The Turtle-Girl from East Pukapuka

by Cole Alpaugh

  And then the sea rose up and swallowed his flooded skiff and even the trees. It had set free the beast chasing them.

  “Dive, dive, dive!” the inner turtle voice shrieked again, but he fought the impulse with new resolve. Out here on the open ocean, swept away from his home with the girl clinging to him for dear life, the sea turtle knew he must out-swim the massive beast hunting them. He maneuvered right then left, then back to the right again. The sea turtle checked the sun’s position, confirming it was still hours before darkness would hide them, and shifted into a dead sprint to the north.

  * * * *

  Captain Dobby eyed the bizarre mermaid-like creature located off his starboard bow. The girl was not half-fish, like in the stories and pictures, but appeared to be half-turtle. Her round, naked buttocks were as brown as his own rutted face, and her legs seemed to work as a rudder for her oblong shell. Dobby kept popping the Gypsy Dancer in and out of neutral to keep the tug’s speed low, not wanting to run over what could be the greatest discovery in the history of marine salvage. How much would a half-turtle girl fetch? Easily the price of a new engine. Hell, maybe the price of a whole new boat!

  But Dobby couldn’t reel in his prize because he didn’t have a deckhand. He’d steer the tug alongside the turtle-girl, cut the engines after a short burst to maintain momentum, then scramble down the bridge ladder and grab his throwing net. But the damn turtle-girl would veer off, first right and then left, and then sometimes back again, always just out of reach.

  “No wonder there ain’t no friggin’ turtle-girls in zoos.” Dobby leaned over the gunwale, spat into the water, exasperated. “They’re wily-ass bastards.”

  After five unsuccessful trips up and down the ladder, Dobby’s arthritic knees were complaining loudly and his lungs were burning something fierce. He decided on a new plan, which was to track the thing from behind, to tire it into submission. The turtle-girl wasn’t capable of submerging and the old railroad tugboat had four hundred liters of only slightly watered-down diesel in its tank. Dobby settled onto his tall wheelhouse bar stool and reached down for the long-necked bottle of Cruzan rum he kept on standby.

  “Ain’t no turtle-girl gonna get the best of Jesus Dobby,” he croaked through the tug’s smudged view screen, lifting the bottle of rum and draining half its contents in four swallows.

  Chapter 7

  Butter felt worse than the night she snuck a coconut shell full of wapa juice from Pearl S. Buck’s rancid smelling hut. Her empty stomach churned and her aching head pounded from dehydration. Her cracked lips scraped her tongue, and her hands were cramping from gripping the sea turtle’s wide shell. The two red fang marks from the Habu viper had turned black, the top of her right hand swollen to the size of a young breadfruit.

  The viper’s hemolytic toxin had attacked the cell walls of her blood vessels, allowing serum to escape into the surrounding tissue. There was just enough poison coursing through her nervous system to slow her heart rate and respiration, but not enough to cause cardiac arrest. Butter was in shock. She would experience bouts of loud raspy moaning. One moment she’d be lucid, the next, lapse into a coma-like state. She clung to the turtle’s shell like a baby marsupial, desperate and vulnerable. Somehow she managed to keep her grip through the many hours of semi-consciousness, perhaps because of some primitive instinct inherited from a pre-human ancestor.

  It was Butter’s heart that was in the worst shape. In her clear moments, she worried her injured animals had not escaped the wall of water that had punished her village. She knew she’d see Mama again on Happa Now, where all people were reunited after their time on the island was done. Mama had promised. They would meet her papa, who had been bitten in two by a great white shark when Butter was much younger. Her best memories of Papa were of being tossed into the air and then gently caught in his strong, brown hands that were as big as taro leaves. She had trusted those hands, even though she remembered Mama telling him to be careful, not to throw her so high.

