The Turtle of Oman (13 page)

World Traveler Leaves Friendly Note in Empty Closet

W
hen Sidi showed up in the middle of their last afternoon at home with fresh hot pita bread from the bakery, the house smelled instantly delicious. “You all need some energy over here,” he said. “I don't think you're going to the bakery anymore, so I went one last time for you.”

Aref pulled off a triangular piece of warm bread and stuffed it into his mouth. His mother cut up their very last chunk of salty white cheese.

“I think we forgot to have lunch,” she said. They filled some bread with pitted dates and cheese. It was the best meal in the world.

“I'm here to work!” Sidi announced when they were all full. “What do you need done?”

“Can you get our slowpoke to finish packing his suitcase, please?” asked Aref's mother. “No more delays! He needs to pick his very favorite clothes, and whatever he wants that fits into that suitcase, today, absolutely today! All other things will have to be packed into our last open boxes and stored. That room must be completely empty except for furniture when we leave.”

Aref closed his eyes and pinched up his cheeks.

“Let's go! I'll help you if you help yourself,” said Sidi as they climbed the stairs to his room. “You take all the shirts and pants out of your closet and drawers and pile them on the bed. No more playing around.”

Aref loaded his arms with hangers and clothes and threw them on the bed, falling on top of them.

“Perfect!” said Sidi. “Now I'll hold each one up and you say yes or no.”

He held up a yellow shirt.

Aref said, “No!”

He held up a green shirt with one wide white stripe around the middle.

“No!”

“Come on now, sailor-boy, are you going to go naked in Michigan? You have to say YES sometimes or your mom will make all the decisions and you don't want that to happen, right?”

So Aref said yes to a navy blue shirt and a black shirt with a yellow sun and OMAN on it. He said yes to a maroon sweatshirt, blue shorts, long pants with cuffs, a brown sweater, and blue jeans. Mish-Mish was sitting in the corner of the room watching them. “Do you think she knows?” Aref asked.

“Yes. But she is . . . patient. She will wait for you, as I will.”

Together they folded underpants and white T-shirts.

“Let's get this job done, then go out and have ice cream,” said Sidi. “Good idea? You like black socks? Sports socks? Why do you have a thousand socks?”

Sidi was folding the last pair of blue jeans now. “See, it doesn't take long at all. These look a little small,” he said, holding them up. “Would you like to leave these here?”

“YES! Throw them away! Tell me the story about the big pan and the little pan. The talking donkey. The monkey with a hat on his bottom!” Aref knew the big pan would be the mother of the little pan. The donkey would say, “Slow down, human race.” The monkey would ask, “Who told you a hat has to go on a head?”

“You know them all,” said Sidi. “You will carry the stories in here.” He held up Aref's small feather pillow. “Tuck this into your suitcase right this minute. Remember when you got it? Of course you don't, you were just a baby. But I brought it to you. Every time you sleep, my stories will be in there whispering. Now tell me one thing—will you still be a big eater when you come back?”

“For sure. A big talker and a big eater. Maybe even a bigger eater. Or, a faster one.”

“You will also be tall and a world traveler. The boy who saw another country and came home again. The boy who saw snow.”

Now they had the books to deal with. It was horrible to leave books behind.

“I'd just keep them right here on the shelves for your cousins to enjoy. You know, you can start fresh with new books when you get to America,” Sidi suggested. “They have plenty of books there. Get a library card, go to the library, check out new books every week, like you do here. Maybe you shouldn't take any of these.”

“No, I have to,” Aref said. He grabbed the two new books he had been saving to read on the plane. One was about Egyptian relics and tombs and pharaohs and the other was the diary of a couple of friends who rode bicycles across America, having adventures all the way.

“You know what I thought of?” said Sidi. “You could write a welcome note to Hani and Shadi and tape it inside the closet on the wall.”

Aref paused before answering. “You think? Would they like that?”

“Sure, they would. Who wouldn't? Wouldn't you like to find a friendly note taped inside your new closet in Michigan?”

So Aref found one last piece of orange construction paper and wrote in dark blue marker: “
Ahlan!
Welcome to the cool cave room! I hope you will be very nice to Mish-Mish. Pet her a lot and she will be happy. Be careful, she scratches if she's mad. Have fun living here! Send me some e-mails! LOVE, AREF.”

He drew a big star at the top and made swooshing marks so the star looked as if it were flying across the sky. He taped his note to the wall inside the closet.

“They will like it,” Aref said.

Sidi laughed. “See, that's the spirit!”

“Hey, happy people, I made you something you love downstairs,” Mom called.

They could smell it. She'd been stirring rice and milk and cinnamon in a big pot, making rice pudding, their favorite dessert. They liked it even more than ice cream. Aref sniffed the cinnamon and knew his house was smiling.

