Summary

Chapter 1

The book begins with a girl, Turtle, riding with Mr. Edgit, a friend of her mother’s lover, Archie, in his Ford Model A on her way to Key West to go and live with her aunt Minerva. Turtle has to deal with the nasty kids shooting spit balls at her from the truck in front. Seeing the kids—boys and a girl around her age with a baby—brings back memories. Kids were often being mean to her in the past such as lying and getting her mother fired or even setting her cat, Smokey, on fire.

She then goes on to lament about how ‘real life’ children are different from Shirley Temple and Annie that Mr. Edgit talks to her about. She mentions the fact that her mother worked as a housemaid and how free room and board would’ve...