Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves (14 page)

“We told you!” the three exclaimed together.

“So why don’t the other clans want you around?” Jim asked them. “You guys are amazing!”

“Jealousy,” Peter said as he spat out an apple seed.

“They’re green with envy,” Paul said, sticking out his tongue with chewed-up green apple all over it.

“Disgusting, Paul!” Lacey said.

“Well, they are fairly jealous of our tremendous skills,” George explained, polishing his filthy nails on his filthy shirt. “But part of it is also our set of rules.”

“Rules?” Jim asked.

“Well, guidelines, really,” Peter said.

“Sort of our code, like for knights or somethin’,” Paul added.

“Exactly, our code!” George nodded vigorously. “We don’t steal from children. We only take what we need, and we never take from someone who has less than us.”

“Which fortunately leaves us with loads of options,” Paul said cheerfully.

“See, the Dragons took from another kid; you namely,” Peter explained. “They do it all the time. They’re dirty scoundrels. Rotten to the core. They’ll take from anyone, even if it was the last farthin’ in some bloke’s pocket or the last crumb off his table!”

“How unscrupulous,” Jim said.

“Exactly what I said,” said George, as though he knew what scruples were and what it was to be without them. “So when we saw that they had nicked your box, we decided it was the right thing to lend you a hand and get back at those lugs!”

“Well, I’m ready,” Jim said, trying to loosen up for the task at hand. Ever since his disastrous trek through the forest, when he realized he had missed out on several good opportunities to learn some rather useful skills, Jim had decided not to turn down such chances again. To learn the art of thieving from the Ratts was as good a time to start as any. “So what do I do?”

“Right then,” George said, the Ratts gathering close around Jim like three trainers in a boxer’s corner. “Here’s what you do. Walk up to that cart…and take one of those apples!”

“Brilliant!”

“Spot on, George! Solid advice!”

“Go get ’em, Jim!” The brothers clapped Jim on the back, excited beyond control for Jim’s first action.

“That’s it?” Jim asked, puzzled. “Just walk up and take an apple, that’s all there is to it?”

“Well, not exactly,” George said. “But it’s a great start. So go for it! We’re right behind you!”

“Just walk up and take an apple?”

“That’s it!” the three of them replied together.

Jim took a deep breath and started toward the apple cart. Although it sounded easy, Jim had never been more nervous in his life, feeling hot and itchy all over, his face burning as though it were all but on fire, and his hands trembling uncontrollably. It seemed to Jim that everyone in the market was staring right at him at that exact moment.

“Look casual, that’s the ticket,” Jim said to himself, trying to relax. He shoved his shaking hands in his pockets and started to whistle. Then he tried to look absolutely anywhere but at the apple cart. Unfortunately for poor Jim, although he had the right idea, his efforts had a slightly confusing effect. He couldn’t walk in a straight line because he wasn’t looking, and with his head rolling around on his neck from trying to look everywhere but the apple cart, his whistle sounded like a dying bird.

“What’s he doin’?” George asked from where the Ratts stood watching.

“I think he’s pretendin’ to be dimwitted or mad or something. Like a charity con, you know?” Peter said.

“He’s not a bad actor really,” Paul said. “He looks completely fee-bleminded from here.”

Jim found the apple cart when he ran into it face-first. The whole cart trembled violently, and Jim held his chin in pain where it had slammed into a wooden corner. That feeling of everyone watching him washed over Jim again, and then he did the worst thing one can do when trying to appear casual. He panicked.

Jim desperately grabbed the first apple he saw and turned to run, realizing only too late that he had seized a fruit impossibly wedged into the bottom of the pile. Instead of trying for a different apple, Jim - as people who are panicked often do - made the fatal error of yanking on the one in his hand as hard as he could.

The apple finally popped out, along with every other apple on the entire cart, all spilling onto ground in a rising tide of fruit at Jim’s feet.

“Oh, dear,” Lacey said from where she stood by the Ratts.

From behind the quickly shrinking pile of apples, the furious red face of the cart owner appeared. His eyes fell directly on Jim, standing by the cart with an apple in his hand, a hundred at his feet, and look of dread horror on his face.

“THIEF!” the cart owner screamed, leveling an accusing finger at Jim’s face.

“Well,” George remarked in stunned dryness, “that didn’t go very well.”

“Oh, run, Jim, run!” Lacey pleaded. But it was no use. Just as he had in the forest, facing the floating green eyes of the wolf, Jim froze in place amongst a sea of rolling apples as the cart owner continued to shriek.

“THIEF!”

Jim probably would have stood there forever, staring at the furious apple seller, had Peter, Paul, and George not leapt to his side to drag him away. But just as they reached their new friend’s side, the crowds staring at the strange goings on parted to the left and to the right, revealing a sight that paled even the faces of the three Ratts.

There, standing in the parted waves of people, was the biggest man Jim had ever seen. He wore a faded blue tricorn hat, a droopy beard surrounded his fiercely frowning face, the badge of the King’s Men rested over his heart, and in his left hand he balanced a long, thick staff with expert fingers.

“What in blazes?” Jim exclaimed. “It’s a giant!”

“That’s no giant,” Paul cried. “Worse!”

“Constable Butterstreet!” his brothers cried as the big man covered the distance between he and the young thieves in just two enormous strides. The boys looked to run, but the constable’s two deputies suddenly appeared behind them, tapping staffs of their own in their burly hands.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Ratt Brothers up to their old tricks,” the huge king’s man rumbled in the deepest voice imaginable.

