EAST KILBRIDE NEWS (UK) 26 July 06 Can anyone track down Scarlet the runaway tortoise?
A heartbroken ten-year-old boy is asking News readers to help him find his baby pet tortoise which went missing last week.
Josh Bennett, from Loch Torridon, St Leonards, got one-year-old Scarlet as a birthday present earlier this month.
He was horrified when he found she was missing from her pen in the back garden last Wednesday and has spent every moment since searching for her.
His stepdad, Robert Paterson, 58, is asking neighbours to be on the lookout as he thinks that Scarlet — who is about three-and-a-half inches long and brown in colour — is close by.
He said: “We named her Scarlet after the Gone With The Wind character, but our Scarlet seems to have taken the name to heart and has literally gone with the wind.
“Tortoises can live to be over 100 years old, so I expected that she would be around for more than four weeks.
“Josh is dying to have her back; he has been really upset since she went missing and he just wants to make sure she is ok. She will be hungry and in need of a good meal.
“I was going to stick a label with her address on her belly and now I wish that I had.”
This is not the first time that Scarlet, who the family have playfully called the Loch Torridon monster, has run away from home as she staged a disappearing act the week before.
Mr Paterson added: “She escaped under the fencing around her pen the week before and managed to get about 100 yards down the street.
“Luckily, one of the local kids recognised her as belonging to Josh and she was returned later that day.
“She might be in someone’s house or under a hedge somewhere but I think she is still in the street as she can’t walk up the hill to escape.
“I would ask anyone in the area to keep a lookout for any small moving brick-like objects they see. Chances are it will be our Scarlet.”
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