Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves (21 page)

“Things are different now!” George barked, and once again Jim heard the huskiness in his friend’s words.

“So?” Jim shouted back at him. “Why should you care if anything at all is different? You’re the Brothers Ratt, the greatest thieves in London, remember?”

“Well, we quit!” George snapped with finality, staring straight ahead into the burning orange coals in the pitiful makeshift stove. A pit formed in the center of Jim’s chest, like a place that had been full just a moment before had suddenly gone empty, and his throat hurt and his nose stung.

“Fine then,” Jim said quietly, then he slipped out of the little hole in the wall of the empty cellar beneath the old shoe factory and into the frosty air.

Jim kicked through the snow on the streets of London until his shoes were thoroughly wet, thick ribbons of white draping all of the buildings along the streets, from the roofs to the doorframes, the city seeming nearly empty, as though all the houses had bundled up tight, wrapping imaginary arms around themselves to keep warm, trapping the people who lived inside until spring. A cold wind gusted down the streets, stirring up the snow into a chilling mist and blowing it into Jim’s face. He shuddered deeply, his teeth began to chatter, and soon his fingers and toes became sore from the cold. The icy weather took such a cruel hold on him that he began to feel as miserable on the outside as he did within.

Only a day ago Jim had imagined breaking into the King’s pawnshop with the Ratts and Lacey, finding out what the wily thief was up to, and stealing back his box. After reading about the amulet, Jim had even thought about somehow nabbing that for himself as well, using it to open the box, and finally turning all these troubles into nothing but unpleasant memories. But all of those dreams had fallen apart. The King of Thieves still had the box, and Jim’s new friends teetered on the verge of giving up everything they lived for.

Jim was turning these heavy thoughts over and over in his mind when he heard snuffling and halting gasps from around the corner of a building up ahead. Poking his head around the corner, he found Lacey, bawling her eyes out, her poor little shoulders shaking up and down from her sobs. Jim coughed politely into his freezing hand to let her know she was not alone.

The second Lacey heard the cough she straightened up and stopped crying, hurriedly slapping the tears from her cheeks. “Jim Morgan!” she snapped as she whirled around. “Don’t you know how rude it is to sneak up on someone like that?”

“I was just seeing if you were all right,” Jim said.

“All right? I’m fine!” She put her hands on her hips, trying to smile as if she hadn’t a care in the world, but her eyes and cheeks were so puffy and red that she looked more miserable than ever. “Why
would I even care what those stupid boys have to say about anything? And besides, how I’m feeling is none of your business, Jim Morgan.”

“Fine then!” Jim threw his hands up in the air. “Just be by yourself! Everyone can just be by themselves!” Jim spun on his heel to storm off dramatically, but the moment he turned, a wet, sloppy snowball plastered his unsuspecting face. “What the—?” Jim exclaimed, until he was cut off by the most awfully familiar laughter.

“Great shot, Red!”

“Yeah — right on the nose!”

“Right on the nose, brilliant! I can’t believe it! Right on the nose!”

As the leftover remnants of snowball dripped slowly from Jim’s eyes, down his nose and off his chin, he saw the bright red flare of Big Red’s tangled hair and freckled face, laughing as hard as he could, surrounded, of course, by his faithful entourage of lunks.

Jim sighed and shook his head, trying to find a way to form the burning hatred in his heart for Red into some fierce words to hurl at the taunting Dragon and his cronies. But just when a zinger of a biting retort made its way from Jim’s brain down to his lips, another volley of snowballs pelted his face and chest until he was covered in wet white dust.

“Where are the rest of the rodents?” Red asked with a snort while his lunks cackled behind him. The four Dragons had all reloaded, Jim noticed, stalking toward him and Lacey, packing the snowballs tighter and tighter in the palms of their hands. It only took a moment for Red to notice the puffy red eyes and flushed cheeks on Lacey’s face. “Awww, is de wittle baby cwyin?” he mocked, and Jim felt heat bloom in his chest and face.

“Leave her alone, Red,” he said, clenching his fists at his sides.

