Mississippi River Blues (8 page)

“There sure are a lot of hills back now,” I said.

“And I think we tramped up every one,” said Frankie.

“Yeah,” I commented. “Who says we're lazy?”

A little while later, we stood by an old house. An old,
old
house.

“I see the guy who designed the graveyard also did this place,” Frankie said with a snort.

I tried to laugh, but it was true.

The house was surrounded by a broken fence, and weeds were smothering the whole yard all the way up to the doorstep. The chimney was a crumbled pile of stones at the side of the house, and if any window had glass in it at all, it was cracked.

Plus, a whole corner of the roof had already caved in.

“What are we waiting for?” said Tom. “Let's go in.”

“Go in?” I said. “It doesn't seem safe to look at, let alone go into. Frankie, what do you say?”

Frankie was reading a page of the book. “It says we go in.”

“Gulp,” I said, gulping.

We crept to the door and looked in at a wrecked living room with a dirt floor. A sort of fireplace was on one wall and was full of fallen bricks and charred wood. In the back of the front room was a cracked staircase hanging from the upper floor at an odd angle.

“Falling down much?” I mumbled.

Tom entered first. We followed. Everywhere we turned, we got ragged cobwebs in our faces.

“Tasty,” I said, wiping a thick web from my lips.

Since there was nothing much downstairs, somebody—not me—got the great idea that we should climb up those rickety stairs and poke around upstairs.

“Sort of cuts off our escape route—” said Frankie, “in case we see some of those haunted ghosts this place is supposed to be haunted with.”

“Ghosts can follow a person anywhere,” said Huck.

“Oh, thanks,” said Frankie. “I feel so much better.”

We laid our tools against the fireplace and headed one by one up the cracked and crooked stairs.

The same sort of ruin that was downstairs was upstairs, too. Broken doors, busted furniture, and dark, empty closets. Not much at all. We were about to go back down and begin digging for treasure when—

“Shhh!” said Tom, holding up his hand. “I hear someone coming!”

“It's ghosts!” said Frankie. “I knew it! Ohhhhh!”

In a flash, we were down on the floor, peering through the cracks between the planks, waiting for our hearts to stop pounding.

Two men entered the front room below us.

The first one was tall and wore a red poncho with a hood pulled over his head.

“I've seen that first one around town just after the trial,” Huck whispered. “People say he's a Spaniard from Spain or someplace. The other one I don't know.”

The other one was a ragged creature with a nasty face who looked as if he were a graduate of the Muff Potter School of Personal Washing. Grimy isn't the word. Dirt was cleaner than this guy.

He slung a small bag of coins onto the bare floor.

“I've thought it over,” he growled in a deep voice. “It's too dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” grunted the Spanish guy. “Pah!”

First of all, the Spanish guy wasn't speaking Spanish. And second of all, we had all heard that voice before.

“Oh, my gosh!” Frankie hissed. “It's—him!”

We all knew it was true. This tall Spanish guy was merely disguised as a tall Spanish guy. He was in reality a tall, stinky guy named Joe. In other words, Stinky Joe!

“We'll do the robbery, then we'll head for Texas with all the money,” snarled Joe. “But first, there's some revenge that I'm planning.”

“Revenge?” whispered Tom.

“On us!” whispered Huck.

“Let's bury this sack of money deep and come back after the job,” said Joe. From under his poncho he pulled a knife with a blade as big as a surfboard and started hacking away at the ground near the foot of the stairs.

Suddenly, his knife struck something.

“What is it?” Dirt Guy asked.

“A box!” said Joe. “Grab those shovels and help me.”

Mr. Unclean took hold of our shovels and plunged one of them deep into the ground. Joe took the other and did the same. In no time, they pulled up a strongbox. With a sharp whack of the shovel, the lid flew open.

“There's thousands of dollars here!” said Joe.

I gasped.

But not at the dollars.

There was something else in the box, too.

Frankie and I saw it at the same time and grabbed each other's arms. We stared at the box. We stared at each other, then back at the box.

“The lost page!” she whispered.

