Total Turtle Tea Trolley

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.

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