The Kneebone Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

more devoted army. Dr. Azziz would have loved to kill the boy at the fountain, since the young sultan was the only person standing between him and the throne. But Dr. Azziz was afraid that if he killed the sultan, it would cause an instant rebellion among the people. They loved him that much.”
    The Hardscrabbles all looked at the drawing again. The sultan smiled back at them so mischievously that they couldn’t even be jealous of the way Casper felt about him.
    “What’s wrong with his ear?” Max asked.
    “His ear? What do you mean?” Casper said.
    Max leaned across the table and pointed at the mangled right ear.
    “Ah!” Casper said. “Nothing was wrong with it. It’s just that the sultan vanished before I could finish the sketch.”
    “Vanished? He was finally killed at the fountain, do you mean?” Lucia said, suddenly feeling sickish in her gut.
    “No, not at the fountain. No, the cowards who took him did it in the middle of the night. No one heard a sound. In the morning, the only thing his advisors found in his room was an empty bed and the black mourning sash lying on the floor, stomped on by muddy boots.”
    “Where did they take him?” Lucia asked.
    “No one knows.” Casper shrugged one shoulder.
    “Do you think they killed him?” Lucia asked.
    “Of course they did,” Max said.
    Casper looked out the window, gazing at the wild garden for a few seconds before swallowing hard. He picked up the drawing of the sultan and began to tuck it back into his portfolio.
    “Can I have it, Dad?” Lucia asked.
    “What, the sketch? But it’s no good really. It’s not finished.”
    “I don’t care. I like it,” Lucia said.
    She hung it on her wall.
     
    But tonight, even the sight of the Sultan of Juwi couldn’t distract Lucia from the terrible silence (and now we are back to the present. See, that wasn’t confusing, was it?). She slipped out of bed, wrapped herself in her dressing gown, and went down the hall to the boys’ room. Max was sound asleep on the top bunk, his blankets thrown off of him as usual and his foot dangling from the edge of the bed. Otto was stretched out on the bottom bunk, his hands folded above the blankets, his eyes wide-open. The box with the robin inside it was next to his bed, one of Otto’s old T-shirts partially covering the top.
    As Lucia approached, Otto slowly turned his head towards her as though he’d been expecting her. He wore a pair of pyjamas made of purple silk, heavily embroidered with red dragons, which Casper had brought back from China. And of course, he wore his scarf.
    Lucia peered at the robin in the box before she sat down on the edge of Otto’s bed. “He looks much better,” she whispered.
    Otto nodded. “I’ll probably let him go in the morning.”
    They were silent for a moment before Lucia whispered ominously, “Dad’s sleeping.”
    “I know,” Otto answered.
    “But it’s too soon! He only just got back from Africa.”
    “That was months ago,” Otto said.
    “Still, it’s sooner than it ought to be. This past year he’s been away four times. That’s more than ever before.”
    “It’s not like he
wants
to go,” Otto said. “He does it for us.”
    “Maybe.” Lucia narrowed her eyes as a new idea formed in her mind. “Or maybe he just says that to make us feel better. I mean, what would
you
rather do: stay in boring, rubbishy Little Tunks or travel to exotic lands?”
    “I’d rather stay in Little Tunks,” Otto said.
    “Well, that’s you,” she replied, with a dismissive snap of her wrist.
    They were silent for another minute, then Lucia spoke in a wilting voice, “I wonder when we’ll be sent to Mrs. Carnival.”
    Above them, Max suddenly tossed violently in his bed, as though the mere mention of Mrs. Carnival had instantaneously brought on a nightmare. He moaned several times and flipped over twice more before he settled down again. Poor Max had it the worst with Mrs. Carnival, you see, because she had an oil cyst on