Turtle in Paradise (11 page)

“How fine are we gonna be when Johnny Cakes finds out we lost his boat?” I ask.

Kermit turns pale.

“We’ll buy him a new boat,” Ira says. “We’ll buy him a hundred boats! We’re rich!”

Kermit cracks a smile. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

There’s plenty of water to drink in the cistern, but that’s the only good news. All that’s left to eat is three bollos and half a Cuban sandwich, which we divvy up.

“None for you,” Beans tells Kermit. “You already ate more than your share.”

We pile inside the small shack to sleep, lying on the ground next to each other. It’s worse than being forced to watch a Shirley Temple picture. At least a theater is air-conditioned, which is more than I can say for the shack. But that’s not even the worst of it.

The place is buzzing with mosquitoes.

“They’re gonna eat us alive,” Kermit says, smacking his arm.

The boys jostle each other for room.

“Get your elbow out of my face!” Beans snaps.

“It’s not in your face,” Pork Chop says.

I lie on the filthy floor and try to ignore the pests—insect and boy—by telling myself that it’s just one night. There are folks all over the country who’ve lost their homes—they’re living in tents, in boxcars, under bridges. I can survive one night in a shack.

“Stop touching me!” Beans says.

“I’m not!” Pork Chop says.

“This is all your fault anyway,” Beans growls. “If you’d just set the hook …”

“I did!” Pork Chop shouts.

“You didn’t!” Beans shouts back.

Pork Chop leaps up. “I don’t have to take this from you! I’m leaving!”

“No, you ain’t! I’m leaving first,” Beans says, and he rushes past Pork Chop into the night.

Then it’s just me, Ira, and Kermit.

“Well, at least there’s more room now,” Ira says with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Kermit agrees. “And it’ll be quieter, too. Beans snores. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since Turtle got here.”

I smack a mosquito. “You ain’t gonna get a good one tonight. I can’t believe we’re stuck here.”

“We’ll get picked up in the morning. Don’t worry,” Ira says in a reassuring voice. “Just think about how we’re going to spend all this gold.”

The bag of treasure is under his head like a pillow.

“Guess we can afford a new wagon for the gang,” Kermit says.

“We can even get two!” Ira pipes in.

“And all the ice cream we can eat!” Kermit says. “You think I can buy myself a new heart?”

“Sure,” I say. “Be sure to give your old one to Beans. He could use one.”

“What about you, Turtle?” Ira asks. “What are you gonna buy?”

I don’t even have to think it over.

“New shoes,” I say.

“Shoes?” Ira laughs. “Nobody wears shoes around here.”

“Who said I was planning to stick around?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I dream I’m walking into the Bellewood in pretty new shoes—through the front door, under the arch, and into the living room, where Mama and Smokey are waiting for me. It’s so real I can smell Mama’s perfume.

“I told you we’d have a happy ending,” she says with a smile.

Then a mosquito bites me and I wake up in the pitch-dark shack with Ira’s stinky feet in my face and Kermit drooling on my neck. Talk about a good dream turning into a nightmare.

If this was a Hollywood picture, the rescuers would show up at dawn with the sun, the audience would clap, and that would be The End.

When I walk out of the shack in the morning, the only thing that’s shown up is muddy-looking clouds that hang low in the sky. It’s drizzling and we’re all scratching at our mosquito bites. My face feels hot and tight. I wonder what Shirley Temple would do in this situation. Probably sing a song about how fun it is to be stuck on an island.

“Say, you got any of that diaper-rash formula on you?” I ask Ira.

“Why didn’t I think of that in the first place?” he
says, and digs in his pocket. He takes some and then tosses the bag to me.

I smear the powder on the bites and on my sunburned face, too. It helps a little.

My stomach rumbles. “I’m hungry.”

“What if we don’t find anything to eat?” Kermit asks.

“Then we’ll starve to death,” Pork Chop snaps.

The two boys returned to the shack some time during the night. They’re both acting like cranky babies now. Even Pudding is easier to take than these two.

We spread out, foraging. When we meet back up, we toss what we’ve found into a pile: two empty cans, a rotting coconut, and a crab that’s been dead awhile, judging from the smell.

“Can’t even make a cut-up out of this,” Ira says in disgust.

“Maybe we could build a raft?” Pork Chop suggests.

