Out of the Bag

Under the deep sand in the Galapagos Islands, there were 123 tiny tortoise eggs that were stolen.

One by one, the tiny tortoises were each put in a baggie and then in a stiff, leather suitcase, with barely there lining.

"Where are we going?" Charlotte asked as she peeked her head out of her shell.

"I don't know, but I don't like it, not one bit!" Dom complained.

"I liked it there in the sand, it was nice and comfy." Mona was a little perturbed but she tried her best not to show it too much.

“What happened? Where are we?” Tony wanted to know, he was the curious one of the bunch.

“I think we were stolen.” Abe said plainly as he could.

“Ow, will you please stop tap dancing on my head, Burt?” Dom didn’t like this one bit.

All of a sudden, the car went over a large speed bump. The case in the trunk of the car, lifted a bit and then landed hard.

“Is everyone okay?” Burt started doing a roll call of everyone, but did not get an answer from ten of his brothers and sisters.

Charlotte started crying, which sounded more like a loud squeal than anything. “What ever shall we do? I’m so scared, Burt, I don’t think we’re going to survive this awful thing. Mama must miss us and be worried by now.”

“No need to be worried, Charlotte, we’ll be okay, however, someone needs to find us!” Burt was worried as well, but tried his best not to show it.

“I don’t know, I kind of liked being thrown like a wet towel.” Mona said, always the broodiest of the bunch. “I think our siblings died, that’s what I think. They were the smallest of us all. The poor things didn’t stand a chance.”

“Oh, Mona, hush. Don’t say things like that!” Abe chastised his sister.

“Why? You know that it’s true. I always state the truth, no matter how hard that truth is. I know you don’t like that, but I’m always blunt.” Mona wasn’t shy about how she felt, and all her siblings knew that she was a good egg, even if she was a bit of an odd tortoise.

“Wait, I think we stopped! I don’t hear any engine noises, do you?” Tony was almost all the way out of his egg by now, shell and all, trying to paw his way out of the baggie.

“Abe, can you nip the bag and see if you can get any air in it? If that works, then we’ll all do that.” Charlotte was trying to think her way out of this terrible situation they had somehow found themselves in.

Abe tried to nip the bag with his sharp pointed beak but couldn’t quite reach the bag. “No use, we’ll have to wait.”

The tortoises all went silent (for they were not heard by human ears anyway) as the door of trunk was opened and they were all lifted and shifted downwards in the suitcase.

The tortoises shifted slightly again when they heard a door open and when the suitcase was put on a moving belt of some kind, they shifted again, but sideways. They tried their best not to make any noises but then they heard a dog bark and loudly!

The tortoises then went through the weird machine twice. Then a lovely lady agent opened up the case with a surprised look on her face when she saw many separate tiny bags which seemed to have live tortoises inside them.

“Jose, get over here, STAT!” She whispered as loudly as she could over her radio through her mask.

Bark! Went the dog’s loud voice again. “We’ve got a T-d-22-123 situation here at X-ray 21, get over here now!” The lady loudly whispered into her radio. The lady slowly closed the suitcase and smiled gently at the man who put the case on the conveyor belt.

“Where did you say you were traveling to, again?” She didn’t want to make this man bolt out of the airport without being thoroughly investigated, but she also didn’t want him to be aware, not yet.

“Peru. Lovely this time of year, I wanted to bring some souvenirs to my little nephews and nieces.” The man said.

Jose finally managed his way through a wave of folks that were milling around waiting for their flights and trying to keep his distance the whole time.

“Excuse me, sir, can you come with me?” Jose took the man by the arm and led him away into a different area.

As soon as the man was out of sight, the nice lady asked for a superior to come over and called for back up and told them to call the Arnaldo Topiza Sanctuary right away. The name sounded familiar to Charlotte somehow, but she couldn’t say anything, so she kept quiet.

The lady then carefully took the suitcase sideways and gently opened it up more in a dark room with a dim light.

“Oh, my goodness. Good thing Oscar alerted me to this.” She quietly opened up each baggie one by one and then over the radio asked for one of the large tubs for holding baggage. Over the radio the lady asked for Marie to bring a bucket of warm water and some Dawn liquid.

In the next few minutes another lady came in with the bucket of warm water and some other soap liquid. “Here you go, Nina. I hope they are all okay. You are a real hero! Those poor things! What an awful man!”

“Yes, they get them the only way they can and that’s by stealing them to make five hundred dollars a piece. This is a pretty desperate way of making money.” Nina’s voice was kind and sweet.

“Do you need a towel? What else can I do?” Marie wanted to help in her own way.

“Yes, get me a few towels, paper towels will be fine, but if you can find something softer, let me know. If you can find anyone on their break to help, I can use all the help I can get.” Nina’s voice sounded worried that no one else would come to help..

“Sure, my son is home doing laundry now, I’ll text him to bring some towels over right away!” Marie shuffled out of the room as quickly as she came in.

