Mr Tortoise was stark bald. His mother, another tortoise obviously, sighed with a sort of calmness when she first set her eyes on him. To her, the baby tortoise was healthy, that’s all that mattered.

Over the years Mr Tortoise grew up to be a rather foreboding tortoise. He was well-respected in his community of fellow creatures, admired for his uncanny wit and appreciated for his generosity. Despite all this, he had one great sorrow. It weighed upon him like a pebble upon a bedsheet stretched out. Or like an ant scurrying away to her home with children following her, carrying a magnifying glass with them to use for evil purposes.

This pain caused him to be sad, even when all other creatures around him were happy. He would deliberately force himself to smile when he was complimented upon his clothes, or how pretty his garden looked.

One day his most trusted friend, Chrys the butterfly, grew tired of his silence and demanded an explanation. She was swinging over a low branch and spotted her friend turning around the corner of a newly-established burrow. His face was as usual chin up, but knowing him so well, Chrys knew something was wrong.

“What is it? Can I know? Maybe I can help,” she blurted, flying off her perch and coming nearer to Mr Tortoise.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing to worry yourself over,” Mr Tortoise tried to be evasive.

“But you’re my friend. Worrying for you or about you is part of the friendship thing.”

A crease appeared on his already wrinkled face. Chrys was suddenly conscious of how old and tired her friend appeared. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but thought better of it and looked away. The sun’s glow was fading from the horizon now. It was autumn and they were walking past fallen apricot husks.

She tried again, “Tell me what is wrong. I won’t tell anyone, you can trust me.”

At this he stopped moving. His shell, a beautiful earthy brown with shades of turquoise and streaks of silver, seemed to heave. It took Chrys a while to realise that Mr Tortoise was crying. There he was, like a child, big fat tears rolling down the crevices of his ancient face. Chrys wanted to comfort her friend, but she could not find words important or powerful enough. She stared at him, at the pearly tears that seemed to have an endless ebb and flow.

“Chrys…,” Mr Tortoise began.

She leaned in, trying to catch every word, trying to understand what her friend had never said for so long.

“I have been given everything in this world. Everything, except one thing,” he seemed to have regained composure. That was a good sign, thought Chrys. He was concentrating as to how to phrase out the rest of his secret. His burden.

“Hair,” he said.

“Sorry?” Chrys thought she heard wrong. She looked at the passing moles, frowning at the noise they were making.

“I have no hair, Chrys,” Mr. Tortoise said plainly, his face blank.

Chrys fought an urge to laugh. Her wings seemed to fight too, as the wind picked up pace. “And why does not having hair make you sad?” she asked, genuinely perturbed.

“All my life I’ve seen animals in this forest with lovely hair. Long locks, attractive fur, pretty feathers. And I? I am like an outsider, with a slick skin, leathery and moist in places. It disgusts me at times, who I am,” he confessed.

“But I think you’re quite beautiful, frankly,” Chrys replied, totally bewildered by what her friend had disclosed.

At this a great wind surged downhill crisscrossing their paths. Mr Tortoise was soaked in the sunlight coming from what was now left of a setting sun. He was clearly in some kind of deliberation.

“You really think so?” he asked.

“Yes, I really do. I wouldn’t even mind if all you were was a crumpled up piece of paper. Your heart is so loving, so good. Who you are shines clear, it doesn’t matter to anyone what you look like,” she said, somewhere at the back of her mind, she knew this would stand true always. “Why don’t you look at what you have but others don’t? You have such a strong and shinny shell that protects you from harm and which others don’t have. If you really think about what you have and how it makes you so very special and unique, you will love yourself for what you really are,” Chrys said in a very emotional tone, clearly meaning each word.

“Thank you, my friend,” Mr Tortoise seemed to struggle with his words. Chrys feared he might burst into tears again.

But when the sun dipped into the vastness of those faraway mountains, all Mr Tortoise and the butterfly fluttering beside him could do was to laugh, as if nothing in the world could harm them.

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