Total Turtle Tea Trolley

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The meadow, or “metmow” in the dialect of its inhabitants, is a peaceful, pastoral place, filled with imaginary animals, tied only loosely to our own world. As with many pastoral places, there is little strife, or want, or unhappiness. This would seem to make the metmow unsuitable for stories. Stories require trouble, conflict, risk. Somehow, the creatures of the metmow live without very much of these things. They do have needs, however, and one of their main needs is for a regular and reliable source of snacks. In the distant past, snacks for all but the very young were the province of the Amalgamated Meal and Snack Bunnies. Now, however, their duties have been assumed by the organization known as the Total Turtle Tea Trolley. Led by a Chief Tea Turtle, six Under Tea Turtles push the silver, wheeled trolley, laden with tea and snacks, wherever hungry creatures are to be found. This blog will describe their appearances — what they wear, and what treats they convey. At times, other metmow creatures will appear.

Whether these accounts will surprise and delight the reader is a matter of conjecture, but they have pleased certain small audiences. If they bore, seem twee, or tire, all that will happen is that they remain in obscurity. If they please, I would be happy to know of it.

I remain, the Chronicler of the Total Turtle Tea Trolley.

The basket of the Arctic Tern’s blue-and-gold balloon is rustling against the railing of my second-floor apartment. The Rainocious Rhinoceros is climbing out to tap on my sliding glass door with his nose horn. It is time for me to leave. At long last, I am going to the Metmow, to live for good.

It will be wonderful to see my old friends in the Metmow, the ones whom I have described to you over these many months. Of course, there will be the Chief Tea Turtle and the Under Tea Turtles. The Baby Diu, the Philosophical Bunny, the Scuirellis, the Buffalini, the Binocelumps, Bernice — all will be there. And there are many whom I have not been able to tell you about, such as Miss C., Hortense, Nestor, and Paddles. I wish I could write about them, but there is no time left for me here.

Even though I know much of what there is to know about the Metmow, I do not know whether there is any Internet there. In a way, it would seem better that there should not be. But if there is, I will post here and tell you not just what I know, but what I have seen with my own eyes.

You have been good readers, and I will miss you — indeed, the outside world — very much.

Try to make the world more like the Metmow.

Yours, the Chronicler of the Total Turtle Tea Trolley, Jonathan K. Cohen

Through its affiliation with the Stompling Nelliphants, the enormous elephants with iron shoes and brushy helmets charged with the defense of the Metmow, the Total Turtle Tea Trolley is pleased to offer evacuation plans for its terrestrial fans, friends, and relations. In the dead of night, enormous grey zeppelins will silently glide into position and land nearby, unseen. A crack team of brown and white alpacas will move house to house, rousing those with TTTT connections, together with any pets, and directing them toward the landing sites. Polar bears busily pack clothing and personal effects to be loaded for the trip. Boarding the zeppelins, the refugees will be directed to a lavish buffet, catered by the Total Turtle Tea Trolley, and each supervised by one of the Tea Turtles themselves. As the zeppelins take off, bound for the Metmow, the buffets commence. There will be hot buttered toast points, Cream of Wheat cereal with half-and-half and brown sugar, blueberry and raspberry muffins, individual bananas, æbelskivers with powdered sugar, Nutella crepes, flapjacks, artisanal maple syrup, glazed donuts, corned beef hash, omelets made at an omelette station, and any number of fresh egg dishes. Minutes into the buffet, the diners will be well above the clouds, off the radar, and on their way to the Metmow. They will have already suspended their disbelief when the alpacas knocked on their door, and so they will no longer be surprised to see a beplumed and shod Stompling Nelliphant giving them an orientation as to what to expect in the Metmow. They will be surprised to learn that the Metmow is in fact divided into eight Metmows, surrounded by a particle accelerator ring operated by Furrylab, a division of the Metmow Institute for Nuclear Research (MINR). It has numerous neighborhoods in which they will feel right at home, including the leafy subdivision of Nelliphant Acres, where many elephants live, and Grasmere, where many alpacas and guanacos live. At first, the refugees will be lodged at the Hotel N., which will make use of a special annex, until homes can be constructed for all of them. They are all enjoined to be kind and good to their animal friends and neighbors, and not to apply any previously formed judgments. For example, where they’ve come from, skunks are varmints, but in the Metmow they are solid citizens and bon vivants, well worth spending an evening with. Polar bears do not eat people, and, indeed, they enjoy eating with people. And rhinoceroses are not truculent or surly, but pleasant and equable. (The Metmow’s finest poet, it must be added, is a rhinoceros, and its second-finest poet a stegosaurus.) This information may be a little much for the refugees to digest, but they are so pleased by the breakfast buffet that they agree among themselves to keep open minds and offer willing hearts. In a few hours, the zeppelins will touch down in an enormous meadow clearing half a mile from the Hotel N., and a new and better life will begin for all.

