Read Online The Hidden Boy by Jon Berkeley - Free Book Online Page A

“I can see trees. I can see leaves; I can see the sky. It’s nice here, but I want to go back to the busmarine now.”
    His voice seemed to be getting fainter as he grew more impatient. Bea could barely hear him, and in desperation she shouted one last question. “What color is the moon?”
    The sound of the falls rushed into her ears like water breaching a dam, and if there was any reply from Theo she could not hear it. She called his name again, but there was no answer. She put the Squeak Jar down in the grass and ran her hands through her hair.
    â€œIs he gone?” said Phoebe.
    Bea nodded, trying to ignore the clammy feeling in her chest.
    â€œDon’t worry,” said Phoebe. “Granny Delphine said you’d be able to find him when you’ve had some training.”
    â€œI don’t think Ma will allow it. She’s always hated Mumbo Jumbo.”
    â€œWhat is Mumbo Jumbo?”
    â€œI don’t know exactly. It’s some kind of secret thing that Granny Delphine belongs to. We were always told never to mention it, ever. Ma says it’s dangerous. Pa says it doesn’t exist, but he says it in that voice he uses when he’s making stuff up.”
    â€œLike when he told us a giant lizard runs the pizzeria?”
    â€œYes. Or about the chocolate mines of Kathmandu.”
    â€œDid he really think we’d believe those stories?”
    Bea shrugged. “Would you have believed him if he had told us about a car wash that sent you to another world?”
    Phoebe poked in the grass with a twig. For a while she said nothing; then she looked up at Bea. “You know what this place is, don’t you?” she asked.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œBell Hoot is an anagram. Think about it.”
    Bea scratched her head. “Boot Hell?” she said. “Tell Hobo?” She knew she wasn’t nearly as good at this as Phoebe was.
    â€œNo,” said Phoebe. “I reckon it’s a bolt-hole.”
    â€œWhat’s a bolt-hole?”
    â€œIt’s where people go to hide. It comes from rabbits, I think. This must be where people come to hide when the Gummint men are after them.”
    â€œDo you think we’ll ever get back?” said Bea. She had been too concerned with Theo’s disappearance during the short time they had spent in Bell Hoot to think about much else. Now for the first time it occurred to her that Phoebe might never see her parents again. She pictured Phoebe’s dressing-gowned mother, her straw-colored hair showing two inches of gray roots and a cigarette glued to her mouth with scarlet lipstick, and the father who lurked in the sitting room with the curtains drawn, oblivious to anyone who was not holding a fistful of playing cards. Phoebe seldom mentioned her parents, and she certainly seemed to prefer the bustle and chaos of the Flints’ apartment to the smoky cave of her own. “Will they be worried?” said Bea. “Your parents, I mean.”
    â€œThey won’t even notice I’m gone, probably,” said Phoebe.
    â€œStill,” said Bea, “I don’t see why you couldn’t go back sometime if you wanted to.”
    â€œI don’t want to,” said Phoebe, concentrating on the small crater she had dug with the twig. “And I can’t. You heard what the captain said. There’s always seven more coming through.”
    â€œYes, but if Bontoc arranged it in advance, maybethey could bring through one person less.”
    Phoebe got to her feet. “If I did want to,” she said, pointing at the opened compartment in the Blue Moon Mobile, “I could just stow away.”
    â€œI think that would still count as—,” began Bea; then she stopped dead. A terrible thought struck her. She stared at Phoebe.
    â€œWhat?” said Phoebe.
    â€œI thought it was Nails who made Theo disappear,” said Bea.
    She saw her friend’s eyes widen with the same