“With what?” Beans asks.

“Wood from the shack,” Pork Chop says.

“Then we won’t have anywhere to sleep!” Kermit protests.

“Who cares about sleeping? Let’s just try and get out of here!”

“We wouldn’t even be here in the first place if you weren’t such a dummy,” Beans says under his breath.

“I got more sense in my bungy than you’ve got in your whole body!” Pork Chop shouts back.

“Sense? Even Buddy knows how to set a hook,” Beans says.

“I’ll show you a hook!” Pork Chop growls, and clocks Beans on the side of the head with a huge roundhouse swing. I practically see stars myself as Beans goes down.

But he doesn’t stay down long. He comes up roaring and rushes Pork Chop, landing on top of him as Pork Chop’s head barely misses a rock.

“Come on, fellas,” Ira says. “Knock it off!”

The boys roll back and forth on the ground, kicking and grunting and throwing wild punches at each other.

What is it with boys and fighting? I’m amazed any of them get to be grown-ups the way they’re always going at it.

I turn to Ira. “If they kill each other, I get their share of the treasure.”

Pork Chop has Beans half-pinned against the ground, with one arm wrapped around Beans’s neck.
Beans’s face is turning bright red when Kermit dives into the mess.

“Get off my brother!” he shouts, and leaps on Pork Chop, and then the three of them are rolling around.

Of course, Ira has to get in on the action, too, although I’m not sure whose side he’s on. I just sit there and watch them. Finally, I can’t take it anymore.

“Hey, look!” I call out. “A boat!”

The boys stop fighting instantly.

“Where?” Pork Chop asks. It looks like someone got in a good punch to his right eye. “Where?”

“It was there just a minute ago,” I say.

Beans wipes a trickle of blood from his nose and gives me a dark look. “There’s no boat! You lied to make us stop fighting.”

“You got me,” I say, looking skyward. “I don’t know
what
I was thinking.”

Pork Chop and Beans aren’t speaking to each other. They sit on opposite sides of the shore, brooding. They’re acting like sweethearts who had a falling-out.

“They should just kiss and make up already.” I look at Kermit. “They ever scrap this bad before?”

He shakes his head. “They’ve been best pals since they were in diapers.”

It rains on and off as we watch for passing ships. The waves are kicking up, foam frothing. Ira, Kermit, and I take turns playing checkers using gold coins and shells.

“I’m starving,” Kermit says.

I know how he feels. I’ve never been this hungry before. Now I know why people go crazy, because all I can think about is food. I picture the fancy ladies’ lunches Mama would make: cheese soufflé, potato salad, buttered nut bread, and her famous caramel custard.

“When we get back, the first thing I’m gonna eat is ice cream,” Kermit says.

“What flavor?” I ask.

He doesn’t hesitate. “Sugar apple.”

“Me too,” I say, and I can practically taste it. “You think anyone’s looking for us?”

“Probably the whole town by now,” Ira says.

Kermit frowns. “I’m not sure I want to be found. Ma’s gonna tan our bungys good. We’re not going to be able to sit for a week.”

“Hey, Ira. Anyone ever tell you that you look like Little Orphan Annie?” I ask him.

“I got eyes in my head. She’s just got circles,” he says, looking past me at the horizon.

“You see a boat?”

“Those low clouds. And the sea foam.”

“What about them?”

“Any Conch kid knows what they mean.”

“Haven’t you figured out I’m not from around here?”

“A storm,” Ira says. “A big one.”

The sky grows dark, and the wind picks up. The rain begins to fall harder, so we take shelter in the shack. Well, those of us who have sense, anyway. Pork Chop and Beans won’t come into the shack because they don’t want to be near each other.

Raindrops pelt the flimsy shack like spitballs. The storm is scarier than anything I’ve ever been in before. I keep waiting for the shack to blow away—and us with it.

“I guess Nana Philly wasn’t as dumb as everyone thought, keeping those shutters up in case of a storm,” Kermit says.

“She’s got more sense than Pork Chop and Beans,” I say.

“They’re just stubborn,” Ira says.

“They’re just dumb,” I say.

I can’t stop thinking about Ira’s brother, Eggy. Dumb kids get hurt. And these are two of the dumbest boys I’ve ever met in my entire life.

