Mom’s hooded sweatshirt hung practically to my rubber boots as we headed through the soggy pasture carrying our tin cans, guppy nets and camera. At 6 AM, the creek bottom was damp and cool. We were searching for frogs and toads, snakes and turtles, minnows and tadpoles - just to look at them. Just to see how they were different from us. I started yanking a thick, soggy length of string from the water. I thought it must be twisted around an underwater root, and Susan helped me pull. A large snapping turtle emerged, clawing at the earth, fighting not to be dragged ashore by the cord in its mouth. We couldn’t remove the hook from its powerful, snapping jaws, but took turns holding it up by the tail for photos. Suddenly, an angry stranger yelled, ”That’s on my line!” He walked up, grabbed the cord, dropped the dangling reptile into a burlap sack and hiked away, leaving two gangling tweens gawking after him. Turtle soup for him.