Far above the treetops of the Metmow, Nola’s wicked crows are flying, searching for the greenish, innocent shell of Fluffy the Crab, Nola’s escaped former factotum. They can see across the green expanse of forest enclosing Nelliphant Acres, where polite and well-regarded elephants live in their sprawling Victorian houses. At this moment, an elephant is coming out of one such house’s rear vestibule to hang a line of laundry. She bears a woven wicker basket of clothespins on a small, light howdah, and is followed by her husband, who is trundling an enormous wheelbarrow full of laundry. Lavender sheets, bold brown and green jacquard bathsheets and towels, and a pink fold-up washable sun hat are all carefully pinned. As crows have an excellent eye for color, they appreciate the display, but they remember all too well Nola’s instructions. She had held up a paint-chip the color of a young, uncooked crab, and had glared at them. She had then provided them with the requisite Pantone number, in case they needed to advertise in print media. Now, they cannot not trifle with lavender or pink.

Wheeling in the sky, they suddenly see a swarm of winged creatures coming towards them. They are the urtleopts, winged turtles who protect the Metmow from all such intruders. The crows scatter, but two turkey-platter-sized urtleopts are on each of their tails, flying with tremendous speed. Each crow is soon sandwiched between the shells of two urtleopts, and escorted out of Metmow airspace before anyone on the ground can notice a thing. Nola will have to be informed of this unforeseen impediment. Perhaps she can meet with her friend René Tutwiler, a dealer both in arms and art.

Below, all is calm and peaceful, as the elephants finish hanging up their laundry. When the last clothespin is fastened, they are overjoyed to see the Total Turtle Tea Trolley making its way toward them across their spacious back lawn. The Chief Tea Turtle is wearing a rainbow-colored silk turban sewn all over with tiny amethysts, and an ecru linen open-weave dust ruffle. The Under Tea Turtles are wearing black-and-white checked keffiyehs bound with red and white cords, and poly-cotton blend oxford blue pinstriped cloth dust ruffles. The Tea Treats for today include caramelized onion dip with kettle-cooked potato wedges, almond lace cookies, miniature fudge bars, and small cylinders of fresh Gouda cheese, cored from an enormous golden wheel. The tea for today is Infuso di Frutta, from Assisi, brewed fresh in a white and pale blue Sèvres teapot emblazoned with the image of a single Napoleonic bee. The elephants set to the collation with a will, and neither they nor the Tea Turtles will ever know of the sinister incursion which has taken place above their very heads.

It is a hot day in the Metmow, and the Rainocious Rhinoceros and his rhinoceros ward, Eustace, are relaxing outside the Cloud Shed, looking out over the R.R.’s pond. Beneath the surface, a luxuriant crop of pond weeds is growing, and Bernice, the cattle egret will soon harvest some for the rhinoceroses’ dinner. She plans a chilled pond weed vichysoisse, which will be served in metal bowls set inside larger metal bowls filled with shaved ice. Eustace is working on his first book of poetry, to be called “Orpheus Rhinoceros,” consisting of odes to his beloved-from-afar, the sweet, lumbering Geraldine. Geraldine is a demure rhinoceros living in the adjacent metmow, who loves photography and painting, and who is not entirely insensible to Eustace’s sentiments, elongated as they may be. Little does she know that Eustace has penned a wedding-song, or epithalamion, to be inserted as an appendix to the book once he has indicated his interest, proposed, been accepted, and gotten married. Eustace has consulted his Oxford Rhyming Dictionary, and has found an incalculable number of rhymes for “Geraldine.” Some, like “latrine” and “obscene,” must be employed carefully. Others, such as “murine,” can be used only as part of a larger analogy, e.g., to describe Geraldine’s quietness. But there are many, many others, enough so that, if he wanted, he could write several alexandrines — perfect meter for conveying the rhyme — in complete assonance. The Rainocious Rhinoceros, however, has advised Eustace, in his avuncular way, that it might be more prudent to spread the Geraldine-rhymes out in his poetry, so that they might achieve greater effect when at last deployed. But Eustace has filled several pages of a yellow tablet with the rhymes, and is now hard at work on the meter.

