Beat the Turtle Drum Read Free

easy,” Tootie went on, “that even my little brother couldn’t read it.”
    I thought about what Tootie had said all the way to school on the bus, but I still couldn’t figure it out.

The only person who might possibly object when Joss rents her horse is Miss Pemberthy. She lives across the street from us in a big white house. I know it’s none of my business, but that house is entirely too big for one person. I think Miss Pemberthy should take in foster children or something.
    I mentioned this to my mother.
    â€œFat chance,” she said.
    Miss Pemberthy accused Tootie of pulling up her prize dahlia bulbs. Tootie, of all people. He wouldn’t harm a dandelion, much less a prize dahlia. Miss Pemberthy called Tootie’s mother and said if he didn’t stay off her property, she wouldn’t be responsible if he slipped off her stone wall and broke a bone or two. Tootie’s mother said she got the distinct impression that Miss Pemberthy was thinking of greasing the stone wall to make it good and slippery for Tootie’s benefit.
    Miss Pemberthy was in the army in World War II. She was a sergeant, I think. Sergeants, I understand, are very domineering people. They wouldn’t get to be sergeants if they weren’t.
    The sign in her driveway says: “NO TURNING IN THE DRIVEWAY.”
    Not “Please” or anything. Just “NO TURNING.”
    Miss Pemberthy likes to maintain the standard of excellence achieved in our neighborhood by constant vigilance. That’s what she told my mother when our dog Hazel got into her garbage and spread it around a little. Hazel smelled the lamb bone way down at the bottom of the garbage pail. Hazel likes lamb better than anything. If Miss Pemberthy had just given Hazel the bone straight out, she could’ve avoided all that mess. My father made Joss and me go over and pick up all the junk from Miss Pemberthy’s lawn.
    All of which makes me think Miss Pemberthy might object about the horse.
    â€œMiss Pemberthy isn’t going to like it when you rent your horse,” I told Joss.
    â€œTough beans,” Joss said. She was adding up how much it would cost to buy a bottle of horse shampoo, containing lanolin and deodorizer, plus some veterinary liniment to aid in the relief of temporary muscle soreness due to overwork or exertion.
    â€œIt all adds up to a terrible lot,” she said, sighing.
    â€œMaybe you better forget the whole thing,” I told her.
    Joss made a fist which she shook at me. “You make me so angry,” she said. “This is the dream of my life, to have my own horse. I would do it if I had to work like a slave for a whole year to get the money. It’s my life’s ambition.”
    â€œHow do you know when a horse’s muscles are sore?” I asked her, to change the subject. Usually Joss is calm, cool, and collected. Only once in a while does she go berserk—when I tease her about the horse and when she plays cards and does something stupid that causes her to lose. Then she clutches her forehead and staggers around the room, shrieking vengeance. When she does this, my father says she reminds him of Eleonora Duse, who was a famous Italian actress at the turn of the century. Before his time. He’s heard plenty about her emoting, though, from his father.
    â€œHe limps, same as you and me,” Joss said. She was explaining about the sore muscles. “You have to treat it with hot and cold compresses. Same as a human. They’re a lot like humans, you know.”
    â€œI heard they were the dumbest animals going,” I said. “They’re so dumb they don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.”
    Joss shrugged. “They like the rain,” she said. “They like nature. If more people liked nature, this would be a better world.”
    I went to the telephone to call up Sam and ask him for the math assignment. Once Joss got started on nature and how