Read Online The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye - Free Book Online Page A

there have been more wolves spotted in the northern wilderness lately . . . but if it’s in the city, I think it is a fox. Do foxes lick themselves the way cats do? I don’t know that, do you? Do you think of a fox as being more like a cat or a dog?”
    â€œA cat. But a wild cat.”
    â€œI think it’s in between. I think it’s just itself, not like either of them.”
    The jeep was hardly a smooth ride, but Aref loved it. He pretended he was riding a horse. Sulima took horseback riding lessons at the Muscat Equestrian School and Aref had gone with her parents once, to observe a special display of proud Arabian horses (wearing flower necklaces and headdresses) doing tricks and jumps. Sulima loved it, but Aref’s parents had never wanted him to ride a horse. They were afraid he’d hurt himself.
    Aref gripped the door handle and fiddled with the radio with his other hand. Voices floated in from outer space. He liked the crackling, the scraps of messages and music that didn’t really connect. Arabic and English and Farsi mixed together when you flipped quickly from one station to another.
    They heard a faraway voice mentioning “A NEW MUSEUM!!!” and Aref said, “Where do you think this is coming from?”
    â€œAbu Dhabi—for sure,” Sidi said.
    Aref twiddled the dial, letting more voices crackle out.
    â€œBasra! Bahrain! Doha!” said Sidi.
    Monsieur rumbled past long lines of palm trees and wadis. They passed an ancient sand-colored fort with holes in the walls. In the distance loomed an old blue-tiled mosque with a minaret. They sang a bird song in Arabic, with a chorus of “Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!” and Aref clapped his hands. Sidi snapped the fingers of one hand. They waved at people driving in the other direction and those people waved back.
    And sure enough, just as Aref had known they would, they took detours. They turned down a tiny road near a donkey stall and stopped at a field so Sidi could collect some stones that were orange, speckled and strange.
    â€œI think these fell from another planet,” he said. “They were meteorites that hit the earth. They came blasting down when I was a boy and split into pieces. I have always meant to stop. And look! So many. Still here.”
    Sidi dropped one into Aref’s hand and the other stones into a canvas bag in the back of his jeep. Aref stared at his chunk of meteorite, which seemed very fresh despite being so old, and whispered, “Hello, outer space. Hello, faraway galaxies.”
    When they pulled in at Mohammed’s shop, which seemed to Aref to sit too far off the road to have any customers ever, there was bad news for Sidi—another man named Sami was sitting behind the dusty counter. He said Mohammed caught a ride into Muscat to check on his foot.
    â€œ Harram , what’s wrong with his foot?” Sidi asked.
    â€œIf he knew, he would fix it!” said Sami, and the two men laughed together.
    â€œWell, tell him my two feet stopped to wish his foot well,” said Sidi, “and Aref’s feet did too, and we will come back another time, in three years maybe.”
    â€œI will tell him,” said Sami. “I am sure his foot will be grateful. Would you like some falafel? I just made a fresh batch.”
    Sidi bought two steaming hot falafel sandwiches, which they ate outside by a chipped green plant pot shaped like a frog.
    Then they zoomed down the golden-brown highway like two meteorites speeding through the heavens. It was incredible how much energy a falafel sandwich could give you. Sidi put on his sunglasses and sang a song in Arabic about a beautiful day and sunshine bathing the ground. Aref noticed the jeep rising to a higher altitude, its nose tipping up, up.
    Before they got well into the mountains, Sidi pulled over to check out a watermelon stand. Ripe chunks of deep red watermelon were displayed on a table with a plastic cover over them, like a