His first attempt:

The goddess of love, all betwixt and between,
Has caused me to write you an alexandrine.

Eustace is immediately beset by difficulties over the placement of the caesura, or break. In the first line, it appears naturally, but in the second line, it would seem to fall between “write” and “you.” This does not match the logic of the line, since it means taking a breath before the idea is done. Ideally, it would have to fall after “you,” but this is a little too late. He turns the second line over in his mind. Try as he might, he cannot get the caesura to fall where it needs to go.

The Rainocious Rhinoceros, seeing his consternation, asks if perhaps he might consider relinquishing the alexandrine for the moment, and trying a double dactyl:

Higgledy piggledy
Eustace Rhinoceros
Wants to arrange for his love to be seen.

Writing a poem is
just about perfect to
Declare his love to the fair Geraldine.

Eustace considers the R.R.’s effort carefully. He does not think that “just about perfect to” is a very good line. It seems to him to be full of filler. But the R.R. reminds him that “betwixt and between” is a cliche, and this is not an aspersion on Eustace’s muse, because most poems have cliches in them, and filler, too. Such poems are perfectly acceptable for many occasions, including publication in some of the Metmow’s finer poetical reviews. Truth to be told, though the R.R. does not mention it, these reviews are almost entirely filled with light verse, and the letters MFA, when appended to the name of an animal, mean nothing more than “Mighty Fine Animal.” In point of fact, all creatures in the metmow are Mighty Fine Animals, and thus all more than qualified to write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction without further ado. That most of them do not is a tribute to their good sense and good taste.

But at this moment, before anything more decisive can be said on the subject, the Total Turtle Tea Trolley arrives, glinting warmly in the sunlight. The Chief Tea Turtle is capped in a headdress consisting of black and iridescent blue peacock quills, and clad in a shimmering mauve foil dust ruffle. The Under Tea Turtles are wearing white terry cloth sweatbands to each of which are attached ten quarter-length Ticonderoga 2H pencils, sharpened points facing upwards, giving them an appearance at once menacing and literary. They are wearing Tyvek dustruffles which have been imprinted with colorful maps of the world, circa 1989. The Tea Treats for today are Petits Écoliers biscuits, each with its magnificent tablet of bittersweet chocolate, almond macaroons, of the light Parisian variety (and not the leaden Passover variety), a seaweed salad with cilantro and a hint of nam pla, and succulent Khadrawi dates. The tea for today is a mint and lemongrass melange, served from a bright yellow ceramic teapot swathed in a blue-and-white Marimekko tea cozy with patterns of concentric circles. Wildflower honey is available for interested parties.

The two rhinoceroses ask the Tea Turtles if they would like to divulge their favorite poems. The Chief Tea Turtle declares that his favorite line in all poetry is Wallace Stevens’s:

Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

The other Tea Turtles murmur that this is indeed a spectacular line, but Sedgwick, the littlest Tea Turtle, has one of his own.

And the heart of earth
Opens itself, where
Around the hill of oaks
From a burning land
The streams and where
On Sundays, among dances
The threshholds are hospitable to guests
On streets strung with garlands, quietly swaying.

The rhinoceroses and turtles are amazed, and ask Sedgwick where he could have possibly read that? It would appear that Bernice, who doubles as the Chief Librarian of the Metmow Public Library, had sent Sedgwick home with a volume entitled A Child’s Garden of Hölderlin, not realizing that Sedgwick would start looking for Apollo in the fountain outside Tea Turtle Headquarters. All is revealed now, and the Chief Tea Turtle, with help from the Rainocious Rhinoceros, convinces Sedgwick that Ancient Greece was not the Greatest and the Best, now Tragically Lost. The Chief Tea Turtle remarks that ancient pastry has been quite superseded by the modern, and that a diet of baklava would soon prove monotonous. Better to take one of those Petits Écoliers. And Sedgwick assents.

