Curse of the Midions by Brad Strickland Read Free Book Online Page A

down was much worse than climbing up had been. Jarvey stared at his sneakers as he inched down, and in the darkness he saw something strange: Sparks danced around the toes of his shoes as he took baby steps downward, silvery white sparks like tiny bolts of lightning. They faded as he crept down, sweat running into his eyes.
    He stood at last in the mouth of the passage, swaying on his feet. Timidly, Jarvey peeked out. The alley lay deserted, and he hurried back to the ramp and the cellar, wondering what fate he had just escaped. A scrawny arm reached out from the doorway, snagged his shirt, and dragged him inside before he could fight back or yell out.
    It was one of the rangy kids—Jarvey dimly remembered that Betsy had called him Charley—who gave him a brown-toothed grin. “Nah, then, you don’t wanna go out in the street. Not healthy, if you catch my meanin’.”
    Jarvey pulled away from the boy’s grip. “What was going on? Those people?”
    â€œBein’ driven to work, is all.” Charley had an unruly mop of black hair. He brushed it out of his eyes and snuffled as if he had a cold, and carelessly wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “So you’re a Midion, are you?”
    â€œYeah,” Jarvey said unwillingly. “What about it?”
    â€œNothin’, only”—Charley leaned close and lowered his voice, and his foul-smelling breath made Jarvey wince—“only, watch out for our Bets, if you know what’s good for you. Full of plans, that one is, but she don’t always think of what her plans might mean for the rest of us.”
    â€œO-okay,” Jarvey muttered. “I—I’m going over here.”
    â€œSuit yourself,” Charley said carelessly. “Me, I’m guardin’ this here door for the time being. But you remember what I said, right? I don’t know as how I’d trust Bets all that far. She’s got a head on her, but she looks out for herself before she thinks of anybody else.”
    Jarvey clutched the book to his chest and stumbled away to the stack of crates that walled in the Den. Back inside, he crouched miserably in his corner.
    Then, after what seemed like ages but really couldn’t have been more than an hour, he heard a rattle of laughter. The blanket flipped aside, and six kids came running in, doubled over, each of them clutching something, all of them chuckling. One of them was Betsy. Charley sauntered through after her, smirking and smoothing his untidy black hair away from his forehead.
    â€œGot your sleep in, then, did ya?” Betsy asked with a wide grin. “Time for eating, innit? Here, cully!”
    She tossed something at him, something the size of a softball, and he caught it. It was round, or mostly round, with one flat side, and it was, as far as he could tell in the dimness, gray. “What is it?”
    â€œBread!” one of the boys snapped. “Lumme, Bets, this is a strange ’un and no mistake!”
    Jarvey wrenched at the lump until it broke apart. It was bread of a sort, dense and heavy. He nibbled at it. Not much taste, but his empty stomach grumbled so loud that he wolfed it all down. “Here, wash it on its way,” Betsy said, holding out a quart-sized bottle bound in brown leather strips. “Careful of that, now. Cost a lot o’ slenkin’, that did!”
    It was tea, lukewarm and unsweetened, but that didn’t make any difference. Jarvey drank half the bottle, then when one of the other boys reached out, he handed it over. “Sl-slenkin’? What’s that?” Jarvey asked.
    â€œWhippin’! Nippin’! You know—stealin’!” Charley rolled his eyes. “You don’t know nothing, do you?”
    â€œStealing?” Jarvey said, surprised. “You mean—didn’t you—don’t you have any money?”
    â€œLeft my brass in my other trousers, I did,” the boy with the bottle,