Free Beat the Turtle Drum by Constance C. Greene Page B

didn’t make a sound.
    â€œJoss!” I called down to her. “Are you all right?”
    She looked very little lying there. My tongue felt thick in my mouth.
    â€œAnswer me or I’ll let you have it,” I shouted. She didn’t move.
    â€œIf you’re teasing me, I’ll let you have it!”
    The air was heavy. It pushed against me as I tried to climb down to Joss. My arms and legs were stiff and old. The backs of my hands prickled the way they had once when we almost had an accident on the parkway. A long time later I dropped to the ground. I ran to Joss and put my hand on her shoulder. She lay there.
    â€œI’ll call Mom—she’ll know what to do,” I said. I started to run toward the house. I looked back. She was still there.
    â€œMom,” I shouted, “come quick! Joss fell out of the tree. I think she’s hurt!”
    â€œDear sweet Jesus,” my mother said, pulling the iron cord out of the socket. She was ironing a pair of shorts. They were blue. The iron fell on the floor. We ran back to where Joss lay.
    â€œMy God, my God!” my mother said over and over. She touched Joss very gently. “Baby,” she said. “Baby?”
    We knelt by Joss’s side. “Stay with her,” my mother screamed as she raced toward the house.
    When she came back, her hands were shaking.
    â€œI called the ambulance,” she said. We sat by Joss. My mother put her hand on Joss’s head. Her eyelashes didn’t flutter. In the distance we could hear the siren. They got there very fast. A police car came up behind the ambulance. The men slid Joss onto the stretcher as if she weighed only a couple of pounds.
    My mother held my hand very tight. “Stay with me,” she said. “Please stay with me.” I wasn’t going anywhere.
    They put a blanket over Joss. We rode, all three of us and some men, together to the hospital. My mother kept saying, “There, there, it’s going to be all right, Jossie, it’s going to be all right,” the way she used to when we were little.
    â€œThere, there, it’s going to be all right.”

Nothing will ever be all right again. Joss is dead. They told us she had died instantly. Her neck was broken. There was nothing anyone could have done. Nothing.
    I don’t know how we got home, my mother and I. One minute we were in the emergency room at the hospital, the next we were standing in our living room. There were people there. I remember seeing Mrs. Spicer and Mrs. Furness, who lived down the street, and Dr. Willis. He went upstairs with my mother. He had his little bag with him. When he came down, he said, “I gave her something to make her sleep for a while. Has her husband been notified?”
    I sat on a chair in the dining room. I looked at them. Mrs. Spicer had rollers in her hair. She kissed me. Her eyes were full of tears. A couple of my mother’s friends came in. They were crying. I didn’t cry.
    â€œI have to wait for my father,” I said to someone who said I should come over to their house for a while. “My father is coming right away. He’ll expect me to be here when he gets here.”
    Mrs. Spicer made me a cup of tea. It didn’t taste as good as Mrs. Essig’s coffee.
    The telephone rang and rang. Someone must have answered it, because it never rang more than once or twice. Everyone talked in very low voices. I waited for my father. I didn’t know what I would say to him when he got here.
    After a long time a police car pulled up outside our house. My father got out along with two policemen. They must’ve brought him home from the station.
    He stood for a minute, his head down. Then he came inside.
    â€œKate,” he said. “My darling Kate. What are we going to do?”
    I had no answer. He kissed me and held me against him.
    â€œI must go to see her,” he said. I didn’t know who he meant for a minute. He went