The Turtle Boy Read Free Page B

boy. See you in the
morning."
    "See you in the morning
too." His father started to close the door.
    "Dad?"
    A sigh. "Yes?"
    "Do you think there are
turtles back there? Like, big ones?"
    "Who knows? I've never seen
them but that isn't to say they aren't there. Now quit worrying
about it and get some sleep."
    "I will."
    "Goodnight."
    The door closed and Timmy
listened to his father's slippers slopping against the bare wood
steps of the stairs. It was followed by mumbled conversation and
Timmy guessed his mother was being filled in on The Turtle Boy
story. Her laughter, crisp and warm, echoed through the
house.
    Timmy turned his back on the
aquatic renderings and stared at his Hulk poster on the opposite wall. As
he replayed moments from his favorite episodes of the show, he
found himself drifting, edging closer to the bank of sleep where he
sat among ugly children with wounded feet and burst stitches for
smiles.
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    The next morning, he called for Pete
and found him in his sun-washed kitchen, hunched over a bowl of
cereal as if afraid someone was going to steal it.
    "Hi Pete."
    Pete looked positively
bleached. Except for the angry purple bruise around his left eye.
"Hi."
    "Ouch. Where did you get the
shiner?"
    "Fell."
    "Where?"
    Pete shrugged but said
nothing further and while this wasn't unusual, Timmy sensed his
friend was still shaken from their meeting with Darryl the day
before. He, on the other hand, had managed to convince himself that
they had simply stumbled upon some sick kid from one of the
neighboring towns who had ventured out of his camp to see what the
city had to offer. Pete's father had once told the boys about the
less prosperous areas of Delaware and warned them not to ride their
bikes there after sundown. He'd frightened them with stories about
what had happened to those children who'd disobeyed their parents
and ventured there after dark. They had resolved never to step foot
outside their own neighborhood if they could help it. Of course,
they couldn't stop people from coming in to their neighborhood either and
after much musing, Timmy had decided that that was exactly what had
happened. Nothing creepy going on, just a kid sniffing around in
uncharted territory. No big deal. And though he'd been scared to
stumble upon the strange kid with the mangled foot, the fear had
buckled under the weight of solid reasoning and now he felt more
than a little silly for panicking.
    It appeared, however, that
the waking nightmare had yet to let Pete go. The longer Timmy
watched him, the more worried he became. It didn't help that Pete
was accident-prone. Every other week he had some kind of injury to
display.
    "You all right, Pete?" he
asked as he slid into a chair.
    Pete nodded and made a
snorting sound as he shoveled a spoonful of Cheerios into his
mouth. A teardrop of milk ran from the corner of his mouth, dangled
from his chin, then fell back into the white sea beneath his face.
A smile curled Timmy's lips as he recalled his mother saying: "If
you ever eat like that kid, you'd better be prepared to hunt for
your own food. Honestly, you'd think they starve him over there or
something."
    When Pete finished, he raised the bowl
to his lips and drained the remaining milk from it, then wiped a
forearm across his lips and belched softly.
    "So what should we do
today?" Timmy asked, already bored with the stale atmosphere in
Pete's house.
    Pete shrugged but the reply came from
the hallway behind them.
    "He's not doing anything
today. He's grounded."
    Timmy turned in his chair.
It was Pete's father.
    Wayne Marshall was tall and
thin; his skin brushed with the same healthy glow nature had denied
his son. He wore silver wire-rimmed glasses atop an aquiline nose.
Thick black eyebrows sat like a dark horizon between the sweeping
black wings of his bangs. He was frightening when angry, but Timmy
seldom stuck around to see the full force of his wrath. Right now
it seemed he was on 'simmer.'
    "What were you two