The Nothing Turtle

           In the middle of a dark and quiet wood lived eleven turtles in a small and shallow pond.  Life for the turtles drifted along happily for the most part.  Three of the turtles spent most of their time singing their favorite songs.  Another three spent their days exercising and building up their muscles.  Two of the turtles liked to tell and write stories, and another two spent their days taking pictures with the camera they shared between them.  One turtle, however, did nothing all day long every day.

            One day this turtle that liked to do nothing decided the rest of the turtles were disturbing his wonderful nothingness with all that singing, exercising, storytelling, and picture taking.  He decided he would have to do something about it.

            He walked up to the singing turtles and said, “The turtles that are exercising over there wanted me to come over and tell you that all this singing is throwing off their exercising rhythm.  They want you to be quiet for a while.”

            The singing turtles looked over at the exercising turtles with annoyed looks and started singing louder.  The nothing turtle sneaked away with a grin on his face and came up to the storytelling turtles.

            “The picture taking turtles are upset with you because you disturbed a butterfly they were trying to photograph,” said the nothing turtle with a gleam in his eye.  “They want you to go somewhere else to tell your stories so you won’t disturb them anymore.”

            The storytelling turtles looked over at the picture taking turtles and started telling louder and longer stories.  They were not going to go anywhere.

            Next the nothing turtle went up to the exercising turtles and said, “The storytelling turtles wanted me to tell you that all your grunting and splashing around is making them forgot where they are in their story.  They want you to stop.”

            The exercising turtles looked at the storytelling turtles and started exercising even harder making water splash everywhere.           

Lastly, the nothing turtle went up to the picture taking turtles and said, “The singing turtles wanted me to come over and tell you that they are mad at you for taking pictures of them.  They said it makes them forget their words, and they want you to stop.”

The picture taking turtles walked up to the singing turtles and started taking pictures right in their face blinding them with the flash.  That was all it took.  In a matter of seconds, the singing turtles started yelling at the picture taking turtles.  Then the storytelling turtles started yelling at the picture taking turtles.  Then the exercising turtles started yelling at the storytelling turtles and so on and so on until everyone was yelling at everyone else except the nothing turtle.  He slipped off quietly to his spot and waited.

Before long all the turtles were so angry with each other that they all sulled up and went to different areas of the pond.  No one was speaking to anyone else and everybody was doing nothing.

“Ah,” said the nothing turtle to himself.  “Finally, I have peace and quiet.”

After a while the rest of the turtles began to feel bad about yelling at each other.  Slowly they began to congregate in their groups and apologize to each other.  As they talked they all began to realize what the nothing turtle had done.  They all decided the nothing turtle needed something to do.

All ten turtles approached the nothing turtle as he sat in his spot.  When the nothing turtle saw them approaching, he began to get nervous.

“What do you want?” the nothing turtle asked gruffly.

“We have all decided we want you to be our audience for our special night of entertainment,” they all said together.

The nothing turtle just looked at them in disbelief.  After all the mischief he had caused, they wanted him to do something.  Nobody had ever asked him to do anything before.  He didn’t know what to say.

“Well,” the nothing turtle started slowly.  “If that is really what you all want, I guess I could do that.”

It was settled.  The next night the singing turtles sang their best songs.  The storytelling turtles told their best stories.  The exercising turtles showed off their best moves, and the picture taking turtles photographed the whole event.  AND the nothing turtle found that he was now the audience turtle.  He had a place in the pond after all.