It is a hot May day in the metmow, with warm breezes blowing in from off the plains of Tum, and the Total Turtle Tea Trolley is preparing to venture out to bring tea and treats to deserving creatures. The Tea Turtles are well-prepared for hot weather, even for the dog days of August. Alpheus, the First Tea Turtle, has fitted out each of his colleagues with “camel-back” shell-top water pouches which have been left in the freezer overnight, so that each Tea Turtle is assured a supply of cold water from his pouch’s siphon. Without these cooling packs, the Turtles would become torpid and start to bask in the sunlight, possibly neglecting their mission. But, as it is, the Tea Turtles are resolute. The Chief Tea Turtle is clad in a camouflage nylon mesh dust ruffle and accompanying tan wide-brimmed Tilley hat, while the Under-Tea Turtles are garbed in heather grey CoolMax dust ruffles, and brilliant white baseball caps adorn their turtley heads.

Today, they are visiting the Home for Retired Greyhounds, a tranquil place where greyhounds who have spent their lives in sport or service live in comfort and want for nothing. It is a large, white shingle style cottage with a wrap-around porch, and it is on this porch that the greyhounds are to be found, sipping lemonade, playing dominoes, and telling stories about their early days. In those days, they may have been beset by care, but they could bolt as suddenly as an updraft, then lope for miles, and return as quickly as they came. Even retired greyhounds need to run, and it is for this reason that a delegation of bunnies comes every afternoon, in order to be chased by the greyhounds. The bunnies take off like shots, but make sure that, even after a fair race, the greyhounds overtake them. In this case, however, the afternoon is too hot and sleepy for racing, and the greyhounds and the bunnies sit on the porch together, setting up domino cascades in intricate patterns and watching with fascination as the dominoes tumble.

At this point, the Trolley arrives, with tea and treats. Today, there is no samovar, no tea cozy, and no tea kettle. Instead, the Trolley has brought a chased sterling silver ewer of iced decaf English breakfast tea — the regular kind sets the greyhounds humming, and makes them liable to run off. The Tea Treats for today include lemon bars with powdered sugar, apricot-jam-dotted butter cookies, miniature pumpernickel toasts with sweet cream butter, and a tortellini salad with shredded basil and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. And the Trolley has brought a special repository of Meyer lemon lemonade, mellow and not acidic.

The Under-Tea Turtles fill the greyhounds’ dog dishes with iced tea, making sure that each gets two or three ice cubes, and the greyhounds lap it up. The bunnies use the Trolley’s Limoges china, dotted with rosebuds and encircled by a luminous gold band. Then all set to work on the viands, and cap the afternoon with long guzzles of lemonade from blue Venetian highball glasses.

By this time, it has cooled down, and the grateful greyhounds ask if they can take the Tea Turtles on their backs and push the Trolley home. The Turtles agree, climb in reverse up several greyhounds’ long necks, and lock their stubby legs into position. The greyhounds put their thin shoulders against the Trolley, and it begins to roll. Slowly, the greyhounds pick up speed, and many others follow as a pack at the Trolley’s rear, leaping and bounding. The scenery begins to whiz past, and the Chief Tea Turtle must tell the greyhounds to slow down lest they crash the Trolley or go over a bump which will send the tea service flying off. But instead, the greyhounds break into a full run, and the Tea Turtles hang on for dear life, as they see trees and fields, streams and hollows flash by at an alarming rate. But before any harm can come to them, they are back at Tea Turtle headquarters, in the stony forecourt. The slightly shaken Tea Turtles descend, and the greyhounds lick their shells to calm them. When he has come to himself, the Chief Tea Turtle thanks the greyhounds, who are looking rather peaked themselves but quite pleased with their feat. And, slowly, with great dignity, the greyhounds go on their way, to return to their home before supper.

It has been a good Easter for the Total Turtle Tea Trolley. This morning, outside the door of the low-lying weathered brick building that serves as TTTT headquarters, there was an Easter basket, filled with real grass clippings, and topped with an assortment of chocolate buttercream eggs and homemade marshmallow chicks. In addition, the Fabergé chickens, resplendent in their colorful plumage, had contributed some beautiful turquoise Fabergé eggs with crystal inlay and champlevé enamel inserts, which they had been laying since erev Passover.

