The Turtle Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

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