The Turtle Boy (4 page)

Timmy was appalled. "She's
a
girl!
"

"No flies on him," said his
father.

"But…she doesn't even
like
me!"

"Now how do you know that?
Have you ever asked her?"

"I know she doesn't. She's
always making faces at me in school."

Kim smiled. "I don't mean
anything by it."

"You see," his mother said.
"You have to give a girl a chance."

Timmy felt sick.

"I don't have to play with
you if you don't want me to," Kim said in a pitiful tone. Timmy
felt an ounce of hope but knew his parents, who melted at the sound
of her feigned sorrow, would vanquish it.

"Don't be silly. Timmy would
love to play with you, wouldn't you, Timmy?"

He sighed and studied the
scuffed toe of his sneakers. "I guess so."

"Speak up, son."

"I guess so," he repeated,
wondering how this summer could possibly get any worse.

His mother went to Kim. With maternal
grace, she eased the girl into the kitchen. Timmy felt the color
rise in his cheeks and looked away.

"Now see," his mother said.
"Why don't you both go on outside in the sunshine and see what you
can find to do. I bet you'll get along just fine."

I bet we
won't
, Timmy thought, miserable. With a
heavy sigh, he turned and opened the door.

CHAPTER SIX

They were standing in the
yard, Kim with her arms still folded and Timmy watching the bloated
white clouds sailing overhead when she said: "I didn't want to come
over here, you know."

Without looking at her he
scoffed. "Then why did you?"

"Your mom called my mom and
told her you were bored and lonely and—"

"I wasn't
lonely
. I was doing just
fine."

"Well, your mom thought you
weren't and asked if I could come over. I told
my
mom I didn't want to play with you
because you are dirty and smelly."

Timmy gaped at her.
"Really?"

She shook her head and he had to
restrain the sigh that swelled in his throat.

"So I guess we'll have to do
something for a while at least," she said. "What do you want to
play?"

"Not dolls, anyway. I hate
dolls." He watched a blue jay until it flew behind her. Tracking it
any further would have meant looking in her direction and he wasn't
yet ready to do that.

"Me too," Kim said,
startling him, and he looked at her. Briefly.

"I thought
all
girls liked
dolls."

He saw her shrug. "I think
they're dumb."

"Real dumb."

"Yeah."

The silence wasn't as
dreadful as Timmy had thought it would be. For one, she didn't like
dolls and that was a plus. Dolls really were dumb. He hadn't said
it just to annoy her. And at least she
talked
. By now he'd have grown tired
of listening to himself talking to Pete and getting no answer. So,
he guessed, she wasn't
that
bad.

But still, he didn't like
the idea of being seen hanging around with her. No matter how cool
she might turn out to be, if anyone at school heard about it they'd
say he was in love with her or something and that they were going
to have a baby. And that would be bad news.
Real
bad news.

"Why don't we go back to the
pond?" she asked then, as if reading his thoughts.

Going back to Myers Pond was no more
comforting an idea than hanging around with a girl, but at least
there no one would see them together.

"I'm not allowed to go back
to the pond," he said, with an ounce of shame. Admitting you were
restricted by the same rules as everyone else seemed akin to
admitting weakness when you said it to a girl.

"Why not?"

"I'm just not."

When she said nothing, he
gave a dramatic sigh and conceded. "Pete Marshall's dad thinks
there might be some creeps back there or something. He thinks it
might be dangerous for kids. My dad doesn't want me going back
there either."

"Creeps? Like what kind of
creeps?"

He almost told her, but
caught himself at the last minute and shrugged it off. "Just some
strange kids."

She stared at him for a moment and he
struggled not to cringe.

"Like The Turtle
Boy?"

Now he looked at her and
through the shock of hearing the name he had given Darryl, he
realized she wasn't so ugly and stinky and everything else he
associated with the chittering group she swept around the
playground with at recess. Her eyes, for one thing, were like
sparkling emeralds, and once he peered into them his discomfort
evaporated and he had to struggle to look away. Her skin reminded
him of his mother's soap and that conjured a memory of a pleasant
clean smell. But still…she was a girl and that made him feel a
strange kind of awkwardness.

"What?" she said after a
moment.

Eventually he composed
himself enough to croak: "You've seen him?"

"Yes. He's awful creepy
looking, isn't he?"

"But…when did
you
see him?"

"The first day of summer
vacation. My cousin Dale came to visit with his mom and we went
fishing back there." She gave him a shy smile. "I'm not much good
at fishing. I lost my bobber."

Timmy remembered the small
red and white ball drifting in the water the day they'd seen Darryl
and wondered if it was hers.

"Dale caught a catfish. It
was ugly and gross and when he reeled it in, he raised it up in
front of my face and tried to get me to kiss it. I ran into the
trees and that's where he was. The Turtle Boy. He stank really bad
and looked at me as if I had caught him doing something he
shouldn'ta been. I was scared."

Timmy was confused. "But why
do you call him that? Did he tell you that was his
name?"

"No. I just…I don't know. I
just remember thinking about it later and that's the name I gave
him."

"That's weird. That's the
name
I
gave
him."

"I guess that is
weird."

"Have you ever seen him
around before?"

She shook her head. "Have
you?"

"No, but I wish I knew why
he was here and where he came from."

