A New Type of Vermin

So I was walking down the main hallway of my school this morning. The doors to the outside were all open to let in the cool air. As I pass by an empty classroom (the kids hadn't arrived yet) I saw something on the floor. It looked like a small rubber turtle, like something a kid might bring to school and forget. I could tell it was supposed to be a snapping turtle because of the long tail. Okay. No problem. Some kid's going to find it again, I hope.

I almost walked past it but stopped. Damn, that thing look real. Almost, too real. Could it be? I touched it with the toe of my shoe, and it moved. Oh my God, there's a baby snapping turtle in the middle of my school!

I picked it up and showed a few people. Nobody could figure out how it got there, except that it might have crawled in after the doors were opened. I put the little guy into a bucket and took its picture.

Fortunately the science room in my school comes equipped with lots of things to keep animals. It's home to fish, both fresh water and marine, large snakes, a tortoise, and a tarantula. I put a little water into the bucket from a fish tank and that seemed to revive the little guy.

When I gave it to the science teacher, Kevin, he told me that mine was the second snapping turtle caught inside the school in the last two days. I don't know if that's cool or scary. It's cool that there are turtles around, but not cool that they could bite your toes off in a few years. The truth is, a turtle must have laid a nest nearby, and these are the hatchlings. The turtle went into a bowl/tank with its sibling, and there it sits. Soon it will be released into the wild where it will be free to grow into a hideous dragon monster.