The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye Page A

were surfing inside the waves.
    â€œLook! Did you see those red flashes over by the rocks? I think those were clownfish. I’m still thinking about that weird candle thing you told me,” Aref said. “The candles on the backs of turtles. How did anyone ever think of doing that?”
    â€œWell, it would be easier to do than sticking a candle on a falcon,” Sidi said. “I guess they were just desperate for night-lights.”
    Now Sidi bent over and stretched his arms out again. He tipped to the left and to the right. “Ahhh, this feels so good for circulation. I am stiff.”
    Aref stretched his arms out too. The wind was blowing through their hair and clothes. “But I am not stiff, I am stuffed! We ate breakfast and then we ate all those other things!”
    â€œProbably we eat too much. I am as stuffed as a turtle inside a too-tight shell.”
    â€œI am stuffed as a bed full of monkeys!” said Aref.
    â€œI am stuffed as a squash packed with rice,” said Sidi.
    Aref laughed, picturing the cap of the squash, the tip-top with the stem end, pressed on Sidi’s head like a hat.
    â€œOkay,” Sidi said. “That’s enough stuffedness. Let’s go back to Muscat. Home is calling.” He leaned over and picked up one tiny, smooth, round white pebble and handed it to Aref. “Here you go. A miniature turtle egg. From the land of the turtles.”
    Aref held the stone tightly. “We could stay in this exact spot until I am in sixth grade,” he said. “We could pretend I went away and came back again. That would be good. I wish there were a button I could push. Just to stop everything right here. I don’t want to leave the turtles. And then we’d see the babies hatching too. We would see every single thing the turtles do, except when they are underwater.”
    â€œThat’s nice. I like it,” said Sidi, smiling. “It makes me remember something. Once when I was fourteen or fifteen, I wished for a Stop Button very hard. I was sitting in a pool of sun on the stone step at our old house, just a regular day waiting for my father to walk up the road after working, and everything around me and inside me felt—all the right size. I wished I could stay that age with my own thoughts and my father coming home soon. But it wasn’t something you could say, really. You just carried it inside you. So, I know.”
    Aref looked out at the waves, then at his grandfather silently. He knew too. They walked down the hill and climbed into the jeep and drove away from the turtles. The turtles who carried their homes on their backs and swam out so far and returned safely to the beach they remembered.

To Drive After Standing Still

    M onsieur carried them past slopes and cliffs and hillsides. Craggy caves and purple flowering bushes. Mounds and curves and dips and sudden views of the sea and rough spots in the pavement and a broken wagon that looked like a cousin of the abandoned boat. They talked about this and that. When you drove out in the country, you felt closer to the earth than you felt in the city. You had better thoughts in the country. Your thoughts made falcon moves, dipping and rippling, swooping back into your brain to land. Maybe the motion of spinning wheels relaxed and enlivened them. Your thoughts weren’t tied to one spot, and they weren’t nervous, either. They were just open, and rolling. Maybe this was why some people decided to travel all of their lives, going to new places, not knowing what they would see next.
    Aref slept a little, his head bobbing over to the side. Sidi played some Arabic music very softly on the radio.

The Candy Bowl and Everything Else

    A s they entered Muscat, Sidi started whistling. He sang in a high pitch, “I see a stoplight, Stop, Stop, Stop light.”
    Aref shook himself awake. “Did I sleep? I didn’t want to sleep!”
    â€œSorry to bother you,” said Sidi,