“You know, that’s the thing about you Ratt clanners,” Red growled, tossing a hardened snowball up and down in his hand. “If you ain’t blubberin’ like some toothless infant, you’re pickin’ fights you can’t win. And that’s why I just can’t stand any of you. But ’specially not you, Jim Morgan. Don’t know what it is, exactly, but you don’t belong here. Somethin’ about you…wouldn’t surprise me a bit if I found out
you was some son of some rich family who tossed you out ’cause they just couldn’t stand the sight of you any longer.”

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Lacey snarled, stepping up right beside Jim, absolutely breathing fury toward Red and his goons.

“See what I mean?” Red said with a laugh to his lunks. “She’s finished cryin’, now she’s ready to fight us. I mean, seriously, a girl, fight us?” The four bullies laughed hysterically, shaking their heads. “Gimme your snowballs and grab em!” Red ordered. In a blink the three goons grabbed Lacey and Jim; two had Jim’s arms and the third squeezed Lacey tight in a bear hug. Jim and Lacey twisted and squirmed as best they could, but it was no use. Red laughed on, setting two of the snowballs aside and gripping the others in his fists, one in each hand. “Now for some proper fun,” he said. “Here, lemme offer you some refreshment.”

With an enormous leer across his freckled face, Red smashed the snowballs into Jim and Lacey’s faces at the same time, rubbing them in deep until the two were spitting and sputtering dirty snow from their mouths.

“One of these days, Red!” Jim swore furiously. “One of these days I’m gonna… I’m gonna…”

“You’re gonna what? Cry on me again?” Red taunted.

“Well I know what I’m gonna do!” said Lacey, staring right into Red’s laughing face. “I’m gonna knock your block off!”

Red’s hysterics only increased, and he bent down for the other two snowballs. “Tha’ll be the day!” Red said, lining up his last two snowballs with his victims’ faces. “But in the meantimes, I think you’ll just have s’more snow!”

“I think not!” a shrill voice suddenly announced from absolutely nowhere. It caught Red so by surprise that he gasped, dropping the two snowballs that were about to be lodged into Jim and Lacey’s faces. “Unhand them, you curs!” the voice cried again. Jim and Lacey, along with Red and his Dragons, peered about the snowy and empty streets for their would-be rescuer, but not a soul was in sight.

“I said let them go or you’ll receive the walloping of a lifetime, you freckle-faced fop!” the voice challenged again, and while it sounded quite confident and fierce, Jim couldn’t help but notice something
not altogether right about it, so high, so shrill and, Jim thought, not completely natural.

“Who are you?” Red shouted, a dose of fear leaking into his once sneering face and laughing voice.

“Who am I?” the haughty voice retorted. “Why, I am a comrade of those who scale the white-capped peaks of the seas! I am a dealer in derring-do and dashing deeds, a trader of terrible tumbles for tyrannical tosspots. I have traveled the lands of the world and have seen life through eyes on the ground and eyes in the sky. If you have a lick of sense under that red mop on top of your head, you’ll release these two or face my wrath.”

“Face your wrath?” squealed Red, he and the Dragons craning their necks and turning themselves dizzy looking all around for the owner of the mysterious voice. “Well, why don’t you face us?” Red finally dared, and Jim thought he was trying to sound braver than he actually felt.

“So be it: Prepare to be undone!” the voice shouted, and suddenly… suddenly…well, Jim still didn’t see anyone.

Red managed to crack a smile. “This is a trick, innit?” he said, regaining some of his swagger. “It’s just one of you Ratts using a trick voice, ain’t you?”

“Eh-hem!” the voice said with a cough. “First of all, I’m right here.” The six children - Jim, Lacey, Red, and the three Dragons - followed the sound of the voice down to their feet, where there sat a big black bird at the end of a trail of hopping bird prints in the snow. Jim saw the confused looks on the others’ faces and imagined he wore the same on his own. Was this some kind of joke? But then the black bird opened its beak and the voice came out again.

“And secondly,” said the bird. “I’m not a rat. I, you chattering, churlish child, happen to be a raven.”