  Papa had taught her to love lesser creatures, to assume responsibility for the sick and injured. He taught her not to fear poison urchins and venomous snakes, only to respect what made them hunters and defenders. She would never forget the Habu viper Papa had carefully curled into her lap when she was no more than three. It was early morning and Mama was still sleeping when he had woken her, told her to sit up and pull the blanket across her legs. The Habu was fat with eggs, her papa had explained, and probably as tall as she was when stretched out. Butter stroked its slick skin, was tickled by its darting tongue. Her papa crouched above her bedroll, smiling.

  “It’s beautiful,” Butter whispered.

  “She’s very beautiful.”

  “Can I keep her? I’ll take really good care of her.”

  “No, honey, she’s just here for a visit. She belongs on the far side of the island, away from people. She must have gotten lost while hunting for food.”

  “Does she bite?” Butter ran her finger along the two horizontal stripes on the side of the viper’s sleek head. Its tongue prodded the air, tasting these new surroundings.

  “Yes, her bite is very dangerous.” He reached under the snake in Butter’s lap and gently lifted it, cradling the fat mother-to-be in his arms. “You want to come take her home?”

  Papa had led them across the quiet island on an adventure. The entire village was asleep as they ducked into the thick jungle and followed the narrow path toward the leeward side. The broad leaves and reaching vines were nourished well by the rich soil in the middle of the island. An elder woman who lived in the home next to Butter’s family had been smiling when she warned the children not to stay in one place too long while playing hide and go seek here. She told the children the jungle grew so fast that you might get wrapped up in a hungry vine and never be found. Butter watched the back of her papa’s head dodge the countless green tendrils that seemed to come from every direction. But he wasn’t afraid. Not of the deadly snake cradled in his arms like a baby, and certainly not of the jungle.

  The vegetation grew less dense and the sound of the ocean returned as the pair pushed through to the uninhabited side of the island. Birds woke and chirped good morning and Butter said good morning back. Papa knew everything about animals and quickly found a perfect new home for the snake family. He tucked the Habu into a shadowy stone crevasse at the base of a tall palm tree.

  “Good protection for her babies and she can come out to sun herself.” Papa looked up at the clear morning sky, hands on his naked hips. A few moments passed. “Mama explained that animals don’t go to Happa Now?”

  Butter nodded, trying to follow exactly where her papa was looking in the sky. Was he looking at Happa Now? Could grown-ups see it? Mama had gathered her against her droopy breasts, held her close for the sad talk. She had told Butter how the gods had other plans for animals, that their spirits were different than the spirits of people. Animals were left behind to enrich the earth, her mother had explained to a tearful daughter.

  “That’s why we’re responsible for taking care of animals,” her papa had said, still searching the early morning sky. “This is their one life, not like us. Not like people.”

  Butter knew she wasn’t supposed to cry when the shark bit Papa in half, that it was nature’s way, so she was careful to only share her grief with her patients. She believed the shark had made a terrible mistake, as it was Papa who had clouded the water with tantalizing blood from the fish he’d been spearing for supper. According to an elder who’d witnessed the attack, the shark had bitten him and then quickly disappeared, as if embarrassed by its awful blunder.

  Butter had her papa’s strong hands. They had saved her life thus far, having clamped down on the sea turtle shell, despite the aching snake bite, as the pair were battered and tossed by the angry wave. But her small hands were growing weak, and she sometimes lost her grip and slipped under the water in a daze. The burning saltwater in her lungs snapped her awake, alert but confused. Hacking and coughing, she’d heave herse
lf back up on the turtle.

  The turtle seemed to have a plan and Butter was in no condition to question or protest the direction his front flippers were leading them. Had it been two nights? Or three? Butter’s long black hair covered her shoulders, splayed out over the side of her face to ward off the brutal sun. She slept in short fits filled with uneasy dreams that ended with the big wave’s arrival.

  What had angered the gods enough to wash away an entire island of people and animals? Was it something the grown-ups had done that she didn’t know about? Butter didn’t understand what possessed the men to drink the vile tasting wapa juice late into the night. In slurred, too loud voices, they would use curse words and tell stories of exploring beyond the sight of the island. Butter knew none of the men had ever paddled or sailed their skiffs out of sight of the island. You could never come back. Nobody ever had. Everyone knew you only left sight of the island when it was time for Happa Now. Had the men’s cursing and lying provoked the gods?

