This is a Funny Sun(ny)day submission for
Fred the turtle was startled. He could feel the vibrations and knew something big was occurring, though from his angle right near the ground he could not see what it was unless it was very close. The vibrations, though, this was something!
“Yo, Fluffy baby,” said Fred to a nearby bunny, “what’s making that noise?”
“I dunno,” said the bunny, who never was much interested in anything other than food. Honestly, Fred grew tired of his “friend’s” lack of imagination.
“How about you, Snuffles” asked Fred in the other direction.
“My name is Oak Leaf, you slob,” sniffed the deer standing in the meadow a few feet from Fred.
“Then stop sneezing so much,” replied Fred. “So what do you see on the horizon?”
Oak Leaf looked up, then rose up on his hind legs to see even farther.
“Oh,” the deer said as he dropped back to four legs. “It’s a group of stumpers.”
“Stumpers?” asked Fred.
“Lunchers?” asked Fluffy.
“Stumpers!” said Fred with a snap of his head.
“The tall creatures with strange skin,” replied Oak Leaf.
“Lift me up, kid,” said Fred.
Oak Leaf bent his head down and carefully wrapped his mouth around the back end of Fred’s shell. He carefully raised Fred up, and then even more carefully rose on his back legs again.
“Ah, I see them,” said Fred. “That’s not skin, it’s their soft shells.”
“Mm ggg nn”, said Oak Leaf who bent his head down and gently dropped Fred, though not gently enough to keep him from tipping over on his shell.
“I said,” continued Oak Leaf with his mouth now free, “shells aren’t soft.”
“Soup?” asked Fluffy as he hopped over to the overturned turtle.
“Turn me over, stupid!” yelped Fred.
Oak Leaf nudged the bunny away from sniffing Fred’s underside — and made a note to talk to her parents about Fluffy’s appalling tendencies in diet — then nudged the turtle into being upright again.
“Those creatures put on shells that are soft, don’t ask me why, but they do.”
“They carry sticks,” said Oak Leaf as he eyed the creatures who were now walking away from them.
“Yeah, I saw them,” said Fred, “those aren’t sticks, it’s the things they use to push the ground around and make holes.”
“Doughnut holes?” asked Fluffy brightly.
“No, the holes in your head where common sense should be!” yelled Fred.
And while the three of them continued in their usual circular ways of talking, in the distance could be heard the faint cry from the now distant stumpers:
“Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s home from work we go…”