Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

Zelda is missing a toe on her back foot. That's how you tell them apart. Do you like them? You seem a little reticent."
    A little, she thought. You couldn't have brought me flowers or jewelry, like most guys. You had to say it with reptiles. "I don't suppose there's any chance that you saved the receipt?"
    Tommy's face avalanched into disappointment. "You don't like them."
    "No, they're fine. But, I really wanted to take a shower. I'm not sure I want to be naked in front of them."
    "Oh," Tommy said, brightening. "I'll take them into the living room."
    He pulled a towel off the rod and began maneuvering over the tub, trying to get a drop on Zelda . "You have to be careful; they can take off a finger in those jaws."
    "I see," Jody said. But she didn't see at all. The idea of biting one of the spiny creatures in the tub gave her an industrial-size case of the creeps.
    Tommy lunged and came up with Zelda, wrapped in swaddling clothes and snapping at his face. "She hates being picked up." Zelda's claws tore at the towel and Tommy's shirt as she attempted to swim through midair. He set the turtle on her back on the bathroom floor and readied the towel to lunge into the tub for Scott. "Lestat can call animals to him when he's hungry. Maybe you can train them."
    "Stop it with the Lestat stuff, Tommy. I'm not sucking turtles."
    He turned to her and slipped, falling into the tub. Scott snapped, barely missing Tommy's arm, and latched on to the sleeve of his denim shirt. "I'm okay. I'm okay. He didn't get me."
    Jody pulled him from the tub. Scott was still attached to his sleeve and was determined not to let go.
    Turtles hate heights. They don't even like being a few feet off the ground. It's the main reason they have resisted evolution for so long – fear of heights. Turtle thinking goes thus: Sure, first our scales turn into feathers and the next thing you know we're flying and chirping and perching on trees. We've seen it happen. Thanks, but we're staying right here in the mud where we belong. You're not going to see us flying full-tilt boogie into a sliding glass door.
    Scott was not letting go of the sleeve, not as long as Tommy was standing. "Help me," Tommy said. "Pry him off."
    Jody looked for a place on the turtle to grab – reached out and pulled back several times. "I don't want to touch him."
    The phone rang.
    "I'll get it," Jody said, running out of the bathroom.
    Tommy dragged Scott to the doorway, keeping his feet safely away from Zelda's jaws. "I forgot to tell you…"
    "Hello," Jody said into the phone. "Oh, hi, Mom."

Chapter 23 – Mom and Terrapin Pie
    "She's in town," Jody said. "She's coming over in a few minutes." Jody lowered the phone to its cradle.
    Tommy appeared in the bedroom doorway, Scott still dangling from his sleeve. "You're kidding."
    "You're missing a cufflink," Jody said.
    "I don't think he's going to let go. Do we have any scissors?"
    Jody took Tommy by the sleeve a few inches above where Scott was clamped. "You ready?"
    Tommy nodded and she ripped his sleeve off at the shoulder. Scott skulked into the bedroom, the sleeve still clamped in his jaws.
    "That was my best shirt," Tommy said, looking at his bare arm.
    "Sorry, but we've got to clean this place up and get a story together."
    "Where did she call from?"
    "She was at the Fairmont Hotel. We've got maybe ten minutes."
    "So she won't be staying with us."
    "Are you kidding? My mother under the same roof where people are living in sin? Not in this lifetime, turtleboy."
    Tommy took the turtleboy shot in stride. This was an emergency and there was no time for hurt feelings. "Does you mother use phrases like 'living in sin'?"
    "I think she has it embroidered on a sampler over the telephone so she won't forget to use it every month when I call."
    Tommy shook his head. "We're doomed. Why didn't you call her this month? She said you always call her."
    Jody was pacing now, trying to think. "Because I didn't get my reminder."
    "What reminder?"
    "My period. I always call her when I get my period each month – just to get all the unpleasantness out of the way at one time."
    "When was the last time you had a period?"
    Jody thought for a minute. It was before she had turned. "I don't know, eight, nine weeks. I'm sorry, I can't believe I forgot."
    Tommy went to the futon, sat down, and cradled his head in his hands. "What do we do now?"
    Jody sat next to him. "I don't suppose we have time to redecorate."
    In the next ten minutes, while they cleaned