The Tea Turtles had intended to skip the 9:00 services at the Orthodox Theist meeting hall, as they were scheduled to provide the collation afterward, but members from the Paul Penguin Brass Quintet, who were playing the service, had encouraged them to come early and hear them rehearse. Paul Penguin was noodling around on the mighty Casavant organ, trying to figure out a decent improvised chorale prelude on “Heut’ triumphieret Gottes Sohn,” and the penguin-powered wind section was fanfaring around the melody. Leroy Penguin, a particularly glossy penguin, had his D trumpet out, and was trying to figure out whether to insert a trill at the penultimate note, and, if so, whether he could make it sufficiently wide and exuberant. Paul Penguin’s son, Paul Penguin, Jr., was assisting with the stops. He was toying with the idea of surreptitiously pulling out the stop for the 32′ prestant for the concluding hymn, thereby causing the seats to rattle. The Tea Turtles sat in the front pews, laughing to themselves at the antics of the musicians, before scuttling back to headquarters to prepare the food.

After the service, the Tea Turtles were not to be denied their own Easter treat, for they were going to brunch at the Hotel N. The Hotel N. is the oldest and tallest structure in the metmow, built sixty years ago, and is a grand old hotel in the Art Nouveau style. It has a number of remarkable features, including its tall ogive gold doors, sculptured with agricultural imagery and outlined in pink quartz, above whose apex is set a surprisingly large and brilliant pink diamond. The Tea Turtles were greeted by the majordomo, a tall and distinguished polar bear named Webster, and were conducted to the hotel Dining Room. There, they saw all the creatures from that morning, chatting in their booths and tables, and wandering up, one to the other, to wish each other a happy Easter. No creature was ignored, and all were in good company. Chef Bearnaise, a large brown bear, was at the omelet station, which was ringed with dishes of every possible ingredient that could conceivably go into an omelet, from smoked salmon and capers to pancetta and black olives. He had just finished flipping his fifteenth omelet in a row, and was now sipping a lemongrass iced tea; each of his omelets had turned out perfectly, neither runny nor burnt, each containing its ingredients in even proportion and distribution. To his left, there was the fruit and vegetable array, with huge cascades of pineapple and melon, down which ran a course of fresh strawberries which actually tasted like strawberries. To his right was a vast table of baked goods, turned out by Melba the Penguin, with fresh, dark, buttery croissants, true Danish pastries, French rolls, and, of course, trays of hot cross buns. The Butters Gallery had provided the butter for the occasion, with herbed butter, honey butter, sweet cream butter, and salted butter. And Custard LaRue, the singing otter, had prepared a table of napoleons, charlottes russe, and eclairs. All were serenaded by Keiko the Octopus, on a seven-foot-tall harp covered entirely in gold leaf, around whose strings she curled three or four of her pink tentacles.

The Tea Turtles scooted under the skirts of the omelet station and began to talk shop with Chef Bearnaise. They were not surprised, but quite pleased, with how the brunch looked, and they complimented him on everything turning out so well. He mentioned that he was going to go on vacation for a week, but that, as was the custom, he would be temporarily replaced by one of his counterparts from around the world — Chef Lyonnaise, Chef Hollandaise, Chef Bordelaise, Chef Polonaise, and so forth. The Chief Tea Turtle promised that the Tea Turtles would do what they could to fill in any gaps in coverage, but Chef Bearnaise merely smiled and slipped Sedgwick, the littlest Tea Turtle, a small piece of pepperoni. And with that, the Total Turtle Tea Trolley proceeded to a table, and commenced their brunch.

It has been several months since Fluffy the Crab escaped from the clutches of her employer, the wicked Nola the Rhinoceros, by means of Nola’s kindly brother’s balloon, flying to the Metmow, a haven of peace and security. In that time, Fluffy has attended three Metmow picnics and four Christmas parties, and is set to have a delightful time at the New Year’s Ball, held at the glittering ballroom of the Hotel N.

Nola’s rage, however, has merely simmered, and she has ordered her new henchman, Herman the Octopus, to take whatever steps are needed to seal Fluffy’s doom. The aubergine-colored Herman, the size of a small giant squid, has, from Nola’s New York penthouse, been looking on the Metmow with a cold and calculating eye, carefully assessing the innocent, and, indeed, practically helpless creatures within, whom he believes suspect nothing.