“Hullo, Butterstreet ol’ chum,” George offered with a tug on his cap like a small salute. “Hope the missus is well and that you’ve recovered from that nasty bit o’ pneumonia you came down with last month.”

“Oh, I’m doing just fine, George, thank ya’ kindly. How nice of you to check on my health after our little incident by the riverside.”

“Water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned,” George said, but his brothers smacked their foreheads, and Butterstreet gripped his staff a little tighter.

“Still workin’ for the King, I see,” Butterstreet growled.

“Oh, you’ve got it all wrong,” Paul said, flashing a winning grin and winking at the constable. “We were just here to help this poor man pick up all his apples. Clumsy old goof, isn’t he?” Paul thumbed over to the cart owner, but when he looked at the miserable old seller - whose face was as red as a furious turnip - the con man’s smile dropped right off his mouth.

“I’m sure you are, Paulie,” said the constable, almost laughing. “And who is your new friend, here?”

“J-j-im Morgan…sir,” Jim said, the shadow of the constable looming over him. “And might I add that I too am glad you’re over your pneumonia. If it was only a month ago, though, might I suggest a bit more rest at home by the fire?”

“How thoughtful of you, Jim. But I’ll tell you this. Nothing heals my body and soul like the sound of converted thieves singin’ in my parish choir and recitin’ their lessons day after day.” The constable stared down at them from beneath a huge set of bushy eyebrows that drooped just like his beard. “Sorry boys, but this is the end of the road. You had a good run, but —”

Just then, an apple, as if dropped from the sky, bopped the old constable right on the noggin and fell into his hand. He looked at the apple curiously and then up into the air. Then another smacked him on the side of the head.

“Birds!” declared one of the two deputies, neither of which were nearly as clever or devoted as faithful Butterstreet. “Birds are dropping apples out of the sky! Just like in the Bible!”

“Not birds, you imbeciles!” Butterstreet thundered. “It’s her!”

“You betcha!” Lacey cried, firing another delicious green projectile at the constable’s head. “Come and get me!” She stuck out her tongue, and the constable’s face turned as red as the cart owners. He whirled about to take one of his massive strides to snatch Lacey up, but the Ratt Brothers didn’t miss the golden opportunity.

“Kick!” George shouted to Jim.

“What?” Jim asked, but he got the idea as soon as the three brothers kicked the apples around their feet into Butterstreet’s path. Jim joined in just in time, kicking a perfectly placed ball of fruit beneath one of Butterstreet’s huge feet so that the big man’s legs flipped right out from beneath him.

“Scramble!” George cried, and without another word the four boys and Lacey were off like a shot.

The two deputies, more concerned with their fallen chief than the escaping pickpockets, leaned over to pull Butterstreet up, but he was far heavier than they expected. Not to mention that they also stepped on several rolling apples themselves, so that in another moment they too ended up on their backsides beside their captain.

“Not me, you dolts!” Butterstreet roared. “Get them, the thieves!”

The two witless deputies sprang after the fleeing children, leaving Butterstreet sitting with a mess of freshly mashed applesauce all over his britches.

FOURTEEN

s Constable Butterstreet picked himself up off the slimy ground, the children ran for their lives from his two comrade, leaping over bums in the street, scattering pigeons, knocking over street vendors, and upsetting tables. From a distance, the little gang looked like five small bowling balls rolling down the street, destroying everything in their path. The two King’s Men followed as closely as they could, dutifully holding their hats on their heads and apologizing to everyone as they went.

“Sorry, sire!”

“’Scuse us, milady!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll apprehend the little runts!” they declared as they high-stepped over the destruction in the streets.

The Ratt Brothers, who had practically grown up on the run from one authority or the other, were as fast as jackrabbits, and Lacey, while newer to the outlaw life, was a natural athlete and had little problem keeping pace. But Jim, who had hardly ever needed to walk the length of a hallway for his own cup of water, found himself gasping for air after only two blocks. By the fourth block he felt the sudden (and terrifying for the first time) burn of a fierce stitch in his side.

“I can’t go on!” he sputtered. “I’m having a heart attack!”

“You’re not having a heart attack, nitwit!” Lacey said, barely out of breath. “You’re just in horrible shape. Really, didn’t you ever run anywhere?”

“No!” Jim gasped.

“All right,” George interjected. “Split up. Me and Lacey are the fastest and we’ll lead the quicker deputy right. Paul and Peter, take Jim up on the roofs! You know what to do from there!”

“Right!” Paul and Peter said, and the five children broke in opposite directions at the next intersection. Fortunately, George’s plan worked, and the faster of the two deputies followed Lacey and George, but they were small and light and knew the streets of the city like an old nursery rhyme, and the poor deputy hardly stood a chance.

Paul and Peter, meanwhile, even though slowed down a bit by Jim, had a plan of their own.

“C’mon, Jim!” they shouted to their lagging friend. “We just need to do a little climbing!”

“Climbing?” Jim said, dismayed. “I can barely walk!” he complained. But one look over his shoulder at the steadily gaining deputy changed his tune. “Climbing it is!”

The three boys almost bowled over a sad little old man and old woman hobbling out of a two-story pawnshop, where they must have traded the last of some precious family heirlooms for enough money to eat. Jim had never been to a pawnshop before, but Phineus had told him what they were: sad and tragic places. The Ratts didn’t lead him
inside the pawnshop, however, but rather around to the rear of the place, where thick ivy grew up the back of the brick building.