The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick Read Free Book Online Page A

things that are better left to God and Mr. Brewster.
    “Where are you going?” Mrs. Bean calls out when I get up from the table. “What are you going to do?”
    But I’m running out the door without an answer. Running into the sooty blue darkness where Smelt is waiting. Smelt with his knife and probably a gun, too. And I’ve got no idea what to do, no idea at all.
    Except I know one thing. I can’t do nothing. Nothing is not an option.

 
     
    B REWSTER’S PRIVY LOOKS better cared for than Squint’s whole house and is nearly as big. It’s got fancy wood trim, all painted neat and white, and a half moon cut in the door. Very civilized, and way better than the cow ditch me and Harold used when we had to do our business out behind the barn.
    I’m most ways to the privy door when a dirt-colored hand clamps over my mouth and yanks me into the shadows behind the building.
    Smelt with his knife, like I figured.
    “Evening, boy,” he whispers, his nasty little eyes flicking to the big house. “If you try and scream I’ll wring your neck and drop your body into the cesspit. Nod if you understand.”
    I nod. Smelt grins, showing me his tooth.
    “Fatten you up, did they? Fuss over you some? Hope you enjoyed it, boy. Hope you paid attention. ’Cause if you can’t tell me where they hid them fugitives, this world’s got no more use for Homer Figg. You might’s well jump in that cesspit and save me the trouble.”
    My brain has been racing since I run from the house, trying to find a lie that will save me and the runaway slaves and Mr. Brewster, too. Comes to me in that very moment, with Smelt jabbing the point of his knife in my ribs, looking for a soft spot. Don’t know if the lie is powerful enough to work, but it’s the only one I have at the moment.
    “Gemstones!” I exclaim. “Tourmaline!”
    “Hush your voice, boy,” he hisses.
    “In the mine,” I tell him. “They’re hiding in the old tourmaline mine.”
    That filthy hand of his starts squeezing on my neck. “The mine? Who told you, the cook or the old man?”
    “Showed me,” I say, gasping as his hand tightens.
    “You saying he took you up to the mine and showed you where he’s got the slaves hid? You expect me to believe that?”
    The part of the lie I’m counting on is that Smelt doesn’t know he was spotted shadowing me and Jebediah Brewster to the mines. Best kind of lie has some truth in it, just like Smelt said. Used to drive my brother, Harold, crazy when I’d tell folks our Dear Father was killed by a tree that measured a mile high from roots to top. The tree was real but the mile wasn’t, and Harold said that made it worse, telling a lie that was partway true.
    I can see in Smelt’s eyes that he’s trying to catch me lying but hasn’t so far, because he knows Mr. Brewster really did show me the mine.
    “I been all over that site,” Smelt says, puzzling it out. “Didn’t see no fugitive slaves, nor any place to hide them.”
    “Old shed with a rusty tin roof,” I tell him, making it up as I go along. “There’s a secret passage in the shed.”
    “Nothing in that shed but rocks and dirt,” he says suspiciously.
    “Under the dirt,” I tell him. “There’s a door under the dirt. Mr. Brewster wouldn’t let me go down there, but he lifted the door up enough with his foot so I could see the ladder down.”
    “Hole in the dirt don’t mean nothing,” he says. “It’s a mine, there’s lots of holes in the dirt.”
    “Heard a baby crying,” I tell him.
    That gets his attention. Probably he knows the fugitives have a child or two. “Baby cryin’, you say?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    He presses the knife harder. Another twitch and he’ll be drawing blood. “Tell me the truth now. Why’d a man like Jebediah Brewster show you where he’s hid them fugitives? Why’d he trust a lyin’ boy like you?”
    “Said it was up to me, whether I wanted to help or run away.”
    Smelt makes a face, nods to himself. “Sounds like that