Fluffy knows too well of the fury of Nola, though, and she has engaged the small, furry principals at BSB Architects to design the Crab Safe, a concrete silo, buried deep within the earth, where she can hide from Nola’s revenge. And Nola’s brother and Metmow resident, the Rainocious Rhinoceros, has vowed to protect Fluffy from all harm.

Such is the exposition which brings us to the current day. The Crab Safe has been complete for months, as has the gravity drop elevator which will take Fluffy a kilometer underground, to the Safe’s four-foot-thick blast door. Fluffy has been enjoying herself at Christmas festivities, at the headquarters of the Total Turtle Tea Trolley.

The Tea Turtles have been enjoying Fluffy’s company no end, as she has many stories of New York City which are nonetheless suitable for Metmow ears. Her exploits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, scuttling beneath the ticket booths, with their suggested donations of half one’s net worth, to see a lifetime’s worth of Caravaggios and mummies, enthrall the Turtles. In particular, they are fascinated by her description of the Temple of Dandruff, made from thousands of Assyrian flasks containing an ancient recipe for Head and Shoulders. And, in turn, they have tea and treats for their invertebrate guest.

Today, the Chief Tea Turtle is wearing a peaked Santa’s cap with its associated white pompon, and a green corduroy dust ruffle with tiny red suspenders. The Under Tea Turtles are wearing green Phrygian caps suitable for revolutionary elves, and red crocheted dust ruffles with white figures of snowmen worked into the pattern. The main treat is a bûche de Noël, a chocolate tree branch worked in layered rolled up sponge cake alternating with ganache, covered with dark chocolate icing, meringue mushrooms, and broken-off branches made from more of the coated, cleverly disguised sponge cake, There are dishes of mint Oreo crumble ice cream enriched with powdered candy canes. And, for a savory, there are popovers stuffed with magical Chinese pork bun filling. The tea for today is Peet’s Holiday Blend, and, in addition, there are glasses of stout eggnog — not the kind that comes in the carton, but the homemade kind which is light and fluffy, with whipped cream and egg white and a hint of virgin bourbon.

At this moment, though, Herman is sitting at his long, mahogany desk, made from timbers poached from the endangered forests of Madagascar in the dead of night, receiving reports from his fleet of menacing black crows. Flying too high to be spotted by the Metmow’s winged turtles, they are on the lookout for Fluffy’s greenish shell. Luckily, the crows are unable to pick Fluffy out from the snowdrifts in which she is currently playing, and have been reporting back to Herman on the tracks of certain voles and snow hares, whom, from their great height, they have mistaken for lobsters. Fluffy does not know of the dangers in the sky above her. Perhaps she will learn soon enough.

It is the day after the Fourth of July, and creatures have been combing the large field where the great celebration was held, looking for scraps of food and bits of things that need to be thrown away. The scraps will for the most part grace the Badgers’ compost heaps, but beetles sometimes like a little something that has been left out overnight, and they have been insouciantly carrying away some of the dropped melon balls and green pepper slices. By the time the creatures are done, there are no signs of the large crowds who yesterday lapped up the Rainocious Rhinoceros’s stirring oration and the thrilling sounds of the Paul Penguin Wind Symphony. The grass seems freshly sprouted, even where the bandstand stood, and there are no signs of trampling, even around the site of the elephants’ pie stand.

The Total Turtle Tea Trolley has been enjoying its vacation. The Tea Turtles have been sunning themselves on the rocks in their lily pond, assisted by a floating dinghy filled with ice and bottles of H. Sandon Hippopotamus’s orange soda. They have been reading the finest mystery novels, in which no murders or crimes take place. Rather, these novels are about mistakes, misapprehensions, revelations, and recognitions. A cheese sandwich wakes up to find himself locked in a compartment at the Automat, where he is available for 25 cents. Who put him there? Why? And is there only one way to get out? Sedgwick, the littlest Tea Turtle, is too young for works of such a speculative character, and has instead been reading “A Child’s Garden of Semicolons,” which shows how this fabled punctuation mark can aid in the construction of periodic sentences. There are numerous black-and-white pointillistic illustrations, and six color plates, each protected by a veil of tissue paper.