“I don’t want to spend all this pirate gold buying a headstone,” I say.

“I’m not going out there!” Kermit says. “I got a weak heart.”

“I’ll go,” Ira offers.

Before Ira can even stand up, the door slams open and Beans is standing there, sopping wet.

“Beans!” Kermit says.

Beans doesn’t say anything; he just pulls the door shut behind him and sits down on the ground.

Water sprays through cracks in the walls and drips in from gaps in the roof. Nearby, a tree snaps.

“Your hand sure is gonna be sore,” I tell Beans.

“From what?”

“From writing
My best friend died in a storm because I was so stubborn
two hundred times.”

“Shut up,” Beans growls.

“Pork Chop’s still out in that,” I say.

“Serves him right,” Beans says.

“He could be dying.”

“He ain’t.”

“How do you know?”

Beans sighs loudly. “Because I passed him on the way in. He’s standing right outside the shack.”

I open the door and look out into the darkness. Sure enough, Pork Chop is huddled next to the shack.

“You coming in or what?” I ask.

He pushes past me into the shack without a word.

Inside, Pork Chop and Beans sit as far away from each other as they can. But this doesn’t last very long because a big wave rushes in and we’re forced to stand up and scoot back until we’re pressed tight against the wobbly wall. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not wearing shoes, because they’d be soaking wet.

“You think the water’s gonna come up any farther?” Ira asks, his voice shaking.

I feel something long and slimy slide over my ankle and go still. I look down to see what seems like a worm disappearing into the shadows. Only I know it isn’t a worm—because worms don’t have whiskers or little feet.

“There’s a rat in here,” I hiss.

“Rat?” Kermit bleats. “Rat?”

“It’s looking to stay high and dry, pal,” Beans says.

“They’re gonna eat us alive!” Kermit whimpers, and then he shrieks. “One just ran over my foot!”

There’s a horrible cracking sound as a piece of the roof is torn away.

“We’re all gonna die,” Pork Chop says in a dull voice.

“Aw, come on, pal,” Beans says awkwardly, but Pork Chop’s too far gone.

“We are! And it’s all my fault because I didn’t throw in the hook!” And then he starts to cry softly.

Pork Chop’s tears break the boys faster than any fistfight. They all start bawling.

Something washes over me and this time it’s not water: it’s
fear
. What good is all this gold if we’re dead? What if I never see Mama again? She doesn’t even know I’m stranded on a key with a bunch of dumb boys. I would give a million bucks just to see her blue eyes and hear her voice one last time. To hug her tight and tell her how much I love her.

The boys are crying, and I feel the fear rising in my throat like a dark tide. I try to push it down, but it bubbles up, it’s swamping me, and I do the only thing I can think of. I start singing that stupid Shirley Temple song.

After a few moments, Beans’s high, squeaky voice joins mine, and then Ira starts singing, Kermit
too, and finally Pork Chop. We sing our hearts out. We’re so good we should be in pictures; we should get a screen test with Warner Brothers. I can see our names in lights already.

The wind howls, but the Diaper Gang of Key West belts out a song as the angry storm washes everything away.

Little Orphan Annie and Terry Lee get into scrapes, but they always get rescued. Everything ends up okay in the end. But it turns out that real life’s not like the funny pages.

When morning comes, no one’s knocking down the door looking for us. It’s still raining on and off, and windy.

Trees have been blown over and the ocean water is cloudy, the bottom churned up from the storm. There’s debris everywhere and the key looks smaller, as if it’s been swallowed up by the ocean.

We sit in the shack, our stomachs growling. We’re past talking; there’s nothing to say. We all know it: nobody’s going to find us. We’re done for.

The brash, cocky members of the Diaper Gang are gone, and in their place are scared kids who dream of being in their mothers’ arms. Kermit’s the worst, though. The boy who hates naps just sleeps and sleeps.

Night falls again and this time it’s almost a relief. I think it’s easier for the boys to cry in the dark. But I’m dry-eyed; crying wouldn’t even touch the feeling inside me. We press into each other for comfort, no complaining now. Sometime during those long hours, Beans reaches for my hand without a word, and I fall asleep with his fingers curled in mine.

I dream that I’m sitting next to Shirley Temple. She isn’t as cute in person as she is on the screen. And she’s definitely wearing too much lipstick.