Alfred's Tale

By Jack Dawson

This first book in The House at Bent Creek Series, captures a summer in the life of a turtle named Alfred who lives with his family in a pond behind a country home belonging to a sweet elderly woman. When the womans grandson comes to visit, Alfreds otherwise peaceful life is turned upside down and he must use all his courage, skill and wit to survive the encounter.

This humorous and heart-warming tale is an ideal bedtime storybook that is sure to leave children wanting just one more chapter, eager to find out what will happen next. Along the way, they may learn a few things about turtles and, more importantly, about friendship, family and how to treat others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493151264

Book preview

cover.jpg

Copyright © 2013 by Jack Dawson.

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4931-5125-7

Softcover 978-1-4931-5124-0

eBook 978-1-4931-5126-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 01/31/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

141305_FIN_01.jpg

ONE

Alfred raised his head to face the warm morning sun as it blazed over the familiar farmhouse where Mrs. Wilson lived. His mouth was filled with a bright yellow dandelion flower and he was keeping a close watch on the house while he munched away. Alfred knew Mrs. Wilson would be coming out soon to work on her garden and he was excited to share some big news.

It was early spring. The air was cool and fresh with a light mist rising from the ground. As Alfred stared and chewed and stared and chewed, a long-legged spider crawled quickly across his back, up over his head and down the front of his neck. Alfred paused for a brief moment to let the spider pass and then swallowed the flower with one big gulp. Spiders never bothered Alfred, but he knew they didn’t taste very good and he certainly didn’t want this one to be part of his breakfast. He also hadn’t even noticed a small group of ants trying to bite through the tough scales on his right hind leg, since they were having no success at all.

Alfred is a North American wood turtle living in a small pond behind the House at Bent Creek. He’s a rather stately turtle with a wise, distinctive face and bright orange markings on his neck and legs. When he stands tall and stretches his neck, he can look quite intimidating indeed. Of course, his shell is not much bigger than a cereal bowl so his stature is only impressive to the smaller creatures. The back portion of his shell looks a little like it might have been carved from wood, which is how the species gets its name. It’s actually made of the same stuff that forms human fingernails, only much thicker and harder. The wood turtle is considered semi-aquatic, meaning it spends part of its time in the water, yet is very much at home on land, and Alfred likes to explore far and wide in search of his favorite food. However, he usually tries to stay near the water just in case he needs to escape from some hungry beast with big teeth.

The turtle’s pond sits in a natural low spot at the end of a small overflow channel leading from a sharp bend in the creek. The banks of the pond were built up over hundreds of years as each time the creek overflowed it pushed mud and muck out to form a nice oval bowl shape. The creek itself trickles down from the foothills far to the north and then, after its sharp bend, meanders off to the east eventually just fading into the landscape. No one knows the official name of the creek but everyone knows that it is very bent.

Alfred and his mate, Martha, have lived in the little pond now for nine years—several years longer than the house itself. They are not native to this area but were released here by a family in which the son was heading off to college. Since pet turtles can live many, many years, it’s quite common for their owners to grow weary of the upkeep. Alfred and Martha were actually quite happy to get out of their cramped little aquarium and life around the pond has been rather ideal, from a turtle’s point of view. Especially since Mrs. Wilson moved in two years ago.

The couple that lived in the house before Mrs. Wilson seemed to always be yelling about something and they hardly ever came into the back yard. In fact, Alfred and his family were a little nervous about the noisy couple and hid most of the time. The turtles were pretty sure the couple never even saw them. Then, one day, a big truck arrived to load up all the things from inside the house and the couple just drove away in separate cars, each of them scowling about something as they disappeared down the road. Alfred was glad to see them go.

After the loud couple left, the house sat empty for many months. Oh, a few people came by now and then, but they never seemed to stay more than a few minutes. Alfred wondered if there was something wrong with the house since no one wanted to live there. Then, one summer afternoon, Mrs. Wilson came by for the very first time along with a younger woman. Something about Mrs. Wilson was different than any human Alfred had ever seen before. Her face was well-wrinkled and she had a warm, gentle smile. She moved rather slowly and spoke softly. And the first thing she did, before even going into the house, was to come into the back yard and look around. The yard seemed more important to her than the house itself. Alfred was not afraid at all when he first saw her. He was more like—mesmerized.

She spotted him immediately and walked right up to him, crouching down for a closer look, and said in her gentle voice, Hello Mr. Turtle, how are you today? My name is Mrs. Wilson.

Alfred just stood there with his mouth hanging open. He understood her, of course. Alfred is 42 years old and has encountered many humans throughout his life. Turtles are an ancient species and some people believe they have deep, instinctive language skills and know the dialects of most native creatures. Unfortunately, they lack the vocal chords to create complex human speech sounds so they can only listen… and learn.

Alfred had actually learned most of the human language from the construction workers that built the house. Once he got the hang of it, he had thought it rather odd how often human conversations referred to body parts and bodily functions. They also seemed to criticize and make fun of one another all the time and Alfred had often wondered how they had advanced their civilization so much with such crude and barbaric communication skills. However, he would soon learn a whole new variation of the human language from Mrs. Wilson.

Let’s see, she continued, You look a bit like my grandfather with your bald little head so I think I’ll call you ‘Alfred.’

What? he blurted, which just sounded like an

Reviews for Alfred's Tale

[helengress · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Children's book set in a rural garden with a pond. Alfred, Sara, Justin, and Lisa- a family of turtles face adventures and frightening escapades during the summer that Mrs. Wilson's grandson Cody comes to visit. The story is reminiscent of the Burgess books of my childhood- wonderfully anthropomorphic, and delightful. The author- whose grandparents - Alfred and Sara were great friends of my own grandparents- Mr. and Mrs. Wilson- has included scientific factual details about life for turtles, and other small creatures. The setting is reminiscent of his Grandparent's home- but has been changed enough to make it a more general location. I really enjoyed the book and will certainly have it for the children in my life to read.