But soon, the Total Turtle Tea Trolley’s duties will return. Alpheus, the first Tea Turtle, is busy in the costume shop on the second floor of Tea Turtle Headquarters, combing through cases of dust ruffles and hats, looking for just the right ones for July 6th. Originally, the Tea Turtles’ outfits had themes, and perhaps they will again, but with thousands of possible clothing combinations, it is all that the Tea Turtles can do to have new outfits for each day. It is as if there had been a flood at Fashion Week, and the various designers had been crowded onto the same YMCA gym floor willy-nilly, so that the late Gianni Versace was on a cot next to Ralph Lauren, and Issey Miyake was bedded down alongside Charles Frederick Worth. Alpheus is as deliberate as a Tea Turtle can be, but he still has the urge to simply grab random garments for each of his colleagues. The Chief Tea Turtle is looking into the possibility of a Wardrobe Assistant.

That night, Tea Treats will be made. There may be meringues, and chicken salad sandwiches on miniature croissants, and possibly a pasta salad with orechiette, fresh snap peas, and some shavings of Serrano ham. The Chief Tea Turtle will be in his room with its giant map of the metmow and a box of push-pins, plotting tomorrow’s route. An urtleopt will arrive with a weather report from the Rainocious Rhinoceros, who has been informed by the clouds themselves of what will unfold. And Sedgwick will have his summer. Sedgwick does not attend school, and although the Chief Tea Turtle will make sure that he becomes an informed, clear-thinking turtle, kind to all creatures, for now he can play ping-pong with Jerome, the fifth Tea Turtle, or simply count all the morning glories he can find before noon. There will be no disillusionmnent for Sedgwick when he gets older; in the metmow, life as a child does not end when that happens. That is the way things are supposed to be.

The Total Turtle Tea Trolley has the day off, and the Chief Tea Turtle and Under Tea Turtles are planning for the Fourth of July Picnic. The Fourth of July Picnic is the highlight of the picnic season, leaving Labor Day and Memorial Day far behind.

The skunks will outdo themselves. Ludmilla Skunk has making test batches of her chili for the past week, and it is suspected that it will be one of the components of a chili cheese dog stand. On the other hand, it is possible that chili fries are in the offing, or perhaps simple bowls of chili topped with grated aged cheddar, a few green onion slices, and a liberal dollop of sour cream. Mr. Cyrus Skunk, Ludmilla’s husband, will be concerned with the hot dog part of the equation. In addition to the hot dog cart, with its gleaming side panels and jaunty umbrella, there will be a long grill for the proper grilling of bratwursts and vegetable shish kebabs. It is rumored that he has at his disposal not merely foot-long hot dogs, but hot dogs two and even three feet in length for the largest and hungriest creatures.  It is a tightly kept secret among the metmow bakers as to what size of buns are being baked for hot dog purposes.

The elephants are of course formulating their pie recipes, and there is considerable discussion as to who will bake which pie. The most popular pie this year is the chocolate banana cream pie, and if the entire metmow is not to be forced to choose among a field of pies of exactly the same sort, most of the elephants will have to bake other pies. The Chief Tea Turtle, as a canny and empathetic negotiator, well versed in the ways of elephants, is leading talks which will hopefully lead, not just to an equitable distribution of pie recipes, but also to each elephant feeling that she is baking exactly the pie she wanted to bake all along.  To this end, the Chief Tea Turtle and his Under Tea Turtles have been visiting the elephants with wonderful ingredients, such as a wheelbarrow of Jonathan, Winesap, and Northern Spy apples, all magically in season, which they hope will appeal to Serenata Nelliphant.  As apples are difficult to peel with just a trunk, Jerome has brought with him a Yankee peeling and coring machine, on which one spins the apple with a crank and finds a perfect spiral strip of peel perfectly cut away.  The doughty dowager elephant is intrigued, and consumes five or six apples before deciding that, indeed, she will make a fine apple pie for the Fourth of July. As there are approximately sixty elephants in the Nelliphant League, the process of persuasion would seem to involve an unsustainable amount of effort on the part of the Tea Turtles, but, elephants are herd animals, and once a few are convinced to make different pies, the rest follow.