A blur of movement caught
his eye and he followed it to a groundhog shimmying his way along
the bottom of the yard toward the road. He looked back to Kim. "Did
he say anything to you?"

"Yeah." She swallowed and
the same fear that had gripped him when he'd seen Darryl's ankle
was written across her face. It made him feel better somehow to see
it. It meant he was no longer alone in his fear. With Pete it
wasn't the same. Pete was afraid to ride his bike on the off chance
he might fall and get hurt. He was also afraid of storms and dogs
and pretty much anything that moved and had teeth.

"He said: 'They're
hungry.'"

"When me and Pete saw him he
was putting his heel into the water. There was a piece of it
missing. He said he was feeding the turtles. What do you suppose it
means?"

"There's only one way to
find out," she said.

"How?"

Kim's braces segmented her
mischievous smile but couldn't take away the appeal of it. A slight
smile crept across Timmy's lips in response. He got the feeling
that even though The Turtle Boy had frightened her, she wasn't
easily deterred from any kind of adventure.

"We have to ask him, of
course."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rather than taking the
regular gravel path back to the pond, a path that could be spotted
from most of the houses, they cut across Mr. Patterson's field,
pausing only to look at the large puddle, which was all that
remained of the hole Timmy and Pete had been digging. A pile of
earth like a scale-model mountain sat next to it.

"We were looking for gold,"
he explained.

"Did you find any?" Kim
asked.

He shrugged, strangely
ashamed. "No. We found some red clay though."

Kim smiled. "Maybe that
would be worth something in some other country. Maybe some country
where they have gold to spare and kids dig for red
clay?"

He nodded, a silly grin
breaking out across his face. He knew it was a foolish notion –
he'd never heard of a place that had
too
much gold – but it was a nice
fantasy, and he silently thanked her for not making fun of his
efforts.

They carried on through the high grass,
chasing crickets and wondering what kind of exotic creatures they
heard scurrying at their approach. The field ran parallel to the
gravel path, but the trees shielded them from view and they
hunkered down, the grass whipping against their bare legs. Much to
his surprise, Kim kept the pace as he raced toward the narrow dirt
road leading into the pond. At times she drew abreast of him and,
more than once – though he would never admit it – she began to inch
ahead of him, forcing him to push himself until he felt his chest
start to ache.

At last they reached the
makeshift bridge. Kim, her legs braced on the wobbling boards,
leaned over to catch her breath. She looked down at the stream
trickling beneath them. "They've ruined it, haven't
they?"

It took him a moment to
realize what she was referring to and then he told her that yes,
they had ruined it. The construction crews dedicated to tearing up
the land they'd once played in seemed equally driven to foul
whatever they'd been prohibited to touch. Gullies became dumping
grounds for material waste, streams became muddied and paths
cracked beneath the groaning and shrieking metal of their monstrous
machines. Timmy joined her in a moment of mournful pondering at the
senselessness of it all, then tapped her on the elbow and pointed
up at the sky.

Shadows rushed past them, crawling
through the grass toward the train tracks and spilling from the
trees as the breeze gained strength. Over their heads, the sky had
turned from blue to gray, the sun now a dim torch glimpsed through
a caul of spider webs. All around them the trees began to sway and
hiss as if the breeze were water, the canopies fire.

Kim nodded at the change and
hurried to his side. She mumbled something to him and he looked at
her. "What?"

"I said: my dad says they're
going to fill in the pond."

Before Timmy had met Darryl,
this might have hurt him more than it did now. Still, it didn't
seem right. "Why?"

"I don't know. He says in a
few years all of this will be houses and that the pond is only in
the way. Apparently Doctor Myers's son sold this area of the land
so they're just waiting for someone to buy it before they fill it
in."

Timmy knew her father worked on a
construction site across town and would no doubt be privy to such
information. It was a depressing thought; not so much that they
would be taking the pond away, but because he suspected that would
only be the start of it. Soon, the fields would be gone, concrete
lots in their place.

They carried on up the rise
until the black mirror of the pond revealed itself. Timmy's gaze
immediately went to the spot where he had seen Darryl, but he saw
no one sitting there today. Kim walked on and over the bank and
made her way around the pond toward the brace of fir trees weaving
in the wind. She paused and looked back at him over her shoulder.
"Are you coming?"

"Yeah."

But he was already starting
to question the logic behind such a move. At least the last time
he'd been here he'd had the escape route at his back; if The Turtle
Boy had tried anything it wouldn't have been hard to turn and run.
Going into those trees was like walking into a cage. You would have
to thread your way through brambles and thick undergrowth to be
clear of it. And even then, there was nowhere to run but the train
tracks.

A quiver of fear rippled through him,
and he masked it by smacking an imaginary mosquito from his neck.
Overhead, the clouds thickened. With a sigh, he followed Kim into
the trees.

On this side of the pond,
dispirited pines hung low. The earth beneath was a tangle of
withered needles, flattened grass and severed branches. The
children had to duck until they'd cleared the biggest and densest
stand of pines.

At last they emerged on the other side,
a marshy stretch of land that offered a clear view of the train
tracks but soaked their sandaled feet.

After a moment of listening to the
breeze and searching the growing shadows around them, Kim put her
hands on her hips and looked at Timmy, who was preoccupied with
trying to remove sticky skeins of spider web from his
face.

"He's not here," she said,
stifling a giggle at Timmy's dismay.