The Worst Mama in the World Meanwhile... Part #3

Four skinny teenage boys carried Mama Turtle toward a large pot, bubbling on a larger fire. They were panting and laughing and stumbling over the sand dunes, toward a ramshackle house on the edge of the beach, with a thatched roof and muddy courtyard, surrounded by palm trees. On the ground were two large knives with wooden handles and glistening blades.

"Listen to me!" Mama Turtle said. "We turtles are related to the dinosaurs. I'm an old soul. Put me down!"

The boys didn't respond. They didn't even look like they understood.

"I've crossed thousands of miles without a GPS to return to this beach. Can you do that? Have some sense! PUT ME DOWN!"

Why, oh why didn't humans understand any language other than their own, Mama Turtle thought?

"Fine!" Mama Turtle said, when no one replied. "If you want to kill me, go ahead, but I MUST cover my eggs first, else they will die!"

By way of an answer, the boys dropped her in a large hole.

She fell with such a force it knocked the breath out of her.

"STOP IT!" she hissed. "STOP THIS MADNESS! I hauled myself out of the water, climbed the dunes, dug a hole, and laid my eggs. Not sixty. Not eighty. But hundred! Do you know how exhausting that is? If I ever get out of here, I'll go away forever! You will never see turtles on this beach again!"

As she kept gasping, struggling, trying to plead and persuade, the two bigger boys picked up their long knives and leaned over her.

This... was the end, Mama Turtle thought.

TO BE CONTINUED.