Read Online Beat the Turtle Drum by Constance C. Greene - Free Book Online

clapped, and my father got up and came around the table to kiss Joss. We took Tootie home, then went right to bed.
    â€œIt was the best birthday,” Joss said sleepily. She’d been out four times to check on Prince. If it hadn’t been for the mosquitoes, she would’ve slept in the garage. “It was perfect. I’ll see you in the morning,” and she was asleep.

“One if by land, two if by sea, guess who’s looking out the window, it’s Miss Pemberthy,” I said the next morning. Not a bad poem just on the spur of the moment, I thought. “She’s got her nose pressed against the window. I’ll bet she’ll be on the telephone in five seconds.”
    Joss had saddled up Prince and ridden him around the back yard before anyone was awake. Then, after breakfast, we rode him bareback with me in the rear and took him up in the front yard. It’s a funny thing about a horse. When you’re standing next to him he doesn’t look that big, but, boy, when you’re on his back, it seems a long way to the ground.
    I put my arms around her waist and held on.
    â€œYou’re strangling me,” Joss protested, so I let up a little. Only a little, though.
    We heard the telephone ring inside, and my mother answered. “Oh, yes, of course, how are you, Miss Pemberthy?” she said in a loud voice.
    â€œWhat’d I tell you?” I said. “She’ll blow her cork. She’ll imagine the whole neighborhood is turning into one huge stable, covered with horse turds.”
    â€œShe probably had her binoculars out last night when Mr. Essig came over,” Joss said. Long ago we’d decided Miss Pemberthy spent about twenty-two hours a day at the window with her binoculars trained on our house. At her age she didn’t need much sleep. There wasn’t anything she missed. Once, in the middle of the night, my mother and father had to rush me to the hospital because they thought I was having an appendicitis attack. It turned out to be just a severe stomach-ache, but they’d scarcely gotten back inside the house when the phone rang and it was Miss Pemberthy asking what was wrong.
    â€œShould I?” Joss turned Prince in the direction of the “NO TURNING” sign. “A turd is what I think it is, right?”
    â€œA turd is a piece of excrement,” I told her. I learned that from Ellen Spicer. When she wasn’t combating dry skin, she spent a lot of time learning what she thought were dirty words out of the dictionary. Turd is a very descriptive word. It’s too bad I don’t get a chance to use it more often.
    â€œI’ll be right back,” I said and slipped off Prince. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”
    When I picked up the extension in the kitchen, Miss Pemberthy was saying, “I simply could not believe my eyes. I could not believe these old eyes of mine. A horse across the street! In a neighborhood that is certainly not zoned for horses. Oh, my, what a shock!”
    â€œMy dear Miss Pemberthy,” my mother said in a special voice she uses for tense occasions, “yesterday was Joss’s birthday. She’s been saving her money for ages. She’s just rented him. For a week.… No, she doesn’t own the horse.”
    Between sputters, Miss Pemberthy said, “I cannot permit such desecration of a first-class neighborhood. I will have to report this to the proper authorities.”
    â€œI’m sorry you feel this way,” my mother said, her voice sliding from soft to sharp. “As I said, it’s only for a week. Joss has every intention of keeping him inside our property line. She has promised us, and she’s a very trustworthy child.”
    There was a silence. I could hear Miss Pemberthy breathing. “Far be it from me,” she said, “to interfere with a child’s pleasure. Far be it from me. I was a child once myself, you know,” and she made a