It was exactly that. The lost page of Mrs. Figglehopper's classic copy of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
was sitting right there with the gold and silver coins in the box. I could even see the dark scrawl of the author, Mark Twain, at the bottom of the page.

Stinky Joe shut the box with a loud clunk. “We'll take this and hide it in our secret place—you know, number two, under the cross.”

We all looked at one another, puzzled.

“Number two under the cross?” I whispered. “Where is that?”

“Wait a minute,” said Joe, staring at the shovels they had used to dig up the box. “Where did these tools come from?”

“Uh-oh,” whispered Frankie.

Dirt Man stood up. “People brought them?”

“People … who might still be here?” said Joe, peering up at the ceiling. “People who might be … upstairs?”

I nearly had a heart attack. Forget nearly—I
did
have a heart attack!

Stinky Joe grabbed that huge battle knife of his and started up the stairs.

“We're goners!” whispered Tom. “Joe will find us and take that knife and …”

CR-CR-CRASH!
There was a horrible crackling of rotten wood as Stinky Joe tumbled to the ground amid the ruins of the stairs.

“Yes!” I shouted. To myself.

“Ohhhh, never mind this!” groaned Joe, clambering to his feet and rubbing his shoulder. “We'll take our treasure and be gone before anyone sees us, anyhow!”

A few minutes later, the two bandits slipped out of the house and rushed away with their precious box of gold and silver.

And the even-more-precious lost page of our book.

Chapter 15

“We have to get it back!” I said to Frankie as we shot back to Aunt Polly's house.

“No kidding,” she said. “If we don't get it, we might get stuck in this book forever and never make it back home. Tom, you've got to help us get that treasure box!”

But the minute we hit Aunt Polly's house, the word
treasure
faded from Tom's mind.

It was replaced by another word.

Picnic
.

“I just remembered!” Tom gasped. “Becky's having her picnic today. I gotta go to that!”

Frankie gave me a look. “Oh, man, not again with the Becky business? We've got treasure to find!”

But Tom was too excited about the picnic to think about the treasure right then. “We'll go up the river to McDougal's meadow. It's the best spot for a picnic. Then we can go exploring in McDougal's cave.”

“A … cave?” I said. “No, thanks. I don't do caves. I've already been stuck in a closet. It was like a cave in there. I didn't like it. Sorry, no caves for me.”

Tom turned to me, his face alight with excitement. “McDougal's cave is deep, and filled with bats. You need candles to go in there or you might wander for days and nights and never find the way out!”

“Mmm,” I said. “You do make it sound good, but no.”

Shrugging, Tom left us and ran off to join the crowd gathering outside Becky's house.

Huck made a sort of grunting sound in his throat. “Picnics? Yuck. Stinky Joe used to go to a tavern in town. Maybe his secret hiding place, ‘number two under the cross,' is there. We could check. And while Tom's eating pie, we'll find our treasure!”

Frankie brightened. “I like the way you think, Huck. Did I ever tell you that I think you should have your own book?”

Huck grinned. “I like that idea plenty. Now let's go find that strongbox!”

A few hours later, Huck, Frankie, and I were squirreled away in an alley in town. Night had fallen. Tom and Becky and the others had been picnicking all day, but the three of us were doing the real work of the story.

We were going to hunt down Joe's treasure!

“Joe used to hang out at the tavern across the street,” said Huck, pointing to a dark building not far from where we crouched. “If he's up to his old ways, maybe we'll see him there … and follow him.”

“Shh!” I said.

We had just enough time to slide into an alcove behind a store when two men brushed by us and onto the darkened street ahead. One of the men had something under his arm. It looked boxy and heavy.

“It's Joe all right,” I gasped. “I can smell him. And he's got the box!”

Huck nodded. “Let's follow him.”

We stepped out and padded behind the two men like quiet cats. They moved up the street for three blocks, then turned up a cross street to the left. Then straight ahead, then onto a path that led out of town,

“Where are they going?” asked Frankie.

We followed the men until they stopped.

“The Widow Douglas's house!” Huck whispered, pointing to a small house in the moonlit distance.

