The graveyard book

“You had time. Now, you just have a deadline. Now, you’ve got to get smart. We can’t cut you any slack, not any more. Sick of waiting, we are, every man Jack of us.”

The man Jack nodded, curtly. “I have leads to follow,” he said.

The silver-haired man slurped his black coffee. “Really?”

“Really. And I repeat, I think it’s connected with the trouble we had in San Francisco.”

“You’ve discussed this with the secretary?” Mr. Dandy indicated the man at the podium, who was, at that moment, telling them about hospital equipment bought in the previous year from their generosity. (“Not one, not two, but three kidney machines,” he was saying. The men in the room applauded themselves and their generosity politely.)

The man Jack nodded. “I’ve mentioned it.”

“And?”

“He’s not interested. He just wants results. He wants me to finish the business I started.”

“We all do, sunshine,” said the silver-haired man. “The boy’s still alive. And time is no longer our friend.”

The other men at the table, who had pretended not to be listening, grunted and nodded their agreement.

“Like I say,” Mr. Dandy said, without emotion. “Time’s a-ticking.”

CHAPTER SIX

Nobody Owens’ School Days

RAIN IN THE GRAVEYARD, and the world puddled into blurred reflections. Bod sat, concealed from anyone, living or dead, who might come looking for him, under the arch that separated the Egyptian Walk and the northwestern wilderness beyond it from the rest of the graveyard, and he read his book.

“Damm’ee!” came a shout from down the path. “Damm’ee, sir, and blast your eyes! When I catch you—and find you I shall—I shall make you rue the day you were born!”

Bod sighed and he lowered the book, and leaned out enough to see Thackeray Porringer (1720–1734, son of the above) come stamping up the slippery path. Thackeray was a big boy—he had been fourteen when he died, following his initiation as an apprentice to a master house painter: he had been given eight copper pennies and told not to come back without a half-a-gallon of red and white striped paint for painting barber’s poles. Thackeray had spent five hours being sent all over the town one slushy January morning, being laughed at in each establishment he visited and then sent on to the next; when he realized he had been made a fool of, he had taken an angry case of apoplexy, which carried him off within the week, and he died glaring furiously at the other apprentices and even at Mr. Horrobin, the master painter, who had undergone so much worse back when he was a ’prentice that he could scarcely see what all the fuss was about.

So Thackeray Porringer had died in a fury, clutching his copy of Robinson Crusoe which was, apart from a silver sixpence with the edges clipped and the clothes he had formerly been standing up in, all that he owned, and, at his mother’s request, he was buried with his book. Death had not improved Thackeray Porringer’s temper, and now he was shouting, “I know you’re here somewhere! Come out and take your punishment, you, you thief!”

Bod closed the book. “I’m not a thief, Thackeray. I’m only borrowing it. I promise I’ll give the book back when I’ve finished it.”

Thackeray looked up, saw Bod nestled behind the statue of Osiris. “I told you not to!”

Bod sighed. “But there are so few books here. It’s just up to a good bit anyway. He’s found a footprint. It’s not his. That means someone else is on the island!”

“It’s my book,” said Thackeray Porringer, obstinately. “Give it back.”

Bod was ready to argue or simply to negotiate, but he saw the hurt look on Thackeray’s face, and he relented. Bod clambered down the side of the arch, jumped the last few feet. He held out the book. “Here.” Thackeray took it gracelessly, and glared.

“I could read it to you,” offered Bod. “I could do that.”

“You could go and boil your fat head,” said Thackeray, and he swung a punch at Bod’s ear. It connected, and it stung, although judging from the look on Thackeray Porringer’s face, Bod realized it must have hurt his fist as much as it hurt Bod.

The bigger boy stomped off down the path, and Bod watched him go, ear hurting, eyes stinging. Then he walked though the rain back down the treacherous ivy-covered path. At one point he slipped and scraped his knee, tearing his jeans.