  But if there was no afterlife for animals, what plan could there be? Butter had dug dozens of tiny graves for creatures too badly hurt or dead from old age. In her curiosity, Butter had exhumed the body of a parrot after nearly a year. She held the corpse in her tiny hands, brushing away sand. Is this what god’s other plan looked like?

  Butter accepted the job nursing injured animals back to health with fierce resolve. She was their last chance and demanded that they survive their ills and various broken parts. Let Franklin Roosevelt fall out of the tallest tree right on top of his fat wife; both still had the joys of Happa Now to look forward to. No such future awaited a mangled gecko or little brown kakerori bird with crushed wings.

  Butter didn’t question her mama’s wisdom. Mama was the first woman ever entrusted with the third most important job on East Pukapuka, which was Keeper of the Books. Lesser only than the Tree Climber and Head Wapa Brewer, Mama was charged with maintaining the sixteen previously waterlogged books given to the people of East Pukapuka by a flying soldier during the age of great war.

  The books were all bestsellers from before the war, the flying soldier had explained. They were the most important stories of the time, although the original Keeper of the Books had made the terrible mistake of washing them and then leaving the books out overnight to dry. A heavy tropical downpour had further melded the pages, leaving nothing more than sixteen hardcover bricks.

  The first Keeper of the Books was quickly designated for an early, unscheduled trip to Happa Now, while many of the newborn babies were given the names on the book covers in an attempt to placate whatever gods were surely offended by such recklessness.

  Noel Coward was the first child born after the literary desecration. Thomas Wolfe, Adolph Hitler, and Aldous Huxley soon followed, crying and screaming into life on East Pukapuka.

  Years later, Butter’s mama was named Anonymous, to honor the great author of a famous book called Washington Merry-Go-Round.

  On the open sea, out of sight of land and therefore with little hope of ever returning, Butter once again nearly lost her grip as the sea turtle became agitated. His flipper strokes jerked her from side to side, changing their direction, tossing her small body across his hard shell. Butter closed her eyes and concentrated on using her wrists and forearms to take some of the pressure off her raw fingers and inflamed hand.

  “It’s okay, boy,” Butter tried to say, but her voice didn’t work. And the sea turtle wouldn’t have been convinced anyway, not with the unrelenting metal beast bearing down on them from behind.

  Chapter 8

  Fueled by panic and determination, the Loggerhead sea turtle had never paddled faster in his life … except maybe on his hatching night, and those memories were jumbled and a half-century old. He and his hundred or so brothers and sisters had escaped from their leathery round eggs and paddled away from their clutch under cover of darkness.

  Hatching night was the first time the sea turtle had heard his inner turtle voice. “Hurry up!” it had shouted, and there was no questioning the urgency of that command, especially for a brand new turtle in such a great big world.

  “No, the other way!” came the next command, and the tiny turtle did an about-face, sneaking only the briefest of glances at his brothers and sisters. The waves the voice directed him toward were barely visible under the sliver of light from above. But there had been no mistaking the power behind the crashing breakers, for the sand under his still-soft belly had vibrated with each violent pounding.

  “Hurry!” commanded the inner turtle voice, and his flippers had once again gone to work, slapping frantically. Ten meters to go and the sand had been wet and cool, almost refreshing. Five meters and he was bursting through salty, leftover bubbles. Good so far, he’d thought, right before the sliver of moon was eclipsed by a black monster rising over what had suddenly become a suicide mission.

  Chaos. The tiny sea turtle was upside down, spinning. The noise was so loud it seemed to be coming from inside his head and his shell. It boomed with such force that even his inner turtle voice was drowned out.

  “Swim!” it might have said. Or maybe it was saying, “Good luck, I’m outta here, little buddy.”

