Turtle in Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page B

those dolls?” Aunt Minnie demands.
    I hesitate and then say, “Mama gave them to me for my birthday.”
    “Those are my dolls!”
    “She said they were hers,” I say.
    “Well, she must have
forgotten
about
stealing
them from me,” Aunt Minnie says with emphasis.
    I look down at the dolls and back up at Aunt Minnie.
    “Are you sure they’re the same dolls?”
    “You think I don’t know my own dolls?” my aunt asks, and holds out her hand.
    “You want them back?”
    “Of course I want them back! They’re mine, aren’t they?”
    I pile the dolls up and hand them to her. She snatches them and gives a satisfied smile.
    “Do I want my dolls back?
Pfff!”
    After she walks inside, Buddy turns to me and asks, “You want to play marbles now?”

    The next morning, I’m watching the boys run around the lane like a bunch of wild animals. They’re playing a game they call klee-klee, which looks just like tag from where I’m sitting. Kermit’s the fastest of them all—tearing headlong across the lane, dodging this boy and that. For a kid with a bad heart, he sure can run.
    I shouldn’t have been so surprised about Aunt Minnie and the paper dolls. Mama’s always been a little funny with the truth. Sure, she’s told me lots of things about Key West—how poinciana trees look like they’re on fire when they’re blooming and that the old Conch houses were built by shipwrights to sway in storms like boats—but she left out the important parts. Like about my father.
    All she’s ever told me is that he was a fisherman, and that he said he loved her. When she told him she was expecting his baby, she waited a whole week but he didn’t ask her to marry him. A week’s a long time when you’re waiting on a man, I guess. Mama left Key West and hasn’t been back since. My father could have three eyes or be a murderer, for all I know.
    Still, I miss Mama so much I hardly know what to do. We’ve never been apart. I worry about her being by herself. I’ve been here for two weeks now,and I’ve only talked to her once. I called from Mrs. Lowe’s house, Pudding’s mother’s, because Aunt Minnie doesn’t have a telephone. Not that we got to say more than two words.
    “It’s me, Mama!” I said when she answered. “I made it!”
    “Oh, baby,” Mama said, and she sounded so far away. “I was so worried.”
    Just hearing her voice made me feel like I was wrapped in a soft blanket.
    “Mama,” I started to say. And then I heard Mrs. Budnick in the background.
    “Sadiebelle, you know I don’t allow the help to use my personal telephone.”
    “Sorry, ma’am,” Mama murmured to Mrs. Budnick. To me she said, “I have to go, baby. I’ll write you.”
    Mrs. Budnick could give old Mr. Scrooge a run for his money.
    Aunt Minnie’s voice rings through the hot air: “Ker-mit! Ker-mit!”
    She’s striding down the lane, Buddy stumbling to keep up with her.
    Kermit freezes midstep, closing his eyes as she bears down on him.
    Aunt Minnie’s like a lawyer interrogating awitness. “Look at you! All sweaty! Were you running around playing that wild game?”
    “No, Ma,” he says, looking down at his bare feet. “It’s just the heat.”
    “You know Doc Parrish said you’re not supposed to run around!” She turns and looks at the other boys. “Was Kermit running around?”
    All the boys shake their heads, eyes wide as saucers. There’s a chorus of “No, ma’am”s.
    “Honest, Mrs. Curry,” Pork Chop says, his voice so sincere that I almost expect a halo to pop up over his head.
    “Honest? You boys are about as honest as a drunk in a tavern.” She whirls on Kermit. “If I so much as catch you walking fast, I will box your ears, you hear me?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Kermit says, looking chastened.
    “Your heart can give out at any minute,” she adds.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Buddy saves Kermit from the rest of Aunt Minnie’s lecture.
    “Ma! Ma!” Buddy says, hopping up and down. “I gotta go! I really gotta