tortoise

[redhillian]

Stolen wholesale from closertomyself, a friend of reallyfrank.

The story of the tortoise.

A little boy had a pet tortoise. He loved it so much. But one day it died.
The child was distraught and ran to his father in tears with the dead creature
in his arms. His father scooped the child up and comforted him. Then he began
to tell his son what they would do. "We'll give the tortoise a funeral and bury
him in the garden. Then, tomorrow, we'll go to the seaside and build
sandcastles and buy a huge ice cream and we'll paddle in the sea and jump over
the waves. (The boy stopped crying.) Then we'll come home and have your
favourite food for tea. At night we'll watch a Harry Potter film on video and
eat popcorn and you can stay up late. (The boy started to smile.) The day
after we'll go to the pet shop and we'll buy a puppy and you can choose what we
have and what we call it and it can be your pet dog." (The boy looked
delighted.) At that point, the tortoise popped his head out of his shell where
he had been sleeping. The boy was horrified and looked up at his dad with a
determined expression and said, "Can we kill it?"