The Figure In the Shadows by John Bellairs, Mercer Mayer Read Free Book Online Page A

were attacking them from all sides.
    The dream seemed to go on for hours. Knives whizzed past and arrows flew. Lewis was wielding a heavy battle ax, and each time he swung it, an enemy fell. He waded into the throng of painted savages, laying about him mightily and urging his companions on with deep-throated war cries. Lewis swung and swung, and Indians fell right and left, but still they kept on coming.
    When he woke up the next morning, Lewis felt exhausted. Exhausted, but glowing and triumphant, as if he had just made an eighty-yard touchdown run on a football field. He sat there on the edge of his bed for a while, thinking about the dream. Suddenly he reached in under his pajama top and touched the coin. Darn! It felt perfectly ordinary, just as it always had, except for the time it had jumped and tingled during the saying ofthe magic spell from Mrs. Zimmermann’s book. Lewis felt disappointed. He knew that very powerful amulets were supposed to seem dead, but just the same, he was disappointed. After a dream like that, the coin ought to have felt red-hot. At least, that’s what Lewis thought.
    He picked the coin up and eyed it skeptically. It hadn’t really done anything for him yet. Nothing real, that is, except give him strange feelings and dreams. And maybe the coin hadn’t even done that. Maybe the feelings and dreams had just come out of his own mind.
    Lewis felt confused. He thought about the coin some more as he was getting dressed. It certainly was true that the coin had jumped in his hand that once—or had it? Lewis knew that you could get some very funny pinches and twinges in your body. Once on a hot summer day he had had the feeling that a worm was crawling across his back. But when he took off his shirt and looked, there was nothing there. What if . . . oh, the heck with it! Phooey on it! Lewis shook his head to get rid of all the conflicting thoughts that were banging around in his skull. By the time he had finished dressing, he felt better. In fact, he was beginning to get that pirate-movie feeling again. Lewis looked at himself in the mirror. He patted the coin. Maybe the coin had heard him. Maybe it knew that he was having doubts about its powers. Maybe it just wanted a chance to prove itself. Okay. He would give it a chance. Today would be the day the coin helped him take care of Woody Mingo.

CHAPTER SIX
    That morning at breakfast, Lewis asked Mrs. Zimmermann to pack a lunch for him. He said that he was going to stay down at school during the noon hour. Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann both smiled happily. They were glad that Lewis was going to have fun with the other boys instead of skulking at home like a fugitive. And when Lewis went out the door, they saw that he was grinning from ear to ear.
    “Rose Rita has been a good influence on him,” said Jonathan, as he poured himself a second cup of coffee. “I hope she keeps it up.”
    Mrs. Zimmermann stood there staring at the front door. She scratched her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe it’sgood,” she said, slowly, “but I can’t help feeling that there’s something funny about Lewis these days. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something wrong. Did you notice how tired he looked? Around the eyes, I mean. And yet he was raring to go. It’s odd.”
    Jonathan shrugged. “It’s always odd when a boy like Lewis does something different. But I wouldn’t worry about him. I think he knows what he’s doing.”
    Lewis hummed marching songs all the way to school. He really felt great. But when noontime came and he had eaten his lunch, he felt different. He began to get worried. By the time he had reached the edge of the playground, he could feel his courage ebbing away. Should he turn around and go home? Lewis paused. Then he pulled himself together, patted the amulet, and walked forward in quick nervous strides.
    It was a gray November day on the playground. The football and baseball fields were covered with frozen footprints and