And then there was one

One of the perks of my no-longer-new job is that when the kid comes with me (hey, I guess that's a perk right there), there are some fixtures in this office space that serve as marvelous distractions.

There's the freshwater aquarium. There's the saltwater aquarium. (Although, I don't know which is which. They both have, in addition to fish, similar (but different!) anemone-like creatures and cucumber-like creatures, star-like creatures and shrimp-type creatures.) And there's the aquarium with the leopard eel.

There's the goldfish and turtle pond with the cascading water at the entranceway.

And there's the CEO, who loves to watch the fish, tend to the fish, talk about the fish. He also gets on well with kids. Thanks to him, Helena already knows more about these fish than I ever will. Also, he's good at task-setting — like, "You need to catch 10 goldfish with this small net by x o'clock. I'll get you a bucket to put them in" — thanks to the accomplishment of which challenge Helena was able to witness the feeding of said goldfish to the leopard eel and a few other choice carnivorous creatures.

The first time she came with me to this office (during her Christmas break), there were 8 mini turtles and 1 much larger one, commonly referred to (by the kids who frequent the office) as the mommy turtle, although apparently none of them were actually related.

While I worked(!), Helena set about documenting their characteristics.

It was just a few short weeks later that I heard about the first demise. "Oh, no, which one was it?," I ask a coworker. "I don't know. Do they have names? The one with spots all over." Gasp. Spotty!

The last mini turtle vanished last week. That leaves just mommy turtle, and she doesn't look too happy these days.

I found the cataloguing project Helena had started on (in scintillatingly legible gold-coloured pencil), and I transcribe its text below, to commemorate, in this small way, the contribution these turtles have made to my work life.

**********
Document sur les tortus du travaille

tortu préféré brownie
1. Brownie aime être calme et atantife.
**********
[sic]

Darwin would be proud.