AniMalcolm. David Baddiel

looked at him. “Like I just showed you.”

      “What did you show me?”

      “How to get out of being stuck on your back!”

      Malcolm shook his head. Even that, he was aware, took quite a bit of time.

      “No! I thought you meant get out of being a tortoise. How do you get out of being a tortoise!”

      “Oh,” said Benny. “Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.”

      Which was when Malcolm started screaming again.

      

      “But I don’t want to be a tortoise!” said Malcolm, when he finally stopped screaming.

      “Excuse me!” said another voice, sounding very cross. Malcolm and Benny looked round.

      It was another tortoise.

      “That’s a terrible thing to say!” the other tortoise said, in a higher voice than Benny’s. “Why would you not want to be a tortoise? It’s a wonderful thing to be!”

      “No, it isn’t,” said Benny.

      “Shut up,” said the new tortoise.

      “It’s a bit depressing sometimes. You know, when a frightening thing happens, like a fox appears, or a loud noise, and you stick your head inside your shell – sometimes you can be in there for hours, not sure whether or not to come out …”

      “Only if you’re a scaredy-tortoise, like you!”

      “Although I like the long sleeping part,” said Benny. “That’s nice.”

      “Bjorn, I presume,” said Malcolm, to the new tortoise.

      “Yes. However, I prefer Bjornita …”

      “Oh. You’re like a girl tortoise born in a boy-tortoise body?”

      “No. I’m just a girl tortoise. And Gavin knew that as well, when they named me!”

      “So why did they call you Bjorn?”

      Bjornita raised her eyes, almost as if she had eyebrows.

      “They thought calling the two of us after the two human men in Abba was hilarious.”

      “I mean, personally …” said Benny, “I think if you’re going to do that kind of joke, there are other options …”

      “Sonny and Cher!” said Bjornita. “It’s obvious! You could have been Sonny, I could’ve been Cher …”

      “Sorry, who?” said Malcolm.

      “Sonny and … you mean you’ve never heard of …? Oh well. They were a singing duo in the 1960s – married – well, for a bit. She was a hippie, and he was—”

      “How do you know all this stuff?” said Malcolm, interrupting what looked like it was going to be a fairly long description of the career of Sonny and Cher.

      Bjornita and Benny looked at each other.

      “Well,” said Benny, “we are 150 years old.”

      “Speak for yourself!” said Bjornita. “I’m not a day over 148.”

      “No, I mean,” said Malcolm, “how … Wait, really? You’re really 148 years old?”

      “Are you saying I’m lying?” said Bjornita, looking hurt.¹⁹

      “No …” said Malcolm.

      “Well, to be fair, Bjornita, you are,” said Benny.

      “So I’m 149!” she said. “So sue me!!”

      “No, what I meant was – how do you know about human stuff?”

      “Oh,” said Benny. “Humans. They think animals can’t understand what they’re talking about.”

      “Well,” said Bjornita, “except for when they say things like ‘Come here, Benny; come here, Bjorn – lettuce, look, lovely lettuce …’ They think we understand that. Frankly, though, I find it patronising. Talking to us like we’re children.”

      “I guess it must be,” said Malcolm. “Especially when you’re actually 149 years old.”

      “148!”

      “You already admitted your age,” whispered Benny.

      “Oh yes,” said Bjornita.

      “Anyway,” said Malcolm, “so you’re telling me you’ve never been humans? And so you don’t know any way for me to get back to being a human?”

      Benny and Bjornita looked at each other.

      “Sorry, walk that very slowly past me again?” said Benny, turning back to Malcolm.

      Malcolm frowned.²⁰ “Don’t you mean run that past me again?”

      Benny looked at him. “I’m a tortoise.”

      “Oh, I see,” said Malcolm. “Well. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not a tortoise.”

      Benny and Bjornita stared at him, at his green skin and bald head and little elephant-y limbs and large, hard shell. “Are you sure about that?” said Bjornita.

      “Yes. I’m a boy. A human boy. My name is Malcolm.”

      “Really?”

      Benny and Bjornita seemed to suppress laughter. They shook a little inside their shells. “Are you laughing?”

      “No.”

      “You’re shaking inside your shells.”

      “That’s a tortoise thing,” said Benny.

      “You’ll get used to it …” said Bjornita, “… Malcolm!!”

      “No, you are laughing! It’s a bit hard to tell because your tortoise faces don’t really smile, but you are!”

      “All right, we are,” said Bjornita. Benny, embarrassed, had put his head inside his shell.

      “So stop!”

      “OK.”

      “And Benny. Come out again!”

      He did.

      “So. Listen. Please. The fact is: I’m not a tortoise. Or at least, I’m not usually a tortoise. I was just talking to that goat—”

      “Talking to a goat? So – were you a goat? As well as a human?” said Bjornita, a bit sarcastically.

      “No, I was talking to the goat when I was a human. In human language. I wasn’t thinking that the goat understood. I was just telling the goat, in fact, that I—”

      “Which goat was it?” said Benny, suddenly.

      “Which goat? Um … What was he called again?”

      Malcolm tried to remember. Suddenly, that felt difficult: as if everything that had happened up to the point of him becoming a tortoise was … disappearing from his memory. For a second, he started to wonder if what he was saying was wrong, if he had ever been a human at all.