The Boy in the Burning House by Tim Wynne-Jones Read Free Book Online

hawk.”
    The sky was plugged up with clouds, the temperature was dropping. Jim noticed that now that she wasn’t working anymore, Ruth Rose was shivering, her narrow shoulders up high, her shoulder blades sticking out like wings.
    â€œI’ll get your jacket,” he said.
    Her black leather jacket was hanging from a poplar bough. Something on the lapel glittered with reflected light. A mirror the size of a campaign button. She had been watching for him.
    He looked at himself in the mirror. The pimple on his nose said he was fourteen. The bewilderment in his eyes said he was going on four.
    â€œDon’t you go to school?” he asked, when he got back.
    She shook her head. “I’m home-schooled.”
    Poor Nancy, thought Jim.
    â€œBefore the accident, Mom taught public school. We work all morning and then I have the afternoon off. I’m not stupid, you know.”
    â€œDidn’t say you were,” said Jim.
    â€œI know you didn’t,” she said. “But you were thinking it. You were thinking what kind of dumb chick spends her spare time snooping around trying to prove her stepfather is a murderer.”
    Jim looked at her. “Actually, I was thinking what kind of a maniac goes around doing that.”
    She smiled in a maniac kind of way. Then she thrust her hands into her jacket pockets and dug out two slightly battered Hershey bars. She offered one to Jim.
    â€œI owe you this for yesterday,” she said. “I didn’t know how to talk to you.”
    â€œThat,” said Jim, taking the candy, “is the biggest understatement of the year.”
    â€œIt’s just that there didn’t seem an easy way to start. You know, it’s a pretty tough thing to try to tell someone. So I kind of used the Ruth Rose Way.”
    â€œYou mean roll over somebody like a freight train?”
    â€œNot exactly,” she said. “I was thinking more of the track than the train. The Ruth Rose Way goes straight to where it’s going, cuts through people’s yards instead of going around, cuts across roads wherever it wants. Cars stop. People stay clear.”
    Jim wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, thanks for helping with the dam.”
    She bit off a mouthful of chocolate. “Hey, I’m asking you for help so I figure I should return the favour.”
    The chocolate in Jim’s mouth tasted unpalatable all of a sudden. He had been enjoying sitting on a log sharing some candy with her, like ordinary kids. But nothing about Ruth Rose was ordinary.
    â€œDid you find out anything?” she asked.
    Jim swallowed and wrapped up the rest of the bar.
    He started to hand it back to her but a flicker in her eyes stopped him.
    Everything was quiet for a moment. Then he told her about the photograph of the Three Musketeers, about Frankie, the boy with the white hair. Francis Tufts.
    Her eyes lit up. “Tuffy!” she said. Jim shrugged, but he was proud of himself nonetheless.
    â€œCould be,” he said. Then he told her about Francis dying in the log house on New Year’s Eve of 1972.
    â€œHoly cow,” she said. He watched her try to incorporate his news into her plot.
    â€œI didn’t find out anything about the others,” he said.
    â€œThat’s okay,” she said. “You will. I know it.”
    Jim took no pleasure from her encouragement. “It’s all ancient history. I don’t know how it’s supposed to help.”
    â€œI don’t know how, either,” she replied. “But I know why. Because a life might depend on it.
Mine.
”
    Jim looked away. He wanted out and yet there was something holding him captive.
    â€œYou really think he’d do anything to you?”
    She looked at him with surprise. “Unless I do something first,” she said. “He’s known for awhile that I was on to him. Now he acts as if maybe I’m getting too close for comfort.”
    Jim fought off a