  The baby sea turtle had decided to try swimming, flapping all four flippers with as much strength as he could muster, even though he’d lost any sense of direction. Expending so much energy, he wished he had taken a deeper breath before this black monster had taken hold of him, tossing and tumbling him every which way. The hatchling swam for dear life, straight ahead, worried that he’d been abandoned by the now silent inner voice. “Please help,” he said, or was it his inner voice, its commands reduced to desperation? The turtle caught glimpses of light and pushed through the foaming, swirling water toward the flickering rays. The light appeared and disappeared again, each surge of darkness accompanied by an angry roar.

  More waves crashed over the little turtle, but each subsequent attack was less disconcerting. The farther he swam into the cool water, the less effect the crashing waves had on his small body. When the black monster backed off, its voice reduced to a distant roar, he allowed himself to drift to the surface, his tiny head bobbing just out of the water. He took a few deep breaths and floated quietly, his body still, his flippers relaxing in the swaying current. Under the dim light, he noticed dozens of his brothers and sisters who had also come to the surface to rest after their ordeal with the black monster. But they were all floating upside down, asleep perhaps. He was also exhausted, but there was a rumble in his belly. The tiny sea turtle left his drifting siblings to their rest, the urge to explore for food suddenly overwhelming.

  “Hurry up!” the inner turtle voice now exclaimed. A little more than fifty years later, a great monster was hunting him once again.

  The sea turtle was all too aware of the damage this kind of beast could do. It was even bigger than the one that had cracked open his shell while he’d been foraging for food near the coral reef. One minute the coast had been clear, and he’d ducked under the surface for the shrimp he’d cornered. Then the beast’s great bow had struck him. The shrimp had escaped unharmed, while the sea turtle was left bobbing semi-conscious in his blood cloud.

  That’s the day he’d first met the little human girl whose voice had made his pain bearable. Before his injury, the turtle had watched her work from out over the reef. She spent her days on the beach moving from spot to spot like a feeding bird, busily gathering what he assumed was nesting material.

  After he was struck by the beast and left for dead, she’d come for him, pulled him into her strange home. And the girl had told him stories while his shell mended, his oversized head cupped in the warm embrace of her human touch. From deep inside, his turtle voice told him it was wrong to be on land, urged him to run away, but he fought the urge, struggled against his instinct. The human lay next to him inside the hull of a flooded skiff, in the shade of a puka tree. She cradled his powerful jaws, which could crack open a clam or mussel with little effort, in her small, soft hands. The tur
tle fell in love with her when she’d huddled next to him, making singing noises like the whales and dolphins out in the deep water. She was warm, as if she had her own tiny sun inside her body, radiating heat that allowed him to sleep despite the pain. The turtle had never met his mother, had never known any of his own hatchlings. Courtship and mating had always been unpleasant. The females were aloof and resistant, and there were battles with other males. For the past few seasons, the turtle hadn’t bothered to leave his coral reef when prompted by the vague impulse to mate. Until he’d been struck by the beast and rescued by the girl, he’d wanted to be alone.

  And now the girl needed him. She needed him to swim fast. Whether the beast was after him or the girl didn’t matter; both their lives depended on him. Since she couldn’t breathe under water, and land was nowhere in sight, their fates were entwined. It was up to him to save the girl who had nursed his wound, kept him from being food for the sharks and the bottom scavengers. The thought made him cringe, and he found another gear.

  He paddled straight ahead, just as he’d done to escape the black monster on hatching night. He found a rhythm with his strokes, which also kept the girl from having to struggle to hold on.

  An hour passed. It was filled with the constant noise of the beast and the horrible reek of burning air. The monster’s exhales were thick and black, poisonous. They fouled the air around the sea turtle, perhaps the evil creature’s method of stunning its prey.

  The sea turtle paddled and paddled, but his energy was flagging, his inner turtle becoming weaker. “When you stop, the beast will eat you.” It no longer spoke with any sense of urgency. Its words were now presented as statements of facts. “It will swallow you whole and then turn on the kind human girl. The pain is growing inside you, devouring your last bit of strength.”