QUASI - PART II

 PART 2 QUASI GROWS ON US

1 Juggling in the Air

   It didn’t take long for Cab to come. He alighted onto the top of the shell, calling, “You ready? Home, right?” Quasi’s head & arms popped out, holding a flat orange rock.

  “Cab, you see anything like this? By the falls at the front of the park, maybe?”

  “Where all the cameramen come to take pictures of the pretty blue bird?” asked Cab. Quasi nodded. Maybe there was some special magic there, and that’s where Monty got the rock!

  “Hm.” Cab rubbed his chin. Looks like a plain ol’ rock. Why?

  “Never mind. Later.” Quasi yawned.

  “Oh. I see. Time for Beddy-Bye and Dreamland. SkyWings next stop Deeper Pond,” Cab announced, and as the sleepy turtle’s head and legs were pulled back inside added, “liftoff!”

  After awhile, Cab began talking to himself, thinking Quasi was asleep: “I don’t know what’s so special about that little bird. He can’t pick up this shell and take Quasi places. I wonder how he’d repay Quasi for saving her life from a cat.”

  Quasi overheard. She didn’t know, until this very moment, that Cab was that chick she’d helped! Egrets grow up so fast.

  “What? It was you Cab?” Quasi began to push her head out.

  “Quasi! Get back in the shell, and please keep still! I can’t hold a grown turtle squirming around down there!”

  He could, but he had to keep Quasi quiet. Maybe before they got home, he could think of something to explain what she heard.

  Quasi had hearing problems anyway. The Montys said it was related to an accident she had before she came to the park.

  Cab was quite a bird. He sometimes talked senselessly, but he did his job so well, you knew he wasn’t.

  He set the shell down onto the soft mud of Deeper Pond then tapped lightly on it. “Home, Quasi.”

  “Yup; that small birdie can’t pick up this thing but is the shining pride of the Park!” Cab said; then: “How will Step Creek ever repay the Montys for all they do to save tiny lives and all that?”

  Yup; in a few short minutes, Cab had juggled his words.

2 The Kawasemi

  The next morning, when Quasi opened her lazy eyes and looked at the morning clouds, she thought, It was true. She really did want to do her best to repay the Montys for all they had done to get her back on her feet. Even that little bird that Cab talked about, smaller than a sparrow, was living life to its fullest…

  “But it wasn’t always that way,” a voice butted in on her thoughts. “Been lookin’ for ya.” It was June, who’d been coming around a good deal lately.

After a little pause, she went on. “You know that bird, the Kawasemi? At first, its self-image was real low. It was a small, dull brown thing after all, and found by river bridges. So he was called a creek “Kawa” cicada “semi”. How would you like to be a bird called an insect name, Quasi?”

  “Like giving a turtle a snail name?” Quasi frowned.

  “Something like that. Anyway, he heard that American and European birds were called “Kingfisher” and found out his feathers shone bright blue in the sun. Since then, the Kawasemi began to fly around in the open. If you don’t see him, it isn’t because he hides in the shadows, but because he’s too fast for you.”

  “I’m confused. Has it, or hasn’t it been seen?” Quasi asked.

  “It’s fast, but it has been sighted.” June answered. “Finding the birdie together has been the bright spot for many discouraged young mothers who bring their toddlers to the park. People with physical problems…gain a special energy, don’t know why…when they see the brilliant bird; others who are gifted but feel they’re small and weak, maybe hidden in the shade, are inspired by the tiny reed-dweller who wowed the nation.”

  “I talk too much,” June said; “Sometimes I get carried away.”

  “No problem,” Quasi thought; “I like to hear stories about the ones you don’t notice at first—like the brown bird under a bridge—how they might be able to really make a difference later.”

  “Like…a never-give-up Turtle I know?” June said, smiling; but when she looked down, there were only ripples on the surface of the pond.

3 Not a Problem

  The motor’s loud blaring cutting into Quasi’s ear had not lessened her ability to just plain enjoy. When June used the word “specie”, Quasi asked her,” What sheepee?” Another time, when June said, “the bird posed as cool as a cucumber”, Quasi asked, “He posted a call rescue number?” When June talked about a “peace treaty” it was heard as “pea streety”; “anniversary” was “Annie nursery”; and “atmosphere” was “almost here”! They often laughed together at Quasi’s newly invented phrases.

  One day, she tried to pat-a-tat-tat on her yellow tummy and cried out, “Me Quazan, you Jane,” and was told it was June, not Jane. (She must tell Coffee, she thought!)

  But Quasi didn’t seem to have any problems making out her own name. When June went to the park with her husband, and they were walking around Deeper Pond, she saw Quasi wading among the lily pads underneath Main Bridge.

  “Quasi!” she called.

  Although there were over half a dozen turtles around the bridge, it was like an expert dog flew into action at the trainer’s voice, the way Quasi’s head snapped up, and she bounded over happily in the direction of that call.

  On another day, when June and her husband were at Lower Bridge, Quasi made the effort to swim clear over from her home on the other side of Main Bridge to see her. Just about then, the beautiful little Kawasemi bird flew by, headed towards Duck Pond. Wouldn’t June prefer to see the brilliant bird rather than to be with a has-been turtle?

  The following day though, when the same bird came flying to the pond, June was not showing it any interest but looking back down at the water, hunting for Quasi, even saying to the other turtles, “You know who I really want to see? Yeah, where is Quasi? Quasi?”

