The Tortoise Sitter: Set Up a Story and Order Events

Biscuit's Big Escape

1Last Saturday, I learned that a tortoise can get much farther than you would expect. My neighbor, Mr. Haddad, had gone to visit his sister for the weekend, and he had asked me to take care of his tortoise, Biscuit. "Just give him fresh greens in the morning and check his water," Mr. Haddad told me on Friday. "He never goes anywhere." I was eleven, and it was the first time a grown-up had trusted me with a pet that was not mine. I promised to take good care of him.

2On Saturday morning, my little sister, Lucia, and I carried a bowl of chopped lettuce and squash across the yard to Biscuit's pen. The pen was a square of wooden boards in a sunny corner of Mr. Haddad's backyard. Lucia ran ahead and got there first. "Rafa," she called, "where is he?" I hurried over. The pen was empty, and next to one board was a fresh hole in the dirt.

3My heart started pounding. Lucia and I searched every inch of the backyard. I looked behind the shed and under a stack of flowerpots, while Lucia checked the bushes along the side of the house. We even peeked inside an empty bucket. Biscuit was nowhere.

4Then Lucia noticed something. "Look at this," she said, pointing at the soft dirt near the fence. A trail of small scratch marks led to a gap where one board of the fence was missing. We squeezed through the gap into Mrs. Okafor's yard and followed the marks past her tomato plants.

5That was where we found him. Biscuit was resting in the shade of Mrs. Okafor's porch, munching on a patch of clover as if nothing had happened. Lucia laughed so hard that she had to sit down in the grass.

6We carried Biscuit home, and I filled the hole beside his pen with heavy rocks so he could not dig his way out. On Sunday evening, when Mr. Haddad came home, I told him the whole story. He laughed and shook my hand. "I guess Biscuit wanted an adventure," he said. "Thank you for bringing him back."