“Red?” the lunk holding Lacey said, his eyes as big as two moons on his face. “Is that bird talkin’ to us?”

“Well to whom else would I be speaking, you half-wits?” asked the raven. “Now unhand these two, or I shall be forced to give you the thrashing you deserve.”

“Thrashin’?” Red said with a snort, and it seemed to Jim that he was suddenly over the rather surprising fact that a bird was talking to him, and more insulted by the notion that it thought it could take on Big Red and the Dragons and win. “You’re just a stupid bird!” Red picked up one of the dropped snowballs, raising it high over his head to strike. “Now you’ll ’ave a taste of what they was gonna get!”

“So be it, boy,” the bird said calmly as Red rocketed the snowball straight down at its head. The raven sidestepped the white projectile and — Jim could hardly believe it — actually managed to form a little smile at the edges of his beak. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now have at you, poltroon! Proelium!” The bird shrieked an epic, avian war cry, launching itself into the air, right at Red’s face.

“Get away!” Red shouted, but it was too late. The raven beat its wings, flapping them right in Red’s face, then perched itself in the nest of curly, red hair and repeatedly pecked the top of Red’s head. “Get it off, get it off!”

“Sorry Red!”

“Can’t do it, mate”

“Just following your original orders, which were brilliant by the way, and getting away!” Red’s yes men scattered this way and that, disappearing into the alleyways and empty streets. Red himself was the last to escape the raven’s fury, running all the way back to the Dragon hideout, crying at the top of his lungs and waving his hands frantically over his head.

Jim and Lacey stood breathlessly in the middle of the snowy street, still not quite sure they believed what they had just seen. But, with the flapping of wings, the talking raven indeed reappeared, fluttering down onto the snowy street beside them.

“Mister raven, thank you!” said Lacey, clapping her hands and seeming not the least bit unnerved by what had just transpired before her. “Someone finally gave that Red a piece of what he deserved!”

“Lacey!” Jim shouted with incredulity. “You’re talking to a bird!”

“Well, of course I am silly,” she said without even a bat of her eyes. “He spoke to us first if you don’t recall. And, in case you missed it, he
also just saved our necks. You should always say thank you when someone helps you,” Lacey insisted. “So thank you, mister raven, thank you so much.”

“You’re most welcome, my lady,” said the raven with a neat little bow. “Your manners are impeccable. And please, call me Cornelius, Cornelius Darkfeather.”

“But birds don’t have names,” Jim muttered, remembering snippets of biology lessons that some poor professor had tried to teach him in his old life.

“Oh, and I suppose gypsies don’t have real magic either, do they?” the raven retorted.

“How did you know about that?” Jim demanded, hands on his hips.

“A little bird told me,” said Cornelius with a raven sneer on his beak that made Lacey laugh out loud. “And as it happens, not all animals have names, just the ones that talk, and there are several of those about in the world, I can assure you of that, young sir.”

“But…” Jim was about to argue matters further with the raven, but realized that he really had been exposed to true magic himself. If there could be spell-casting gypsies and enchanted amulets, then why not an animal or two that knew how to talk? “Sorry about that,” Jim finally said with a sigh. “But the last couple of months have been more than a bit odd for me.”

“I’m sure they have, my boy, I’m sure they have,” Cornelius said, hopping a bit closer to Jim, staring at him with his black-within-black eyes. “You know, we weren’t sure at first,” the raven continued, as much to himself as the children. “But, now that I’ve got a better look at you, we’re a tad bit surer you’re him, aren’t we?”

“Sure he’s who?” Lacey said, looking back and forth between the bird and Jim.

“Why, his father’s son, young miss,” the raven said, and Jim saw a knowing look pass over its beaked face.

“You know about my father?” Jim knelt down into the snow to better look the raven in the eye. “Wait a minute!” Jim snapped his
fingers. “I’ve seen you before! Twice actually, on the shoulder of the man in the captain’s coat! Who is he, and who are you?” But instead of answering Jim’s sudden onslaught of questions, the raven turned his back and hopped away.

“Well, time to go,” the raven announced, crouching down to spring into the air.