Read Online Far Far Away by Tom McNeal - Free Book Online Page A

they’d better keep moving.
    I glided smoothly ahead and soon confirmed my worst fear: I saw Sheriff Pittswort’s black-and-white patrol car wheeling from the police station and turning toward Main. I slipped back to Jeremy and advised him to hide at once.
    “What?” he said.
    “I didn’t say anything,” Ginger said.
    Sheriff Pittswort. He’s coming this way. Hide
.
    “Quick,” Jeremy said, grabbing Ginger’s arm. “In here.”
    He pulled her behind a short wall of blue plastic bins stacked in the alcove of Crinklaw’s Superette.
    “What are you doing?” Ginger said.
    “Hiding.”
    “Because?” she asked. But at this moment the arcing beams of headlights swept onto the street. “It’s Pittswort!” she said, ducking back. She looked at Jeremy in amazement. “The baker called the freaking
sheriff
? Over freaking
Pop Rocks
?”
    Ginger and Jeremy crouched behind the bins as the sheriff’s car prowled down the street. Mounted to the car was a strong lamp that the sheriff used to probe into dark nooks and crannies, including those around the superette, but Jeremy and Ginger were well hidden, and the patrol car slowly passed by.
    “Okay,” Ginger whispered, “that was an unnecessary thrill.” She stood and looked around. “Let’s get out of here.”
    Wait
, I said, for I had seen something else as well.
    “Just a second,” Jeremy said.
    “Why?” Ginger said. “Let’s just—”
    At that moment a second set of headlights turned onto Main. It was Deputy McRaven in a second patrol car. It, too, passed slowly by.
    All right, then
, I said, and was about to tell Jeremy to hurry home when to my dismay I heard something else!
Wait!
I said.
Wait. And hush
.
    Jeremy took hold of Ginger’s arm to keep her quietly in place.
    Footsteps
, I said, and in the next moment they could hear them, too—slow, shuffling footsteps coming this way. Behind the grocery crates, Ginger and Jeremy shrank into their smallest selves and held their breath.
    Closer and closer came the shuffling footsteps of a dark hooded figure.
    It was Mrs. Truax.
    And then, a few feet away, on the opposite side of the grocery crates, she stopped. She peered that way and this.
    “Possy?” she said at last in a dry, hollow voice. “Possy?”
    The stillness seemed to stretch beyond the earthly world. And then, at last, this strange hooded woman turned and shuffled slowly on, and Jeremy and Ginger fled toward home, where yet another unhappy surprise awaited.
    At the bookstore door, Jeremy pulled the leather thong from inside his shirt and … found it broken.
    “What?” Ginger said.
    Jeremy stood holding one end of the broken leather thong. “My key. It’s gone.” He looked back down the street. “I’d better go look for it.”
    “With Pittswort and McRaven and crazy Mrs. Truax crawling the streets?” Ginger said. “Are you doing any kind of thinking here at all?”
    Jeremy admitted that he probably was not.
    They circled to the side of the building, where Jeremy pried open a window that he knew was never latched. As he got set to climb through, Ginger grabbed hold of his arm. “So,” she said, grinning at him through the darkness. “How’d you like your first night outside the Jeremopolis city limits?”
    He gave a small laugh. “I’m not sure. It was all right, I guess.”
    “Not sure? My God, Jeremy. You were amazing! I said you had potential, and I was totally right.” She reached for his one remaining shoe. “I’m going to jettison this.”
    “Why?”
    “What good’s one shoe going to do you? Besides, from this minute on, you never owned a pair of black Converse.” She folded a stick of cinnamon gum into her mouth. “I’d also advise throwing all your muddy clothes in the washer.”
    “Yeah, okay.” He paused. “I think I’m not really suited to a life of crime.”
    “You might be surprised. Besides, it can have unexpected rewards.”
    She took off her wool cap, shook out her long red hair, and leaned