Read Online The Boy in the Burning House by Tim Wynne-Jones - Free Book Online Page B

his sleeves against the chill in the air.
    â€œWell, glad to be of service,” he said. He held out his hand. Jim shook it. The old man held on an extra second. “Good to see you back on your feet, Jimbo. If there’s anything else you’re after, don’t hesitate to come around for another visit, you hear?”
    â€œPromise,” said Jim. Then he waved and turned along McMartin Street. As he turned left down Truelove towards the library, he saw that Hec was still standing in the doorway following him with his eyes.
    It wasn’t far to the library and there was still half an hour before his mother was to pick him up. Time enough to set himself up behind a wall of books and try to sort out the jumble of images in his head.
    Ruth Rose had accused him of being afraid. “You’re not ready for this,” she had told him. Twice. Well, she had that right. But there was stuff Jim couldn’t ignore no matter how hard he tried, and now it came elbowing its way into his brain.
    For months before Hub went missing he had suffered from what the family called nerves and what the inquest called paranoid delusions. He believed someone or something was after him. Jim saw little evidence of the symptoms at the time; his father kept the worst from him. What Jim experienced was his father’s long silences and longer walks and then moments of holding Jim in his arms too tightly and telling him how much he loved him. Iris begged Hub to see a doctor but he told her — and Jim did hear this — “I don’t need a doctor to tell me what I already know.” He prayed a lot, worked his farm and took his troubles to his spiritual advisor, Father Fisher. At the inquest Father spoke of Hub’s delusional state, revealingno source for it beyond the “mysteries of the Lord’s working.”
    If Ruth Rose was telling the truth, Father knew, all right, what was behind Hub’s feelings of persecution. Somebody
had
been out to get him!
    What had Ruth Rose overheard at the church the night before his father disappeared?
She’s got nothing to go on
.
    But who? Laverne Tufts?
    A past was a big thing. Jim didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. He knew hardly anything about his father’s past. So why did he feel, suddenly, as if he knew far more than he ever wanted to know?
    He crossed Truelove, and just as he reached the walk on the east side, a vehicle passed him and pulled into the next available parking spot up ahead.
    It was the Godmobile.
    Flustered, Jim pretended not to notice, but the driver’s door opened and it was too late.
    â€œIs that Jim Hawkins?” came the hearty voice of Father Fisher. “This has got to be the answer to a prayer.”
    The memory of what Ruth Rose had told Jim flashed through his mind and he was suddenly afraid the pastor might fall to his knees right there on Truelove Street. Instead he took both of Jim’s hands warmly in his own, the way he did at the door of the church after Sunday service.
    â€œHow are you, son?” he asked, his grey eyes beaming. They were sharp eyes — little bits of Cambrian Shield granite set in a face that was surprisingly smooth and young for a man near fifty. He was the size of Jim’s father and, like Hub Hawkins, he had grown up on a farm. Though he was now in the businessof farming souls, as he liked to say, he still had a real farmer’s stockiness about him — the rounded, muscular shoulders, broad chest and ham-sized hands. Unlike Hub, whose hair had thinned on top and gone to salt and pepper, Father Fisher’s hair was lustrous and thick and raven black. It must be dyed, thought Jim. It was the first time such a thing had crossed his mind. And then he thought, if it was dyed, it was surely the only thing he had in common with his stepdaughter.
    â€œI’m fine, Father,” said Jim. “How are you, sir?”
    â€œBetter for seeing you,” said the minister.