The Neddiad

by Daniel Pinkwater

  "There are stories of a sacred turtle," Peter the Faceless Man broke in. "It is made of meteoric stone, quite small in size. The Native American peoples consider it to have remarkable magical powers, though it is not certain it is of Indian origin. It may be the turtle written about by Herodotus and Xenophon in the fifth century B.C. Ptolemy the Fifth of Egypt is said to have had such a turtle around 192 B.C. Constantine the Great may have had it in the fourth century A.D. It somehow found its way to Vienna in the eighteenth century. The story goes that Lorenzo Da Ponte got the turtle from Casanova, and had it with him when he arrived in Philadelphia in 1805. When Da Ponte died in 1838, he left the turtle in his will to an American Indian friend of his, Mad Rabbit, of the wolf clan of the Tuscarora nation of the six-nation Iroquois confederacy. After that, the turtle was in Native American hands, and ultimately all record of it was lost. Of course, I don't know if any of this is true. It's a story I was told by an old man in an all-night doughnut shop in Jersey City years and years ago."

  "Did the old man say what was so magic, or so sacred, about the turtle?" Iggy asked.

  "No, he did not," Peter the Faceless Man said. "And now that I think of it, he seemed to be quite mad. It is, if it really exists, the rarest and most valuable turtle, real or artificial, on the planet."

  "Sounds like it," Clive Montague said. "Sholmos Bunyip would probably pay millions for a turtle like that. I say, Peter, let's have another Russian song!"

  CHAPTER 46

  On the Way Home

  Walking back to the Hermione Hotel after our hot dog supper at Al's house, Yggdrasil said, "Those baby leopards were cute."

  "Yes, they were, Iggy," I said. Iggy smiled, and did not pop me in the nose.

  "That was some story Peter the Faceless Man told about the turtle," Seamus said. "Do you think it could be as old as that?"

  "He said it may be the turtle that was written about by Herodotus, and those other guys," Iggy said. "It may be. It could just be a story."

  "Or it could be true," Seamus said.

  "I want to have another look at it," Iggy said. "Let's drop in at Stuffed Stuff 'n' Stuff tomorrow."

  "What I don't understand is why Melvin the shaman gave it to me in the first place," I said. "If it's so old and valuable, I mean."

  "We should ask him," Seamus said. "Sergeant Caleb admitted he was Melvin the shaman. And, by the way, how could he be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, just when you happened to come through, when he's at the school every day?"

  "Yes, we need to ask him about that too," I said.

  "You don't suppose he gave the turtle to Neddie in order to smuggle it to California?" Iggy said. "Maybe so he could sell it to that turtle-collecting guy, Sholmos Bunyip?"

  "The father of the idiot Bunyip who goes to our school," Seamus said.

  "No, I don't think Melvin is like that," I said.

  "I don't either," Seamus Finn said. "Sergeant Caleb wouldn't do anything sneaky."

  "Besides, why would he give me the turtle to smuggle for him, and then tell everybody? Half the people I met on the way here knew about it. Of course, a couple of them were him."

  We walked some more.

  "I want to work in the circus, and maybe go on wild animal—collecting expeditions, like Clive Montague," Iggy said.

  "So do I," Seamus said.

  "I do too," I said.

  CHAPTER 47

  Gone!

  The next day was Sunday, and Seamus and I were going to miss waffles again to have breakfast with Iggy. We had tried to get her to have breakfast at our apartment, but she wanted to go to the Rolling Doughnut again. She said it was traditional.

  When Iggy turned up in the lobby of the Hermione Hotel, she was wearing blue jeans instead of her usual frilly dress! She also had on a gray sweatshirt, the kind with a hood attached, and basketball shoes. Seamus and I were amazed.

  "I didn't think you even owned clothes like that," Seamus said.

  "If I am going to be called Iggy, I may as well look like an Iggy," Iggy said. "You will miss the woman of elegance I used to be."

  Iggy, in her informal costume, fit in better with the slob clientele at the Rolling Doughnut. We had coffee with our doughnuts again—it was the only place Seamus or I ever had coffee. Whether kids are supposed to drink coffee is a sort of gray area. Some people think it's bad for kids and will lead them to cigarettes or maybe juvenile delinquency. Some don't think it matters. Seamus and I put lots and lots of milk and sugar in ours. Iggy had hers black.

