No one knew how a tortoise had come to own number 45.
The excitement when the 'Sold' sign went up was quickly followed by head-scratching when a workman made the cat-flaps bigger and added ramps at the front and back of the house. Since then, there was certainly no sign of any human that lived there.
A cleaner popped in once in a while and the gardener would appear occasionally to mow the lawn but despite all the curtain-twitching and Neighbourhood Watch there was no sign of anyone else. Apart from the tortoise.
When some post was accidentally put through the door of number 43 the owner was surprised to see it was addressed to 'A.Tortoise'. Like I say, a mystery.
It's not like you can ask the tortoise. None of the neighbours knew any sort of language that might be useful in communicating with the tortoise. And if the tortoise knew how to converse with humans it wasn't letting on.
The neighbours would be polite of course. Always saying hello and giving a cheery wave to the tortoise when it was in the garden, munching on some greenery or other.
The passers-by were convinced that the tortoise acknowledged them in return with a nod or tilt of its head but only the tortoise would know that for sure.
If there had been a way to communicate with the tortoise the neighbours would have got a very simple answer.
The tortoise was very good at managing its money.