The music will be spectacular, and, of course, it will be conducted and coordinated by the omnipresent Paul Penguin. The Paul Penguin Wind Symphony will perform as many of John Philip Sousa’s 136 marches as the day will allow for, and in the evening, the Paul Penguin Symphony Orchestra will present a concert consisting of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait and Old American Songs (featuring the stentorian Bryn Turtle), and then Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, with cannon, tubular bells, and fireworks. The text of the Lincoln Portrait has been revised for metmow consumption, but all the creatures believe that it is not nice to eat another man’s bread without politely asking for some first, and receiving permission. The creatures do not understand why, in “I Got Me A Cat,” the wife should say, “Honey, honey,” and wonder if perhaps Mr. Copland was referring to a bee.

And, of course, at noon, there will be orations, accompanied by mighty blasts and fanfares on the trumpet by Leroy, a small blue penguin. The Rainocious Rhinoceros, so modest and tentative when contemplating speaking on Memorial Day before all the creatures in the metmow, has been fired up, under the influence of the Chief Tea Turtle, and has composed a rousing speech. He will not stoop to demagoguery, but will endeavor to impress upon his fellow creatures that they are worthwhile, that what they do, no matter how humble, is to the good, and that they should enjoy themselves thoroughly. He will single out each creature who cooked for his or her contributions, laud all who set up and who will take down, and encourage all to return to their homes as full and happy as they might wish. (A sentence or two will be devoted to the perils of overeating.) Finally, the Rainocious Rhinoceros will recite a prose poem, which, while skirting the problem of self-satisfaction, will nonetheless evoke the beauties of the metmow, and how fitting and right it is that all should live there.  Today, the Chief Tea Turtle has reviewed a draft of the speech, and has told the Rainocious Rhinoceros that Cicero, given the circumstances and occasion, could not have done better. The R.R. drinks the health of the Tea Turtle in ginger ale, and the two take leave of each other, hopeful that the Fourth will be an auspicious day.

There are times when the Total Turtle Tea Trolley does not have adventures full of color and incident, but which instead exemplify the peace and quiet which are typical of the metmow. Today is such a day. The Tea Trolley is rolling over the green fields, which are dotted by sunny dandelions. The Chief Tea Turtle is nonchalantly singing a little tune: “Oh, Lord Jeffery Amherst was the soldier of the King, and he came from across the se-ea-ea.” It goes on like that for a few bars, and then all the Tea Turtles join in on the chorus: “O Amherst, brave Amherst, ’twas the name known to fame in days of yore. May it ever be glorious, ’til the sun shall climb the heavens no more.” They don’t know quite why they are singing it, but it rings out across the fields.

At last, they come to the little encampment of the alpacas, known as Grasmere, where the woolly creatures are busy browsing on the luxuriant grass. They are welcomed by their musical leader, S. Alpaca Salonen, who, when he is not busy growing out his coat, is the conductor of the Camelid Symphonette.

The Chief Tea Turtle is wearing an orange hibiscus print dust ruffle and a pale blue cloche hat. The Under Tea Turtles are wearing light green cotton pique dust ruffles and stonewashed Eustace Tilley hats. Today, the Tea Turtles have brought a delicious cheese plate for the Alpacas, with big wedges of Morbier, Manchego, and Camembert. There are cut-up baguettes (barely an hour out of the oven), fresh butter for when the cheese runs out, raisins and dried cherries, and small pieces of glistening honeycomb. The tea for today is a blend of chamomile, Rooibos, and peppermint, served in a humble mingei bamboo teapot, which is engulfed in a red-flowered batik tea cozy.

S. Alpaca, like the other alpacas, is a quiet soul, and he is quite happy to be on the periphery of the Paul Penguin musical empire. In the afternoons, the alpacas bring out their violins, violas, cellos, and double basses, in different combinations depending on what piece they are playing, and have a good time romping through the Mendelssohn or Bruch String Octets, or perhaps a composition which S. Alpaca has dreamed up just for the day. When they see the glint of the sun off the alpacas’ Amatis, birds of all kind alight to hear the music, and it is not uncommon for music-loving visitors to stay for dinner. This is what the Tea Turtles are doing today. Not very well-concealed on the bottom deck of the Trolley is a capacious bowl of tabbouleh that the Chief Tea Turtle has made the night before, which will be the Turtles’ main contribution. Beneath the bowl is an entire oven-sized jelly pan of brownies, wrapped in wax paper, which have been made by Jerome and Sedgwick that morning. Thus fortified, the Tea Turtles and the alpacas will converse long into the evening, to the sound of the tree frogs, and only the drooping lids of Sedgwick will bring their time to a close.