  After three doughnuts and two coffees apiece, we strolled over to Stuffed Stuff 'n' Stuff. The door was unlocked as always, and Steve Kraft was having breakfast.

  "Care for doughnuts, kids?" Steve said. "I'm afraid all I have to drink is coffee—I don't suppose you use it."

  "We've had our breakfast, thanks," Iggy said. "Mind if we just browse around?"

  "Go ahead. Educate yourselves," Steve said. "If you want to know about anything, just holler."

  We threaded through the narrow aisles between the stuffed animals, the fake works of art, and the spooky made-up medical specimens in jars. When we got to the place where Steve kept his fake sacred turtle—really the real sacred turtle—it wasn't there! We were only a little worried—probably Steve Kraft had moved it. We looked around but didn't see it.

  "Steve," Seamus said, "where did you put the sacred turtle that was here next to the stuffed jack-alope?"

  "Gone," Steve said, with a mouth full of doughnut.

  "Gone? You sold it? You told us you would never sell it!"

  "I hadn't planned to," Steve Kraft said. "It was my finest work of fakery. But this guy came in and made me such an offer! I just had to let it go."

  "You sold it? You sold it?"

  "I'm going to make another, and he not only gave me a huge wad of money—he threw in an almost authentic Eskimo hunting hat. You just can't get those—even phony ones. Want to see it?"

  "You sold the turtle? You said you would never sell the turtle!"

  "Well, it's a store. People buy things. He paid me a thousand dollars. Guy must have been nuts."

  "Who was this guy?" Iggy asked.

  "It was Nick Bluegum. A well-known collector. By the way, he really does have blue gums," Steve said.

  "Nick Bluegum!" Seamus whispered.

  "Also known as Sandor Eucalyptus!" I whispered.

  "Oh, this is bad, isn't it?" Iggy whispered.

  "I think it's very bad," I said.

  CHAPTER 48

  Very Bad

  There was only one thing to do. We found a pay phone, and I dialed the number of the main gate at Brown-Sparrow. Sergeant Caleb—Melvin the shaman—answered.

  "Sergeant ... Melvin ... it's Neddie. We need to talk to you. It's serious."

  "I bet it's something about the turtle," Sergeant Melvin said. "I'm just going off duty. You know where the Rolling Doughnut is? I'll meet you there in twenty minutes."

  CHAPTER 49

  Questions and Answers

  When Sergeant Caleb turned up at the Rolling Doughnut, he was not wearing his crisp marine uniform. He was not wearing the plain nondescript clothes he wore when I met him as Melvin the shaman. He was wearing a red and black striped sweater, black and white shoes, and a little black cap with a red pompom on top—also big sunglasses with black plastic frames. He got four jelly doughnuts, and four coffees, and carried them to the picnic table where Seamus, Iggy, and I were sitting, waiting for him.

  "I got Bismarcks for everyone," Sergeant Caleb said.

  "Bismarcks?"

  "Named for Otto von Bismarck, born 1815, died 1898, prime minister of Prussia from 1862 to 1873, and the chancellor of Germany from 1871 to 1890. I don't know what he had to do with jelly doughnuts—maybe he liked them."

  Before this, we had ordered plain doughnuts at the Rolling Doughnut. We bit into the Bismarcks and they squirted jelly, into our mouths and down our chins. They were all right, but I didn't think I would be switching to them on future visits.

 
"Archaeologists have found petrified doughnuts in prehistoric ruins in the Southwest," Sergeant Caleb said. "No one knows how far back they go. The Dutch made olie-koecken, or oily-cakes—the Puritans ate them. Some people credit the modern doughnut to the mother of Captain Hanson Crockett Gregory, a sea captain—his mother used to make them for him to take on his voyages. Captain Gregory claimed to be the first person to knock a hole in the middle of an oily-cake."