One by one, Nina took the first baggie, which happened to be Abe. The baggie was opened up slowly and Abe fidgeted a little bit. “Oh, you are a feisty one. You’re alive and well buddy. We’re going to wipe you down and then I’ll put you in the big bucket and then you’ll be with all your siblings.”

Another man walked into the room. Nina’s head popped up at the door sound, “Oh, great, Dino, can you call security, tell them to get the police? Any luck calling the sanctuary and getting in touch with anyone there?”

“Yeah, I got a hold of the President’s secretary who called the President of the Sanctuary and he’s on his way. Should be another twenty minutes or so. How many were in baggies?”

“I’m only on the first one now, but it looks like a lot. I took a quick count and I think it’s over 100 tortoises total.”

“My God! What can I do?” Dino had a worried look on his face, but grabbed a small egg out of the suitcase as carefully as he could. “I have a few minutes. Let me look at this one.”

Dino rubbed the egg a little bit, but no movement at all. “Come on, little one. Come out. You are safe now. I won’t hurt you.”

The egg didn’t hatch. Dino wiped a tear off his left cheek. “I don’t think this one is going to make it.”

“They needed to be left alone for a bit, just put it down and grab another one. We need to go through a lot of these eggs. If there are any cracks, we’ll deal with those first.”

The guy named Dino picked up the egg had a head poking out which was Charlotte. “Aw, you seem like a sweetheart. Don’t worry, we got you. There you go. I put you in with your sibling.”

The tortoises started roaming in the new buckets and then Nina’s radio went off again, “Nina, come in, you’re wanted back at security. I can have a few more people come and take over.”

“Send back up to room 202 and then we’ll get more people after I do my shift. I’ll text my son to let him know not to wait up for me for supper.”

“Roger, I’ll come by in a minute and relieve you. I got the sanctuary on the phone and the President and his assistant is coming over in a bit to help out. I’ll even grab another tub.”

“Yeah, we’re going to need more than one. We just cleaned up two tortoises here, but at first glance it looks like over 100 total here. Grab as many tubs as you can and we’ll need some more warm water to clean them off.”

“No problem, be there in two shakes.”

Within a few minutes, a large burly man with dark hair and a beard poking out of a face mask appeared. “How many are there? The poor things look like they haven’t seen sunlight in eons.”

“Yeah, well, Ricardo, they were stuck in a suitcase for lord knows how long and then this jerk decided he would try to get away with stealing them away to Peru. It’s a good thing Oscar alerted me to the situation. We’ve got a few live ones here, but we’ve already had one not hatch.”

“Right, gotcha. Has the sanctuary been notified?” His authoritative tone implied he wasn’t going to let anything slide, not today if he could help it.

“Yes, sir. Dino let me know they are arriving shortly. We’re doing what we can. I’ve already asked Marie to get more towels and a few more tubs. Any one off shift? We could use all the help we can get.”

“Yes, I already radioed everyone at the terminal and put out an email as well.” Ricardo looked at the suitcase, there were still many tortoises left and as he picked one up a head popped out of the shell.

“Well, looks like this one is okay, I’ll help clean up these ones.” Ricardo started cleaning more tortoises.

“Right, sir. I’ll be here after my shift. I’ve already alerted my family. See you in about a half hour or so.” Nina wanted to be there for each tortoise to be handled, but she knew she had no choice but to go back to work.

As Nina closed the door, Ricardo picked up another egg, and saw that it hadn’t hatched as of yet.

There were two raps at the door. “Yes?” Ricardo wanted to know who was coming in.

“It’s Dino, sir. The president of the sanctuary and his assistant are here. They brought more tubs and more help. I am taking my break now, sir. Do you need any help?”

“No, Dino. Go get something to eat but then after your shift, you can help if we need it. I’ll radio you if we need you.” Ricardo took a deep breath, “You said the president is here now?”

“Yes, sir. This is Carlos Santiago and his assistant Mia Montananzo.” Dino pointed at each as he introduced them to his boss.

“Hello, I see you found our little adventurers, huh?” Mia said. She had a kind smile and she took another tortoise out of the suitcase.

“We’re ever so grateful you alerted us!” Carlos’ shoulders sagged a little bit with relief.

“It’s no problem, at all, sir. We’re just glad we caught the culprit. We have him being investigated with our local police, but, you know he did ask for his attorney right away. Not much we can do about that, but we are doing the best we can.”

“We certainly appreciate all your help!” Carlos grabbed another tortoise from the suitcase and cleaned Burt off and put him in the tub with his siblings.

After a few hours of cleaning up all the tortoises, only three didn’t survive. The tortoises lived a normal healthy life back on the lovely island of Galapagos.

This story is fiction but based on a true story that happened this last September of 2021.

https://www.dw.com/en/galapagos-islands-123-baby-tortoises-reported-stolen/a-45777450