Scar Island(39)

Jonathan stopped the ball with his foot and held it.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. There’s this high window in the alley, way at the back of the store, and I get on a garbage can and crawl up through it. Soon as I hit the floor, though, this alarm goes off. Crazy loud. And I freak out. But I run up to the front and I grab that purse and run to the back door, but I hear voices outside. So I go back to the window I came in through, right? And I manage to jump up and start to climb through, but then I freeze, halfway out.”

“Why?”

“Cops, man. I see their flashing lights at the end of the alley. Then I hear ’em. Behind me. In the store. And I’m sitting there, half out the window, with my rear end hanging in the store, and this ugly pink purse in my hands.”

“Oh, man! Did they handcuff you and everything?”

Walter’s smile stretched across his whole face.

“Nope. ’Cause they didn’t even catch me, man!”

“What? You ran away?”

“Uh-uh.” Walter shook his head. “I just hung there. And those cops walked all around that store with their flashlights. All they had to do was look up and they’d-a seen my scared butt dangling there in the air. But they never looked up, man. And nothing was broken. And the doors weren’t busted or nothing. And the cash register was just sitting there, full. So they thought it was a false alarm. I hung there in that window for half an hour and then they left.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, man. That’s the truth.”

“Then … why are you here?”

Walter shrugged and his smile faded.

“I guess it wasn’t, like, a super-smart crime. Seeing as how it was a one-of-a-kind purse from my mama’s favorite store and everything. Next time she went in, she was showing it off, bragging about how I’d saved up all my allowances to buy it for her. Of course, Mrs. Swanson knew I’d never bought it. So that was that. And here I am.” Walter shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “You shoulda seen her, though. The morning I gave it to her? You shoulda seen how happy and proud she was, man.”

Jonathan kicked the ball to him.

“So that’s my story, man. What’s yours? Why you here?”

Above them, a bolt of lightning stabbed across the sky. A sharp crack of thunder rattled the windows to the dining room. They both looked up.

“Come on,” Jonathan said. “Let’s go grab dinner.”



Over dinner the boys hardly spoke. Their letters were written in silence. Even Benny kept his snorting and gloating to a quiet minimum. Jonathan wrote his letter with a fast hand.

In bed, under the shifting light of the candles, he held the newest letter from his parents, the one that had arrived that morning on the supply boat. He breathed slow, even breaths, and read it again. When the other boys were ready, he opened Robinson Crusoe and began to read. He read to the very end, looking up from time to time into the ring of faces listening around the flames.

When he closed the finished book and blew out the candles, he went to sleep, with his parents’ letter lying open on the pillow beside his head.

When he blinked his eyes awake in the morning, the letter was still lying by his head.

But it was folded into a perfect, delicate crane.





With Robinson Crusoe tucked under one arm, Jonathan made his way quickly toward the library. His scrambled egg lunch sat uneasily in his stomach.

He knew his way well now. He didn’t have to slow down or try to remember which way to go, and he could walk fast with the lantern held out in front of him. He saw more rats this time, probably because he could move so much faster. They didn’t have a chance to get out of the way. They were very big. And he was sure he saw at least a couple, scrabbling and squeaking away, that didn’t have tails.

He kept expecting to turn a corner and see Colin, but besides the rats, the way before him was vacant and still. Soon he was knocking on the door of the library, and the librarian was letting him in.

“Finished Crusoe. I see,” the librarian said as the door closed.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He handed the book over.

“Did you enjoy the book? Very much?”

Jonathan shrugged.

“Sure. We thought it was pretty cool, I guess. Boring in places. Big words.”

“Yes. And you’re here. For another book.”

“Well, we still have Treasure Island. We’ll start that tonight.”

“Excellent. But you can’t leave a library.”

“Without a book,” Jonathan finished. “I know.”

The librarian looked at him with one twinkling eye and smiled.

“Yes. My thoughts. Exactly. Let me find a book. That you’ll like.”

Jonathan wandered off among the shelves, browsing through the books, casually reading the titles embossed on the spines. He almost cried out when he was surprised by Ninety-Nine, curled up on a folded blanket between two stacks of books on a shelf. The gigantic rodent yawned a toothy yawn and sniffed his long, whiskered nose up at Jonathan.

“You can pick him up. If you want to,” the librarian said, peering over the shelf behind him.

“Oh. No, thanks.” Jonathan moved farther along the shelves, leaving the rat to return to his nap. He stopped by one of the windows, mostly blocked by neatly lined books. The storm outside was growing fiercer by the hour, rattling the glass with rainy gusts of wind.