Hard Shell Day

What Happens When a Kind Heart Decides to Grow a Harder Shell

“Don’t be so sensitive,” sneered Mama Tortoise to Papa Tortoise. “You have the biggest shell of us all.”

“The children don’t respect me. I would never treat my papa the way they treat me.”

“You are too sensitive. I don’t want to hear about it anymore.”

“Well, maybe it’s because I’m the only one with a heart around here. If I treated them like they treat me, they wouldn’t like it either.”

Mama Tortoise shook her head in frustration.

“In fact, that is what I am going to do. From this moment forward, I am going to call this ‘Hard Shell Day,’” he thought to himself.

Just then, the youngest child, little Tommy, sneezed. Papa felt the urge to say, “Bless you.” But no one else did. “Why should I?” he thought.

Just then, Papa needed to relieve himself. He did not bother to move. Usually he would walk toward the bushes, but no one else ever did. “Why should I?” he thought. Everyone seemed surprised that he left a mess right out in the open.

“I need to have a stronger shell and a smaller heart,” he thought.

The children started to get hungry again. They had eaten all they had gathered instead of saving some straw for later. They came by expecting Papa Tortoise to give them some of his, as he usually did.

“Not this time. This is mine,” said Papa Tortoise. “I told you a thousand times to save some of the food that you gathered. You chose not to listen.”

Papa Tortoise had a nice bundle of saved straw. He ate it all right in front of them.

The family looked at each other, startled and confused.

Papa Tortoise laughed. “I remember when you were born, little Tommy. I was so happy. I remember how you rolled down the hill because you couldn’t balance yourself in your shell.”

“I was there too,” said Mama Tortoise. “You mean ‘we’ remembered?”

“Oh, I don’t remember you being there, Mama. I’m talking about little Tommy. I’m not talking about you.”

Mama Tortoise’s face turned bright green.

Papa Tortoise looked down his beak at her. “Don’t be so sensitive, Mama Tortoise!”

The children glanced at each other. “Who was this new tortoise inside their papa’s shell?” they thought.

When they were alone, they whispered to each other, “What happened to Papa? He hasn’t been very nice lately.”

The next day, the children brought back some extra straw — not for themselves, but for their papa, as he had done so many times before.

“This is for you, Papa.”

Papa Tortoise looked at them. His heart beamed.

“Hard Shell Day is over,” he thought.

Little Tommy was holding a little too much straw. He sneezed again.

“Bless you!” exclaimed Papa Tortoise.

“Bless you!” said the rest of the family in unison.

“And bless our family,” thought Papa Tortoise with a smile as he rubbed his hard shell against theirs.

A story by Pemba Umoja