Barefoot Pirate Read Online Free PDF Page B

to go. Heck, you can
even bring Jordan.”
    Benny thrashed about, and Joe stopped talking, afraid his
brother would wake up. He stood quietly, hardly daring to breathe, and soon the
little kid’s breathing was deep and even again.
    Joe stepped back soundlessly, then looked around the
familiar objects in his room. All those pictures he’d made of imaginary places,
taped up on his walls. The books he’d collected. Everything ghost-lit by the
rising moon through the window.
    Time to go.
    He picked up his shoes, his coat, and his backpack, eased
the door open, and tiptoed down the stairs.
    He paused on the landing to listen just once more. Silence.
    He pulled his jacket and shoes on, his gloves ready in his
pockets. Then he opened the front door, careful to make sure the knocker didn’t
tap. Hunching into his coat against the icy outside air, he carefully eased the
door shut.
    Then he started to run.

Four
    Running like that when the temperature must be about a
million below zero made Joe’s mouth and lungs ache like fire, but he didn’t
slow until he reached the corner across from the school.
    There he stopped, trying to quiet his noisy breathing, and
scanned back and forth so sign of the police who usually cruised the area for
gangs and vandals.
    Glad his jogging shoes were silent, he crossed the street
fast. Then he came the surprise: the gate was locked. Of course, stupid.
    He stood with his gloved fingers curled in the chain link,
and tried to review the other entrances to the school in his mind. Then a
ghostly figure appeared in the dark hallway just inside the gate.
    “Climb over,” came Nan’s voice in a low, urgent whisper.
“Fast. The cops come around every few minutes.”
    Joe shoved his toe into a chain-link square and clambered
up. The unmelodic ching of the fence under his weight seemed as loud as
a bomb in his ears. Soon as he got to the top he jumped over. Landing lightly,
he looked this way and that. Nothing.
    “We can see the moon from the quad, just barely,” Nan said
in a low voice. “It’ll be behind the library soon.”
    “Library—” Joe repeated, walking fast beside the wraith-like
girl. “Don’t you think we should return the book to the library before we go?”
    Nan shook her head violently.
    “Why not? We’d be stealing it otherwise, and besides, why
not give some other kid a chance to go? I mean, if it works,” he corrected
himself self-consciously.
    “Did you leave a note?” Nan asked.
    “What?” he asked, confused by the abrupt change of subject.
    “A note. At your—your home.”
    “Nah,” Joe said, feeling even more self-conscious. “I mean,
I considered it, but they wouldn’t believe it anyway.”
    “Good,” she said. “I didn’t, either. I don’t want to risk
anyone coming after us. If they find the book, and put it together with us, and
say the spell, they might come just to force us back.”
    Joe hadn’t thought of that. The bitterness in her voice made
him feel uncomfortable.
    “Look,” he said. “Have you really thought about this? Not
about leaving, but about what we might be going to .”
    “What do you mean?” she demanded, in a
not-particularly-friendly voice. “You’re not afraid they’ll turn out to be
squid-people, or something?”
    Her tone said: You’re scared.
    Joe bit back a nasty retort. “Not likely.” He shrugged.
“Because squids live undersea, and these guys sail ships. Also, I can’t see a
centaur teaming up with squids.”
    She made a muffled snort, almost a laugh.
    “Of course, we may be in for some weird foods. Which is why
I brought some chili and stuff, just in case. Until we could get magic to make
us some of ours, or whatever.”
    “So what’s your problem?” she said.
    “It’s not mine, it’s, well, ours. If we both go. And I want
to,” he added hastily, when he saw her stiffen up. “But rescuing somebody—well,
this place doesn’t sound like pretty unicorns and fairies and—”
    “Let’s. Go,” she cut