Sprout

The Words:

green ring, san diego, santa barbara, las vegas, bagel, green tea, catcard, ipod, cell phone, alex, feo (Spanish word), baby

**

My baby days were spent in sand dunes on a beach in San Diego. I don't know how long it was until I was picked up and put into a plastic cage. I don't know how I learned to read or understand the human language either, but I somehow knew that we had taken a detour to Las Vegas before ending up in a show case on a busy street in Santa Barbara.

The shop keeper was an older gentleman who had his assistant take care of us. He didn't like it though. He would change the water and mutter words under his breath. He looked at me once and let his lip curl up in a sort of disgust, his long, black hair concealing one eye. "Feo." He spat. I didn't blame him really, because to me, he was pretty "feo" himself.

It was an odd, rainy day when I saw her face. It peered at me, with delight. I didn't know what for. I was hardly doing anything. Just sitting casually on a green ringed rock. She rapped at my wall, typical of people. I ignored her. She wasn't interesting to me. "I'll TAKE him!!" Her high-pitched, giggly voice rang in the air. I guessed I was sold, and I was right. I thought I'd never get used to her. The car ride was a long one.

She called me Sprout. Yes, Sprout. As if I was to sprout something out of me, or better yet, maybe I was a reminder of a brussle sprout. Why didn't she call me Shell or Green is beyond me. Even Feo, I wouldn't have minded. But no. It was Sprout. I must admit, it never did grow on me.

But the world I was in did. I was surrounded by conversations about an "Alex" and learned that her type of crowd could survive on a bagle and a bottle of green tea all day. They were also addicted to these contraptions which they called "cell phones" and "ipods." I never really understood what they were for, but one made the person talk to themselves a lot, and occasionally, when no one was around but me, the other made them sing like banshees.

It wasn't until she lost her catcard, or that thin slip of something that somehow got food, that I could escape. She was overturning things, and her elbow hit my cage and knocked it off my windowsill. Down I fell. When I landed, I ran. I left behind a girl half in tears, calling me Sprout over and over again.

I never looked back. My long turtle neck was just too lazy.

**