What I cared about was the next thing I had to do. This was simple. All I had to do was hold still, floating just below the surface, while friendly creatures piled cool mud on my back. Lots of mud. Heavy mud. Mud with trees growing. Mud with mountains. Mud with rivers, birds, animals, humans.
I sang the turtle song while all this mud-bringing and mud-building was going on. I was happy to hold still for it. I was happy to be of help. As the mud world got heavy, another turtle, as large as myself, rose up under me and helped support me on his back. Under him, another turtle came, and another, down into the darkness.
CHAPTER 79
Pop!
I really liked being the Great Turtle, and supporting all of North America, or the world, or creation, on my back. I'd have thought a job like that would get boring, but it didn't. I could have done it forever. I had almost forgotten all about being Neddie.
Until I popped out of a little pond at the La Brea Tar Pits. I, Neddie, the same one I'd been before I met Kkhkktonos in the coliseum. Except for being all wet, with creosote on me, I was the same as I'd been. Everything else looked to be the same as it had been too: the little wire fences around the ponds—I had to climb over one to get out—the traffic on Wilshire Boulevard, all just the same. I even had the stone turtle in my pocket—I'll keep it until it's time to give it to the next person.
I like it here. I've been coming here a lot. I sit on this bench, with my parakeet, Henry, on my shoulder. I've been writing down everything that happened to me in this big school notebook. And I've got it all written, pretty much right up to the moment. I was going to write about what happened to Bunyip, and Seamus, and Aaron Finn, and Iggy and Billy the Phantom Bellboy, and what they are doing ... but I've run out of space. It seems I have come to the last line of the last page.
The Neddiad Page 17