“Guess what?” Aref's mother said. “I just finished the bag of cinnamon. That means it's almost time to leave!”

The Rule of Muscat

S
idi took the last small piece of white paper still sitting on Aref's desk and wrote something on it, closed his eyes and wrote some more, then folded the paper up very tiny and tucked it into the inside pocket of Aref's suitcase. “This says I will visit Mish-Mish with special cat treats when you are gone, and I will be waiting for the telephone to ring every Sunday when you and your parents call to tell me what is going on. Also, there are some secret messages on it.”

Aref reached toward the suitcase pocket. He wanted to unfold it now.

“No!” Sidi tapped his hand back. “You can't look at it till you get there. It is the rule of Muscat.” Then he took some stones Aref couldn't see from his pocket, kissed them, and slipped them into the pouch where the note was. He clapped his hands and smiled.

Strange Animal

A
ref and Sidi were sitting outside on the peaceful back patio for the last time, the evening before Aref and his mother left for the United States. Empty bowls from their rice pudding rested close together on the table. They had each eaten two full bowls. Silver spoons leaned in the bowls like little spoon-flags. The warm wind smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, same as the pudding. Sometimes you felt exactly where you were, and nowhere else.

Aref pressed the buttons on a remote control that made his little zombie-man with glistening red eyes walk across the table.

“What is that thing?” asked Sidi.

“It's a zombie.”

“I don't like it,” Sidi said. “It scares me. Put him to bed.”

Aref laughed. “You're so silly, Sidi! He's nice. He's a nice zombie.”

“Love is a strange animal,” Sidi said, out of the blue. This was odd.

“What do you mean? What kind of animal?” Aref asked.

“I'm not sure. What do you think?”

Aref said, “A wolf?”

“Maybe a wolf. But no, we don't see the wolf often enough. The wolf is hiding. Keeping his big teeth to himself. Maybe a butterfly?”

“Why?” asked Aref.

“Oh, the surprise of them. The beauty. We feel cheered when we see one.”

Aref's mother adored butterflies—she knew their names and geometric markings. Sometimes they fluttered over the patio in a crowd. His mother had planted bushes with purple flowers that they liked to drink from. Aref had gone on many butterfly-viewing expeditions with her and wrote his last science paper about them, so he knew a lot too. His notebook was filled with butterfly data.

 

Butterflies

1. Butterflies follow their own schedules.

2. They fly somewhere and land briefly, then disappear quickly. Sometimes they migrate in large flocks, even thousands.

3. Oman has the “fig blue” and the rare “swallowtail” and the common “blue pansy.”

4. The “Asian grass blue” in the north of Oman can disguise itself—as grass.

5. The lime butterfly has a very large wingspan and gobbles up all the leaves of the lime trees, its favorite food. Lime trees wish they would go far, far away to another place and stay there.

6. Actually there are 53 different species of butterflies in Oman which are too many to talk about right now.

 

“Sidi, do you think there are butterflies in Michigan?”

“I'm sure of it,” Sidi said. “They'll be fluttering around, just wait. We've had a whole week of fluttering around, did you notice?”

“It was great. I liked every single day. And you know what, butterflies are not fragile. That's what Mom says. They might look fragile, but they can migrate hundreds of miles without an airplane.”

“Like a turtle, right. Or even like those cranes we didn't see by the pond,” said Sidi.

“But we saw their nests. Right.”

“It's popular,” said Sidi. “A popular activity. Going away and coming back.”

When you stared hard at the dirt of the ground and the grasses and the mint right before dark, you could feel it all breathing. It was the softest time in the whole day. Sidi took a deep breath too.

“Maybe love is all the animals mixed together,” said Sidi. The zombie had fallen over onto the ground and Aref let him lie there, buzzing. “That makes sense.” He put out his hand and patted Aref's hand.

“Yes,” said Aref. “And love is a zombie too.” A green lizard had crawled up onto the zombie and was staring at it.

“Let's let his battery run out,” said Sidi.

“No!” Aref leaned over and rescued the zombie, flipping the switch that turned off his light. The lizard scampered away. “I'm sticking him in my suitcase.”

“Excellent. Now I can relax,” said Sidi.

Beyond them the lights of Muscat glittered under a pink sky that stretched all the way down to the water's edge. Aref imagined a fisherman folding his net. A fish no one could see was smiling.

And the secret rule of Muscat? Aref would keep it under the stone with a face that no one had noticed in a hundred years, in his Michigan windowsill, lined up with other stones Sidi had given him. It would say, “Dear Aref, don't forget everything you love about your country is buried safely in the sand at our beach. Eggs hatching soon.”

Aref stood up, stacked the four bowls, with the two spoons balanced in the top one, then walked like a slow and dignified person into the kitchen. “Hey, Mom!” he said. “I know you won't believe this, but—I'm packed.”