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

won’t like this,” she said, hurling the ball just over Dec’s outstretched hands. It bounced against the glass wall — only a tennis ball, harmless. But when sixteen-year-old Dec watched the trajectory of the ball that his younger self could not catch, he saw the glass wobble in its dried-up and crumbling putty.
    He was two people in one these days. He was a child and a teenager, a participant and a watcher, a son and an intruder. He had thought the past was something that was over. Apparently, he was wrong.
    Late one afternoon, he ventured out back to where the sweeping driveway came to an end. The rain had let up for a bit and everything smelled alive. There were two garages, each with four bays. He rolled up the first door of the older building. Only three of the bays were occupied; the empty space was where his father’s very first car used to sit. Now Dec saw it again, waxed to a glossy shine, the Wildcat. It was a black convertible with white interior. The top was down. He doubted his father had left it that way.
    â€œWish I’d known him when he was young,” said Lindy. Dec looked up. She had been standing in the shadows at the back of the garage, in a black raincoat with her collar up and the belt cinched tight. She looked like a spy.
    â€œI was just out of school,” she said. “He was thirty by then. Not so old, I guess, but some people age real fast.”
    She ran her hand admiringly along the chrome that stretched the length of the car and then leaned over to see her reflection in the hood.
    â€œThink of it, Dec. Your daddy, just a boy, eighteen, away at college and — Pow! — both parents dead in a car crash.” Her eyes flashed. “Suddenly he’s a millionaire. Just like that! And the best part is, no meddling relatives to tell him what to do with his money.”
    She laughed out loud.
    â€œI’d have said to hell with university if I’d been him, but not your dad, oh, no.” She scowled. “He was too busy majoring in boredom.”
    â€œDaddy’s nice,” Dec said.
    â€œOh, he’s nice, all right,” said Lindy. “Nice and handsome, nice and rich. Why else do you think a girl would marry a guy a dozen years older than her?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Dec, shoving his hands into his pockets. Adults all seemed about the same age to him.
    Lindy scruffled his hair. “Bernard is so nice a girl could just die.”
    Dec wrapped his fists tightly around the Micro-Machinesin his pockets — a pick-up in the left, an ambulance in the right.
    â€œAh, Skipper,” she said, seeing the trouble in his eyes. “It’s just that sometimes it seems like he’s got his feet stuck in two big fat pails of concrete.”
    Dec laughed.
    Then Lindy bent down so that they were eye to eye. “Do you ever ask yourself why?” she said, her voice a throaty whisper.
    â€œWhy what?”
    â€œWhy a guy like that would buy a car like this?”
    Dec had never thought about it before. The Wildcat wasn’t like any of his father’s other cars, that was for sure.
    She opened the driver’s door and peered inside. “You know what I think? His folks dying like that so sudden must have scared some life into him.” She made a face. “He sure got over it fast.” She rubbed her hand over the leather of the driver’s seat, shaking her head in wonder.
    Then she looked at Dec, a wicked grin on her face. “You think maybe he stole it?”
    Dec laughed out loud. What a joke that was! “Oh, ho!” she said. “You think your daddy never stole anything?” Her voice had changed. He couldn’t tell any more if she was fooling.
    He kicked at the white-walled tire. “Daddy’s not a crook.”
    â€œDon’t you be so sure,” she said, wagging a finger at him.
    She held onto the car door and leaned way back.
    â€œThe man who bought this car was