it was the right book before he made all the effort.
Tip was craning his neck and had almost made out the first word of the blurb when the door opened and a man walked in. Which might not have been a disaster—except that at that moment Tip’s chelonian curse ran out of juice, and he changed back to human.
The book went flying as Tip shot up to what, in his case, passed for man size. Wobbling slightly as he remembered how to balance on two feet, Tip stood, hands cupped in front of his bits in the traditional oh-my-god-I’m-naked pose, staring at the best-looking man he’d ever seen. At least if he was going to die here, he thought fatalistically, he’d have something nice to look at as he went.
The tall, dark and (in the circumstances) rather worryingly well-muscled stranger goggled. Tip cringed, past experience having been harrowing enough to lead him to expect nothing good.
“Um,” the man said. “Would you like to borrow some clothes?”
* * * *
Clothed, for want of a better word, in a pair of trousers several sizes too big for him and a T-shirt with pretensions to become a dress, Tip sat on the bed, both hands wrapped around a cup of tea, into which his host had thoughtfully put several sugars.
“Er, sorry about invading your room like that,” Tip said, feeling an apology was probably in order. “I was trying to escape from an old lady who tortoise-napped me. I’m Tip, by the way.”
The stranger laughed. “Your name’s Tip? Tip the tortoise? Isn’t that just encouraging cruelty to animals?” He appeared utterly relaxed as he sprawled on the bed next to Tip, propped up on one elbow in a way that made his shoulder muscles bulge distractingly. His short, dark hair was immaculately in place and, as far as Tip could tell, without benefit of product. In fact he looked so bloody wholesome Janey wouldn’t hesitate to put him on the Tiptree’s Treats menu.
Tip narrowed his eyes. “It’s short for Tiptree. My surname.”
“So what’s your first name?”
Tip glared all the more fiercely for knowing the effect was entirely ruined by the reddening of his cheeks. “Tarquin,” he ground out from between clenched teeth.
His host grimaced in sympathy, but his deep blue eyes twinkled. “Tip it is, then. I’m Steve.”
Bloody typical. Not only was Steve unbelievably good-looking, he had a perfectly sensible name to boot. He’d probably turn out to be rich and intelligent, with a fantastic career in brain surgery or fashion photography or both. Although probably not in beekeeping, which had been the number one of Tip’s three dream careers as a kid. For some reason, everyone always laughed when Tip told them that.
“Meet a lot of tortoise shape-shifters, do you?” Tip asked, unable to keep a sullen tone out of his voice and to be honest, not really trying. “You seem to be taking this awfully well.”
Steve smiled and sat up, one broad shoulder brushing Tip’s in disconcerting fashion. “Well, my family’s from the island originally—one of my ancestors was the first landlord of the Hare and Hounds pub up on Arreton down. I spent a lot of time here as a kid—you kind of get used to unusual things happening.”
“You do?” Tip wondered aloud. He’d lived on the Isle of Wight most of his life, and he’d still been woefully unprepared for sudden shape-shifting. Perhaps he should have got out more.
“So, how did you develop this, ah, interesting ability?” Steve continued.
“It’s not an ability, it’s a curse.” Tip’s shoulders slumped, and the neck of the over-large T-shirt slipped right off one of them. He hitched it up hurriedly. “All I wanted was to do a bit of shopping. I found these beautiful tie-dyed skirts in a little shop down at Arreton Barns Craft Village, lovely shades of pink and purple they were, but I just couldn’t decide which one to go for.”
Steve’s eyes widened, and he drew back almost imperceptibly to stare at Tip.
“It was going to be a birthday present for my sister,” Tip added hurriedly. Could he look any more like a girl? “Anyway, it was closing time, and I knew the woman just wanted to make the sale, pack up the shop, and go home, but she was really getting on my nerves, tapping her feet and looking at her watch, and it just made it harder to choose. So in the end I said I’d leave it for now, and she got really mad at me! Said if I enjoyed going slow and wasting people’s time, she’d make it easy for me, and then she started muttering strange words at me, and all of a sudden poof! I was a tortoise.” Tip stopped to draw breath. “It was awful. I didn’t even know what had happened at first—I felt all funny, and everything went dark, but that was b
ecause I was buried in my clothes. I didn’t realise I was, well, tortoise-shaped until she picked me up and put me out the door like a strange cat that had walked in and sicked up on the carpet. I thought it was going to be forever,” he added, shuddering in memory.
Steve nodded sympathetically. “How did you change back?”
Tip shrugged and had to hitch his T-shirt up again. “It just seemed to wear off, several hours later. It was dark by then, thank God. I hadn’t gone far from the shop, obviously, and so once I was human again I climbed in through an open window and grabbed my clothes back. Then I drove home, had a stiff drink, and tried to forget all about it.”
“And then it happened again?” Steve’s shoulders once more nudged companionably against Tip’s.
Tip tried to ignore the effect the contact was having on his groin. “Yeah, only without the mad old witch mumbling at me. Since then it’s been two or three times a week, with never more than about five minutes’ warning. You’ve no idea how much of a pain it is. I can’t travel by plane in case it happens, swimming’s out, too—I’m not an aquatic species, I’d probably sink like a stone—and as for my social life…” Tip trailed off, reluctant to go through his sorry history of foreshortened dates. “I’m not normally this pathetic and whiney,” he added in the face of all the evidence.
“Of course you’re not!” Steve said bracingly. “You know what? You need to stop letting this get you down. Come out—”
“Do NOT say come out of your shell,” Tip ground out, tight-lipped.
“—for lunch with me,” Steve finished smoothly, as if he’d never been interrupted.
Tip blinked. “Really? I’ll warn you now, I may not make it to dessert.”
“I guess dating’s a bit of a problem, huh?”
“Just a bit. Last bloke I had to run out on still isn’t speaking to me. Um. That is the latest James Lear over there, isn’t it?” Realizing a little late he’d just outed himself, Tip crossed his fingers. He’d learned from experience a lot of men were all right with the naked bit unless he let slip he was gay, at which point things would tend to go quickly and appallingly pear-shaped. And okay, Steve had just asked him out for lunch, but Tip had found to his chagrin that wanting lunch with a bloke and wanting rampant mansex with him were two very different things. The fact he was wearing this guy’s clothes would probably make it worse…