Beat the Turtle Drum by Constance C. Greene Page B

Please, Joss, let me have a ride. Will he bite? Let me feed him. Nice old Prince, nice horsie.”
    The voices rose and fell like moths in the twilight. When Prince was installed in our nice neat garage, Mr. Essig drove off.
    â€œI’ll be back for him next Saturday,” he said before he went. “Don’t forget to water him every day. And don’t work him too hard. He ain’t as young as he used to be.”
    Prince no sooner took a look around to get his bearings than he lifted his tail and went to the bathroom on our clean floor. Naturally that brought down the house.
    I could hear Jim Schneider’s guffaw above everybody else’s. He had the kind of laugh that always sounded as if he’d heard a dirty joke. The Jim Schneiders of this world give me a royal pain.
    Alice and Tess went on whispering behind their hands. They are that kind of girl. I think if their hands were tied behind their backs, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all, they’d be so inhibited.
    Tootie got quite bold. After all, he was used to horses. He went right up to Prince, proffering a lump of sugar on his outstretched palm.
    Tootie’s older brother Harry shouted in a gruff voice, “Back off, baby, he might attack.” But Tootie stood his ground. He reached up and casually patted Prince’s nose. I was delighted. Harry was the main Tootie tormenter in the family. For once, Tootie was the top man. He knew exactly what he was doing.
    â€œHe won’t bite me,” Tootie kept saying in a hearty voice. “You won’t bite me, will you, old boy?” I knew he was scared, but he didn’t back off. Harry kept saying, “What a gas!” over and over, trying to pretend that he hadn’t noticed that for once Tootie had the upper hand.
    It got to be suppertime. The crowd started to disperse. Either their stomachs or their mothers and fathers called them. Sam was going to a concert with his brothers. He said he’d check in in the morning. Pretty soon we were alone—Joss, me, Harry and Tootie.
    â€œYou better come home with me or you’ll catch it from Dad,” Harry said.
    â€œOh, it’s all right for him to stay,” Joss said loftily. “My mother called up your mother and asked if Tootie could stay for dinner. It’s my birthday and I want him there. Your mother said it was all right if we brought him home. You can just run along, Harry.”
    I could’ve kissed her. The look on Tootie’s face practically lit up the air around him.
    â€œYeah, just run along, Harry,” he said happily. “I get to stay for dinner.”
    â€œBig baby,” Harry muttered.” Stays for dinner with his girl friend.”
    My mother called us then, and we ran, leaving Harry and Prince together in the dusk. The mosquitoes were beginning to bite like fury. I hoped a large one would get hold of Harry and hang on until it’d drained him dry.
    For dinner we had lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and my father opened a bottle of red wine when we had eaten the cake and ice cream. I had a small glass, and Tootie and Joss had ginger ale in wine glasses.
    Joss opened her presents at the table. My mother and father gave her a pair of pale yellow jodhpurs and a riding crop. I gave her a saddle pad so that the saddle she’d borrowed from Anne Tracy, who lives down the street, wouldn’t rub Prince. She put Tootie’s rock by her plate with the other things.
    â€œA toast,” my father said, lifting his glass. “To the birthday girl. May she live to be old and wise and have lots of horses.”
    â€œAnd may she get a good job so she can afford to feed all those horses,” my mother said.
    â€œAnd may she not get to look like a horse the way people get to look like their dogs,” I added.
    Tootie wanted to toast Joss too. He lifted his glass, which was already empty. “May she be as nice when she gets big,” he said. We all cheered and