Mississippi River Blues

by Tony Abbott

  “No, you!”

  “No, you!”

  “Frankie! Devin!” the librarian called out. “Time’s up! Mr. Wexler wants you back in class!”

  She started tramping back toward the workroom.

  “Oh, man,” I said. “We’ve got to get that page back!”

  With pretty much no other thought in our heads, Frankie and I dived into the dark, smoking crack in the wall. We tumbled over and over until we hit something.

  Something that said, “Hey! Get off my toe!”

  Chapter 3

  I blinked.

  In the dim light I could see that Frankie and I were in our second closet of the day. Luckily, it wasn’t a stinky one. But it wasn’t empty, either. By the slim crack of light around the door, I could see a third person crouching in there with us, peering out. It seemed to be a boy.

  I nudged Frankie. “Where are we?” I whispered. “And don’t tell me we’re in the book.”

  “We’re in the book,” she said, tapping the book’s cover. “The zapper gates must have zapped us again.”

  “You’re still on my toe!” whispered the boy. “Get off!”

  “Sorry!” I said, jumping back next to Frankie.

  The boy was about our age, dressed in rumpled jeans, a white shirt that had once been a lot whiter, and a tattered vest of brown flannel. Also, he was barefoot.

  “Just for the record,” asked Frankie, “who are you?”

  “Hush!” said the boy. “My aunt Polly’s just outside. She’ll find us.”

  There was a scuffling sound outside the closet. “Tom!” cried a voice.

  The boy chuckled softly. “Aunt Polly’s all mad because she thinks I stole her fresh strawberry jam that took her so long to make. But I swear I never had a lick.”

  “Y-o-u-u—Tom!” cried the voice from outside.

  “Tom’s me,” he whispered. “Tom Sawyer. I never saw you in my closet before.”

  “I’m Devin. This is Frankie,” I said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Tom said. Smiling, he stuck out his hand for me and Frankie to shake.

  It was sticky.

  “What’s that stuff on your fingers?” asked Frankie.

  “Jam,” said Tom. “Now, shhh. We can sneak out if we’re careful.” Holding a finger to his lips, which he then took a moment to lick, Tom gently pushed open the closet door.

  Thwack! A thin hand came down from nowhere and grabbed Tom by his vest and hung on tight.

  “There!” snapped a voice. “I might have thought you were hiding in that closet! Out into the light with you!”

  Tom, Frankie, and I tumbled out into what looked like a small, old-fashioned kitchen. Aunt Polly stood there, her feet planted on the floor. She was a thin, strong-looking, old-fashioned lady. She glanced at us over a pair of old-style spectacles perched on her nose, scowled harshly at Tom, and refused to let him go.

  “Well, what have you been doing in there?” she snapped.

  “Nothing,” said Tom, wriggling in her grasp of steel.

  “Nothing? Look at your hands. And your mouth. What is that?”

  “I don’t know, Aunt Polly,” said Tom, his eyes wide with fake innocence.

  “Well, I know what it is!” the woman said. “It’s the jam I told you not to touch. So help me, I’ll swat you!”

  She reached for a stick that was leaning against the kitchen table—probably just for the purpose of swatting Tom—and held it over his head.

  Suddenly, Tom pointed. “Look behind you, Aunt!” The old lady whirled around, and Tom shot out the back door like a rocket. He scrambled across the yard and leaped over a dirt-splattered fence and away.

  “Why, you—Tom!” Aunt Polly called out. Then she grunted to herself, turned on her heels, pulled her glasses down, and looked over them at us.

  “Well, and who are you two?” she said sharply.

  Frankie gulped. “Um … we’re …”

  “New friends of Tom,” I said. “Just passing through … your closet.”

  The woman shook her head as if it didn’t matter, anyway. She took a deep breath and shook her head.

  “Tom’s played tricks on me so many times. But, my goodness, he’s my own dead sister’s boy, poor thing, and I somehow ain’t got the heart to punish him. But punish him I must. I know he’ll steal off and not go to school today. It’s mighty hard to make him work tomorrow on Saturday, and, oh, he hates work more than he hates anything else, but if I don’t punish him some, I’ll be the ruination of the child.…”

  Aunt Polly started mumbling to herself and got back to making more jam while we scrambled out the door just as Tom had done.

