Read Online A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones - Free Book Online Page A

to speak.
    â€œIt’s no big deal,” she said. “It has nothing to do with anything.”
    â€œIf it’s no big deal, why did you keep it a secret?”
    â€œPipe down. It was
not
a secret. Like I said, it’s a small town.”
    Bernard cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, Dec, wetried not to talk about the incident at all, for Sunny’s sake, especially. And for you as well.”
    â€œThanks a lot. But I’m not six, okay?”
    His father sighed and shook his head. “Please, Dec,” he said. “It has been a very long day. What is it you want to know?”
    Dec made eye contact with his father in the rearview mirror. “I want to know what happened in there.”
    Bernard sighed again. “It’s nothing, really. Just an endlessly detailed account of what everybody already knows.”
    â€œMostly legal mumbo jumbo,” said Birdie.
    â€œAnd it’ll be over soon,” said Bernard. “Probably tomorrow.”
    Dec stared at the back of his father’s head, unable to believe what they were doing to him — the two of them, together.
    â€œIt’s been three days,” he said. “How long can you talk about a guy falling over?”
    His father glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “A man died, Declan. Show a little respect.”
    â€œA smart man,” said Declan, “doing a really stupid thing.”
    Birdie laughed. “Smart. I like that.”
    â€œI just meant he wasn’t dumb enough to waste his time stealing a piece of junk like the Plato bust.”
    Bernard held up his hand. “Excuse me, Son, but that bust is not a piece of junk. To a common burglar it might easily have seemed more valuable than it was.”
    Dec stared out the window. “Common burglar,” he muttered. “Runyon sure didn’t seem common to me.”
    The comment was met with stony silence, but Dec turned to see a glance pass between Birdie and his father. Then Birdie turned again, a long-suffering look in her eye. “As your dad said, it’s been a real tiring day. How ‘bout you just give it a rest, okay?”
    Dec crossed his arms. “Sure,” he said. “For now.”
    Again he met his father’s reflected gaze. “When there’s something to tell you, we’ll tell you,” he said. But his eyes said something else. His eyes said, What has come over you? His eyes said, Why all this acting out? His eyes said, I hope this is not a foretaste of things to come.

The Wildcat
    O N THE FOURTH DAY , as Bernard Steeple had predicted, the inquest came to an end with the coroner finding no cause to consider Runyon’s death as suspicious. The case was closed without so much as a single line in the
Ladybank Expositor
. Things settled down at home. Camelot breathed again, but to Declan Steeple, nothing seemed the same any more.
    The rains came. April showers a month late. Dec stopped looking for excuses to go to the big house. He just went. She wasn’t always there. Sometimes he saw her outside the mansion but never far from it, as if she were a moon held in a tight orbit by its gravity.
    She liked to surprise him. Shock the wits out of him. She would jump out and then disappear, giggling like a little girl.
    One time they had a tea party in the dining room with real bone china and imaginary scones. He asked her why Daddy said scone so that it rhymed with gone and she said scone so that it rhymed with stone.
    â€œWe say lots of things different, your dad and me,” shesaid. “He likes to say, ‘You’ll never grow up, Lindy Polk.’ And I like to say, ‘Bernard Steeple, you’re growed up enough for
both
of us.’“
    Another time she wanted to bowl in the drawing room, using Encyclopaedia Britannicas for pins and a bowling ball she had dug up from who knew where.
    Then there was the time they played catch in the conservatory.
    â€œBernard Steeple