Title: Esio Trot
Author(s): Roald Dahl (text) and Quentin Blake (drawings)
Release year: 1990
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Why in Database: The book in question is one of the cult, and certainly very popular, works by an author whose works are considered to be the classics of children’s stories. Inseparable from the drawings made by Quentin Blake (they are sometimes colored). We also have movie based on this book in our database.
Of course, to show all the turtle elements, we would probably have to paste too much of this little book. That is why we decided to only use four representative fragments:
The trouble with Mrs Silver was that she gave all her love to somebody else, and that somebody was a small tortoise called Alfie. Every day, when Mr Hoppy looked over his balcony and saw Mrs Silver whispering endearments to Alfie and stroking his shell, he felt absurdly jealous. He wouldn’t even have minded becoming a tortoise himself if it meant Mrs Silver stroking his shell each morning and whispering endearments to him.
In early spring, when Alfie felt the warmer weather through his shell, he would wake up and crawl very slowly out of his house on to the balcony. And Mrs Silver would clap her hands with joy and cry out, ”Welcom back, my darling one! Oh, how I have missed you!”
ESIO TROT, ESIO TROT,
TEG REGGIB REGGIB!
EMOC NO, ESIO TROT,
WORG PU, FFUP PU, TOOHS PU!
GNIRPS PU, WOLB PU, LLEWS PU!
EGROG! ELZZUG! FFUTS! PLUG!
TUP NO TAF, ESIO TROT, TUP NO TAF!
TEG NO, TEG NO! ELBBOG DOOF!
“What does it mean?” she asked. “Is it another language?”
“It’s tortoise language,” MrHoppy said.
“Tortoises are very backward creatures. Therefore they can only understand words that are written backwards. That’s obvious, isn’t it?
When he had finished, Mr Hoppy, in his enthusiasm, had bought no less than one hundred and forty tortoises and he carried them home in baskets, ten or fifteen at a time. He had to make a lot of trips and he was quite exhausted at the end of it all, but it was worth it. Boy, was it worth it! And what an amazing sight his living-room was when they were all in there together! The floor was swarming with tortoises of different sizes, some walking slowly about and exploring, some munching cabbage leaves, others drinking water from a big shallow dish. They made just the faintest rustling sound as they moved over the canvas sheet, but that was all. Mr Hoppy had to pick his way carefully on his toes between this moving sea of brown shells whenever he walked across the room.
Author: XYuriTT
