Cursed by an impatient witch to turn into a tortoise at inopportune moments, Tip is horrified to find himself tortoise-napped by a customer at the Isle of Wight cafe where he works.<br><br>Things start to look up when Tip ends up very literally in the capable hands of drop-dead gorgeous Steve, but Tip soon begins to wonder just how far he can trust Steve, who turns out to have a close connection with his kidnapper. Tip’s attempts at a normal life -- and love life -- seem doomed to remain frustrated in more ways than one!<br><br>Inspired by a real-life incident. Yes, really.

Tortoise Interruptus

There was a mind-numbing wait while the woman did an unnecessarily thorough job on Tip’s kidnapper’s bathroom—well, all right, maybe the bath did need a particularly good scrub this morning, but it wasn’t Tip’s fault; it wasn’t like he could have got out of it to go to the toilet—but apart from that, the plan went swimmingly. Tip was able to ride on the trolley to the next room and hop off while the chambermaid was occupied in the bathroom. He swiftly hid under the bed with the dust bunnies, hoping the zeal she’d shown in the previous room wouldn’t extend to vacuuming properly under there for a change.


Chapter 5