  And her critter friend swam out from under the lily pads.

  June valued how much life and love Quasi had to offer. Accident-caused injuries? Oh—they were part of the treasure, not the problem!

4 Quasi’s Swimming Friends

  Coffee the Crow came around to give Quasi news about the other side of the park. He often told her about Duck Pond, the white carp that swam there named Serra Fin, his new buddy Cherry Fin.

  “I know this Cherry Fin;” Quasi said. “He used to swim with me in Deeper Pond. On a rainy day, he jumped up onto the creek there at Lower Bridge and we lost sight of him. So he went to Duck Pond!”

  “He’s the only red carp there,” Coffee told Quasi, and seems popular. Of course, there are no other red carp there, so no competition.”

  “One day, June asked Cherry Fin how he stayed so relaxed.” Coffee bobbed his head up and down cawing at the answer he’d given.

  “Well, are you going to tell us?” Quasi asked.

  “He answered all serious-like; ‘Every day, I go out and try to get in an hour’s swim. It stretches out my muscles and gets rid of stress. Works wonders. Try it sometime.’ And he swam away.”

  “June was standing there, going, ‘swim…an hour…a carp…seriously? CHERRY FIN!’ But by this time, he was on the opposite side of the pond.”

  “So it was a carp this time, huh?” Quasi said, laughing.

  “What do you mean, ‘this time’?” Coffee asked.

  “Walter.”

  “Walter?”

  “June told me she saw Walter the turtle rushing down the creek toward the Montys. Walter usually “walks the beat” real slow, checking in the tall grass along the banks for bugs and making sure there’s no mischief going on, a real laid-back fellow. But not today. He was really making tracks.”

  “’What’s the big hurry?” she asked him.

  ‘The rabbit’s after me!’ Walter answered.

  ‘Rabbit? What rabbit?’ June looked all around. There were no rabbits in this park, right? right?

  ‘Haven’t you heard of The Tortoise and the Hare?’ Walter asked.

  ‘Of COURSE I’ve heard…’ but when she stopped looking for the rabbit and, “WALTER!” he was grinning and running away.

5 Goodbye Monty

Although it had taken a lot of time for the Montys to trust June, they finally got to the point where they could come completely out of the water and show themselves to her. So, after awhile, June decided she could show Monty her husband too.

  The day she did, Monty came onto the land and looked hard at him, studying him from the top of the head to his heels, as if to say, “What do we have here?” If it hadn’t been a turtle but another human being, it would’ve been embarrassing, to say the least.

  But it seemed he “passed.” After that, when the turtles went underwater, even Monty’s wife let June’s husband see her.

  June was glad the Montys liked her husband. It would’ve been awkward if they hadn’t, since they were adopted parents to most park turtles.  

  “I brought something for you, but I can’t give it to you here;” June said as she watched Quasi swimming in a section of the pond right in front of a sign prohibiting feeding animals. There was a place set aside just for that near Quasi’s home.

  Of course, Quasi could not read the people sign so didn’t know why June wouldn’t give her any food—Quasi had seen her giving it to the others gathered at the feeding landing.

  “Oh well, she decided to be satisfied with the little fish in the pond. They were probably better for her anyway.”

  When Quasi finally went home, she heard some sad news.

  For the past few weeks, nobody had seen or heard from Monty. Possibly, park staff, with the tractor lawnmower, cut down the tall reeds in Step Creek, and Monty, outside napping, got caught in the blades of the mower—like Quasi’s nightmare before coming to the park—but there had been no “black clang” this time to stop the blades’ turning motion.

  This is not for certain, just what June and her critter friends have pieced together. Whatever the case, those who Monty helped will want to keep living full turtle…and gather around “Mrs. Monty” to say thank you and see her needs are met too.

6 Wasted Tissues & Faulty Images

  When humans think someone’s going to cry, they say, “please pass the tissues.” But Quasi sees some things about humans and tissues:

  Aren’t people strange, Quasi wonders, to waste tissue the way they do? Turtles don’t need them; they just duck underwater, and tissue is not needed. What do humans do with the tissues after they use them; eat them? Put them together to build houses? No, they just discard them, June said.

  Then June seemed to say real smart men at the heads of state worked on the problem of getting rid of waste. Quasi couldn’t stop the look that passed over her face when she said that.

  Quasi thinks people should just live in the pond like turtles.

  When June first began taking her walks to the park, she had faulty images of crows as scary; turtles as boring; carp as a bit impersonal. Now they’re her favorite critter companions, and she feels towards them an excitement & love altho’ others might say it’s strange for people to feel like this toward park animals.

  There were several times that made June realize herself how much she’d changed. When she has to be far from the park for any length of time, the sight of a crow on a telephone wire nearby makes her feel at home and happy—she realized she never used to feel that way.

  And it doesn’t matter if there are beautiful flowers or wildlife to photograph; June realized she wants to be with the turtles. If you ask her why, she would answer, just because she never finds them boring.

  And there was the time a person saw her at the entrance of the park and started walking and talking with her down the path. When they got to Duck Pond, June said, “this is where I meet and talk with my friends everyday. I’ll see you later maybe? Bye.” The human being looked around--saw no human--and June realized they don’t usually talk about animals as “friends to meet and talk with.” Carp were dear personal friends now; June had changed!