The Turtle Boy Read Online Free Page A

beneath his friend's father's angry monologue, this
insult to his own father made something snap shut in his chest.
Anger and hurt swelled within him and he let out a long, infuriated
breath. Unspoken words flared in that breath and died harmlessly
before a mouth sealed tight with disgust. He felt his stomach begin
to quiver and suddenly he wanted more than anything to be gone from
Pete's house. The departure would come with the implied demand that
Pete go to hell in a Zip-Loc bag, the sentiment punctuated by a
slamming of the front door that would no doubt bring Mr. Marshall
running to chastise him further.
    Fine , he thought, the words poison arrows in his head. Let him. He can go to hell in a baggie
too.
    "I gotta go now," he mumbled
finally, and without sparing his treacherous comrade a glance,
started toward the front door.
    Hot tears blurred the
hallway and the daylight beyond as he left the house and closed the
door gently behind
him. The anger had ebbed away as quickly as it had come, replaced
now by a tiny tear in the fabric of his happiness through which
dark light shone. He was dimly aware of the door opening behind
him.
    Pete's voice halted him and
he turned. "Hey, I'm sorry Timmy. Really I am."
    "Oh yeah?" The hurt spun
hateful words he couldn't speak. With what looked like monumental
effort, Pete closed the front door behind him. With an uncertain
smile, he said: "My Dad'll kill me for this, but let's go do
something."
    "Good idea," Timmy said,
aware that an errant tear was trickling down his cheek. "You can go
to hell. I'm going home."
    "Timmy wait –"
    "Shut up, Pete. I hate you!"
    He ran home and slammed the
door behind him. His mother sat wiping her eyes, engrossed in some
soppy movie. He waited behind the sofa for her to ask him what was
wrong and when she didn't he ran to his room and to bed, where he
lay with his face buried in the cool white pillows.
    And seethed.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    That night, he dreamt he was
standing at his bedroom window.
    Down in the yard, beside the
pine tree, a boy stood wreathed in shadow, despite the cataract eye
of the moon soaring high in the sky behind him.
    And though the window was
closed, Timmy heard him whisper: "Would you die for
him?"
    He squinted to see more than
just shadow, his heart filled with dread.
    "Darryl?"
    And then he woke, warmed by
the morning sun, nothing but the distant echo of the whisper in his
mind.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Shortly after Mr. Marshall made his
feelings known about Timmy and his father, he sent Pete to summer
camp.
    Although the anger and hurt
had settled like a stone in the pit of his belly, Timmy missed Pete
and hoped Mr. Marshall would realize his cruelty and allow things
to return to normal before Timmy found himself minus a friend.
Summer was only just beginning and he didn't relish the idea of
trudging through it without his best buddy.
    Early the next Saturday, he
came home from riding his bike to find his parents grinning at him
in a way he wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. It made his heart
lurch; he couldn't decide if it was a good or a bad
thing.
    "What?" he asked. They were
sitting next to each other at the kitchen table, looking fresh and
content. His mother was looping a strand of her hair around her
finger, his father nodding slowly. They almost looked proud . As soon as Timmy's
eyes settled on the source of their amusement, he felt as if
someone had forced his finger into a light socket.
    Kim Barnes.
    "What is she doing here?" he
asked, pointing at the black-haired girl with the braces who stood
in the hallway behind them. Her arms were crossed and she shifted
from foot to foot as if no happier about where she had found
herself than he.
    His mother scowled. "Is that
any way to talk to a lady? Kim's sister and her friend have gone to
camp too, so she has no one to play with for the whole summer.
Isn't that a nice coincidence?"
    Timmy was appalled. "She's
a girl! "
    "No flies on him," said his
father.
    "But…she doesn't