The two bad guys loomed tall on the hill overlooking the house.

Then Stinky Joe spoke. “Time for my revenge.”

Huck turned to us. “Revenge? On the widow? I thought he was after
us
?”

Joe spoke again. “I never liked her. But her husband was the worst. He never treated me square. Now that I'm leaving for Texas, I've got to pay her back. I'm going to get her once and for all!”

Frankie turned. “We'd better get help. And fast!”

We stepped away as softly as we could and made our way back down the hill. We ran and ran until we reached another house.

“The old Welshman lives here!” said Huck, panting up to the front door. “We have to let him know!”

Huck banged hard on the door. An old man's head poked out a window above us. He rubbed his eyes.

“Who's there?”

“Frankie!” said Frankie.

“Who?”

“Devin!” I yelled.

“Who?”

“Huckleberry Finn!” Huck said finally.

The man snorted. “Huckleberry Finn? That isn't a name to open many doors around here. But come in and let's see what the trouble is.”

The old man and his two sons let us in.

“Please don't ever tell I told you,” Huck blurted out, “but the widow's been a good friend to me, and Stinky Joe is planning to hurt her!”

A minute later, the old man and his sons were up the hill near the widow's house. We tagged behind them, but then there was the sound of a gun going off.
Blam!

“Holy cow, a battle! I'm outta here!” said Frankie.

“Me, too!” said Huck.

“Me, three!” I added.

We raced away as fast as our legs could carry us. After we ran out of steam, we stopped and listened for a while. Hearing no more shooting, Frankie and I consulted the book. After we had turned a few pages, it was the next day, so we went back to the old Welshman's place. Huck banged hard on the door once more.

The old Welshman again poked his head out of the window. “Who's there?”

“Frankie!” said Frankie.

“Who?”

“Devin!” I yelled.

“Who?”

“Huckleberry Finn!” said Huck.

The man whooped. “Huckleberry Finn! That name can open this door anytime!”

Huck smiled a surprised smile. “That's the first time I ever heard those words.”

Inside, the Widow Douglas welcomed Huck with a big hug, which he tried to squeeze out of. “You saved my life!” she exclaimed.

Then the old Welshman told us how he and his sons had rescued the widow. They had fired shots at Stinky Joe and his dirty friend, but the two had escaped into the woods. “We couldn't find them anywhere.”

Just then—
tap! tap!
—there was a knock on the door, and Huck nearly hit the ceiling.

“It's Stinky Joe!” he said.

“Joe probably doesn't tap on doors,” said Frankie.

Suddenly, Aunt Polly rushed in. Her face was white and drawn. Her lips were pale. She was shaking.

“What is it?” the old man asked.

“It's Tom,” said Aunt Polly. “And … Becky. They never came back from the picnic. They're lost … lost in McDougal's cave!”

Huck slumped down into a chair. He didn't look well. Maybe the Stinky Joe stuff had finally gotten to him. Maybe it was the news about his friend Tom. Either way, he was one sick Huck. The Widow Douglas put blankets over him and said she would take care of him.

“I'll get up a search group,” said the old Welsh guy, bounding to his feet. “I only hope we can find the kids soon enough.”

“I've got a faster way,” I said. I grabbed the book from Frankie.

“Devin, what are you doing?”

“We need to find Tom and Becky,” I said. “And we need to do it now! Hold on to your funny clothes, people—because I'm flipping ahead to the next chapter!”

I held the book in my hands and flipped one blurry page after another after another.

Suddenly—
kkkkkk!
—there was a bright flash in the room, then the room went dark, and everybody fell on everybody else in a heap of old-fashioned Mississippi River people.

The Welshman yelled out something that I hope was in Welsh. Aunt Polly's thick glasses went flying.

The air went hot, then cold. Then, amazingly, a wedge of darkness came shooting down from the ceiling, piercing the room in half like a page ripping slowly in half.

“Devin!” yelled Frankie.

But I just kept tumbling. I felt the book sliding out of my hand as I fell. The darkness widened and I slipped and—