  "That's very interesting," I said. "But we wanted to talk about—"

  "There's more," Sergeant Caleb said. "In the 1920s, a Russian immigrant living in New York, named Adolph Levitt, invented a doughnut machine—probably just like the one here at the Rolling Doughnut. Machine-made doughnuts were a sensation at the Chicago World's Fair of 1934, and Levitt made millions selling doughnut machines."

  "Are you actually a real shaman?" I asked Sergeant Caleb.

  "I am a retired sergeant in the United States Marine Corps," Sergeant Caleb said. "And a shaman, but I don't practice."

  "Are you really a Navajo Indian?" I asked, quickly, before he could shift back to the history of doughnuts.

  "Everybody who knows me says I am," Sergeant Caleb said. "You can ask anyone."

  This was sort of a twisty answer—but to press the question would have been impolite, as if I were accusing him of posing as a Navajo. I decided he wasn't, but I didn't know what that might mean one way or the other.

  Seamus Finn abandoned specific questions and tried another approach. "Tell us everything about the turtle."

  "It's very old," Sergeant Melvin Caleb said. "No one knows for sure how old." He took a sip of his coffee. Then he sat there silently. He was good at silences.

  Back to direct questions, I asked, "Does it have special powers? Magical ones?"

  "Yes." Melvin was ready to tell us the whole history of the common doughnut, but getting him to talk about what we wanted him to talk about was a heavy struggle.

  "Where did you get it?" Iggy asked.

  "I got it from another shaman," Melvin said.

  "Another shaman?" Iggy followed up.

  "Yes."

  "What was his name?" Iggy wasn't going to quit.

  "Ed."

  "Ed? His name was Ed?" Iggy sounded calm, but she was tapping her basketball shoe under the table.

  "Yes. Ed the shaman."

  "Do I have to ask where Ed the shaman got it?"

  "From another shaman. I think her name was Susie."

  "So, are we correct in assuming the turtle has gone from shaman to shaman for a long time?" Iggy asked.

  "That's right," Melvin said.

  "And why did you give the turtle to Neddie?" Iggy asked. "He's not a shaman."

  "You don't know that he's not," Melvin said.

  "I'm not," I said.

  "You don't know that you're not," Melvin said. "People are shamans before they know they are—so you could be. And the reason I gave the turtle to Neddie was that I was told to."

  "Who told you to, another shaman?" Seamus asked.

  "Maybe. Maybe it was another shaman. Maybe it was a whole lot of shamans. Most likely it was the turtle itself. Anyway, I knew I was supposed to give it to him."

  "The turtle itself told you to give it to me?"

  "More or less."

  "Do you know why you were supposed to give it to me?"

  "You realize this is official shaman stuff we're talking about, and technically I'm not supposed to discuss it with anybody," Melvin said. "But to answer your question, not exactly. I suppose because you were the next step in the turtle's destiny—but I'm only guessing."

  Iggy was waving her hand in the air as though she were in class. "Oooh! Oooh! What is the turtle's destiny?"

  "Every so often ... not very often, really ... every hundred years, or several hundred years, there's a kind of ... thing that happens."

  "Thing? What kind of thing?"

  "Well, like an eruption, or an earthquake, but not exactly. It's not just like this, but it's sort of as if there were very old powers, underground, sort of, and they are dead, only they aren't. Once in a while they wake up and try to come back, and if that were to happen everything would go topsy-turvy. Imagine if all of a sudden there were dinosaurs again, or saber-tooth cats, things like that."

  "I might like to see that," Iggy said.

  "Not close up, you wouldn't," Melvin said. "Anyway, the turtle plays a role when that happens—it helps keep things from getting out of order. Sort of stabilizes things—up is up, down is down, alive is alive, and extinct is extinct. Turtle is very important. Sort of an evolutionary compass."

  "Uh-oh," I said.

  CHAPTER 50

  A Serious Mistake

  "Um, Sergeant Caleb, I sort of lost the turtle," I said.

  "Lost it?"

  Then I told Sergeant Caleb all about switching the turtle with the fake turtle at Steve Kraft's store, and how I thought it would be safe if Sandor Eucalyptus, also known as Nick Bluegum, caught up with me, but he caught up with the turtle instead, and how I knew that he, Melvin the shaman, had told me to take care of it, and how I was very sorry and had made a serious mistake.

