previously on Snappy World …

“YES!” With this shout of triumph, Alice quickly grabbed up her goodies, stood and turned to the door for the final escape and froze.

Snappy was blocking the door. It’s beady eyes glared up at her.

“Oh fuck.”

Snappy, in layman terms was known as a Common Snapping Turtle, or for those who enjoy knowing species by their Latin name, a Chelydra serpentina serpentina.

By most standards the little turtle would be considered a baby and as such was still not used to being handled. Her carapace (shell) only 3 inches in length.

As such, the shy little reptile was ferociously aggressive if disturbed, which definitely included being picked up having not been habituated to being handled yet.

This, Alice had clearly found out with a few very close calls and not just from the incident at the shelter. Each encounter made Alice that more hesitant and scared of the tiny creature with each and every close encounter of the snapping kind.

This was Snappy’s fourth adoption and the odds were good for her third return to the shelter. If it had been anyone other than Alice who had given her the new home this time round.

Snappy had enjoyed her two weeks with Alice. Plenty of food and her tank cleaned on a regular basis, which she then enjoyed rearranging to her own satisfaction. This of course led to Alice cleaning up her tank again.

With much trepidation, Alice would use a chop stick to prod the tiny reptile into a little carry cage before quickly closing it and removing Snappy to the windowsill for exposure to the sun for her vitamin D fix while Alice did the clean up. It was exactly this scenario that had led to Snappy’s escape from the aquarium.

Alice had bought and placed a few additional objects into Snappy’s environment on the last clean up. These objects being a fake cement log for her to bask on under her lamp, and the other a small plastic pink flamingo for colour and decoration.

Snappy was of course a native of Florida, so it was logical on Alice’s part, though floored, to pick a pink flamingo to help Snappy feel at home.