  "Anybody want another doughnut?" Melvin asked. "I'm going to have one."

  "Wait!" I said. "It's pretty serious that I let the turtle fall into that guy's hands, isn't it?"

  "I don't know," Sergeant Melvin said. "Maybe that is the turtle's destiny. Maybe you were supposed to do that. Maybe it told you to do that."

  "We have an idea that Nick Bluegum is going to sell the turtle to a guy named Sholmos Bunyip," Iggy said. "He's raving mad for turtles and really rich."

  "Well, if that happens, it's probably what's supposed to happen," Sergeant Shaman said. "I don't suppose there would be any harm unless Sholmos Bunyip is an evil person. Then it might be serious."

  "We know his son," Seamus said.

  "Is he an evil person?" the sergeant asked.

  "He shows every sign of being one," Seamus said.

  CHAPTER 51

  What to Do?

  "What should we do?" I asked Sergeant Caleb.

  "Do about what?" Sergeant Caleb asked.

  "About the turtle," I said.

  "You think there's something we should be doing?"

  "Yes. What if Sholmos Bunyip is an evil person? What if the turtle falls into his hands? What if one of those events, like the old powers waking up, happens?"

  "First of all, those events ... that's a good word for it, events ... happen a long time apart. When the next one happens, Sholmos Bunyip might be long gone and the turtle might have moved on many times. Anyway, it's your turtle—for now—I gave it to you. No one gave it to Nick Bluegum, and if he sells it, no one will have given it to whomever he sells it to. A thing like that has to be given—it can't be sold, traded, or stolen. You have to give it to the next person, and something will tell you when it's time to do that, and whom to give it to."

  "But I don't even have it," I said.

  "You have the one you switched at that fellow's store," Sergeant Caleb said.

  "Yes, but it's a fake," I said.

  "Is it? Let's see it," Melvin the shaman said. I dug the turtle out of my pocket and handed it to Sergeant Caleb.

  "Pretty good," he said. "I tell you what ... hang on to this one, and don't worry about anything."

  I was confused.

  "I hope you boys realize that, even though we've had doughnuts together, when we meet at school, conduct must be strictly military," Sergeant Caleb said.

  "Yes, Sergeant Caleb," Seamus and I said.

  "No 'How's it going, Melvin?' or anything like that, especially if anyone else is around."

  We understood.

  "Well, I'm going to the music store now to see if they have a new Dizzy Gillespie record. Don't worry, Cadet Wentworthstein. Everything is in good order."

  "Thanks for the Bismarcks," we said.

  CHAPTER 52

  Doctor Seamus

  Bruce Bunyip was showing signs of becoming antisoc
ial again. I should say more antisocial—he had continued to be repellent and obnoxious, but had backed off of slugging people after Seamus Finn crushed him in a contest of wills. Now, after having time to get used to the school, and also to sprout a monster wart on his sloping forehead, he was starting to threaten again.

  "I think Cadet Bunyip needs another session," Seamus Finn said.

  "Are you going to do Count Caravaggio again?" Al asked him.

  "No, this time I am going to do Dr. Hershberg, the kindly psychiatrist, as played by my father in Ode to Freud, a change-of-pace role."

  Seamus somehow made his face soft and his eyes sad and friendly. We followed him, looking for Bunyip. We found him behind the gym, stripping the bark off a tree.

  Seamus put his hand on Bunyip's burly shoulder. "You're not a happy boy, are you, Bruce?" Seamus said softly.

  "I'm not?" the abominable Bunyip asked.

  "People don't appreciate you," Seamus said.

  "They don't!" Bunyip said.

  "You're sensitive."

  "I am!" Bunyip said. "I have a kitten at home, and I don't torture it or anything."

  "Of course you don't," Seamus said. "You love your kitten."

  "My mommy doesn't love me!" Bunyip wailed. "She went back to Switzerland. She says my father is a monster and I'm a monster too."

  "How sad," Seamus said.

  "I hate the Swiss," Bunyip said.

  "Everybody does."

  "If I peel the bark off all the way around, this tree will die."