  Leaping over the fence, we found ourselves on a dusty street in the center of a tiny village.

  Out of breath, I turned to Frankie. “We’re in the book, just like last time. I can’t believe it’s happening again.”

  “No kidding. It’s the most impossible thing ever,” she said, opening the book. “But it’s worse this time. We lost Mrs. Figglehopper’s precious scribble page. It’s a treasure, she said, so we definitely have to find it. But where? It wasn’t in the closet. Or in the kitchen, either.”

  “You know what?” I said. “I bet there’s no way out of here without it. It’s probably one of the weird rules of being dropped into books.”

  “Like when you try to jump ahead to the next chapter and the whole scene rips in half?”

  I nodded. “Tell me about it. Everything cracks and we get totally toasted.” I took a deep breath as we started to wander down the main street of the village. “I just hope we don’t get trapped in this book forever,” I said. “Things look pretty dull around here.”

  “Thanks for being so upbeat,” said Frankie. “Next time I’ll just lie down under the falling books.”

  As Mrs. Figglehopper had told us, the book was written about a hundred and twenty-five years ago, so that meant we were in the past. The village had a bunch of wooden buildings and houses on both sides of the street. The trees were heavy with leaves, the sun was shining, and it was fairly hot, so it was probably pretty near summer. Beyond the trees was the shore of a hugely wide river.

  Frankie peeked in at the first few pages of the book. “I think this small town is next to the Mississippi River,” she said.

  I laughed. Then I stopped. “Whoa, brain flash! I just realized something! This book is named after Tom Sawyer, right? Because the story is all about him, right? So all we have to do is follow Tom and we’ll find the lost page!”

  Frankie blinked. “Good brain flash. Where’s Tom?”

  We looked around. He wasn’t anywhere.

  “Maybe you’d better read some to find out,” I said.

  “Maybe you’d better.”

  “But you read faster!”

  Frankie stared at me. “If I read faster, it’s only because I always end up doing it more. Because you won’t.”

  But she cracked open the chubby book, anyway, and did some reading, while I breathed in the summer air.

  “Well, Tom gets into more trouble,” she said after a few minutes. “He skips school, goes swimming, throws a clump of dirt at his little half brother, Sid, then wrestles a kid in fancy new clothes.”

  “Sounds like Tom knows how to waste a day like the best of us.”

  Frankie chuckled. “And for all that, Aunt Polly punishes him, just as she promised to.”

  “Brutal. Is he back in the closet?”

  Frankie snickered. “No, he’s got to do some kind of huge chore—”

  “Chore!” I gasped. “Well, that’s gotta slow the story down. Better read ahead to a more exciting part. Like the part where we find the lost page.”

  “I can’t. The words are getting all blurry.” Frankie showed me the book. All the words were hazy and impossible to read.

  Ah, yes, the blurry factor.

  We had learned from the first time we dropped into a book that the words always get blurry when you try to read ahead of where the story actually is.

>   “So we know one thing,” I said. “We’re right at the chore part of the story.”

  “Chores are tough news,” said Frankie. “How about we go find Tom and cheer him up?”

  “I’ll tell him a joke,” I said.

  But when we found Tom, I wasn’t sure he needed any cheering up. He was already pretty cheery.

  In fact, he was whistling.

  Chapter 4

  Tom was standing before Aunt Polly’s ultra-high, mega-long, and super-dirty fence with a giant bucket of white paint. He also had this long-handled brush, and he was whistling merrily like a flock of silly birds.

  He’d whistle, then dip the brush, then whistle some more, then splash the white paint on the dirty fence, then whistle some more.

  “He’s way into the chore thing,” said Frankie.

  “Do you think all this sunshine got to him and he’s gone soft in the head?” I replied.

  “Palmdale has lots of sun,” said Frankie. “And we’re not soft in the head.”

  “Not too much,” I said. “Let’s talk to him.”

  “So,” Frankie said to Tom, “Aunt Polly finally nabbed you, huh? Big fence, little brush. Looks rough.”

  Tom slapped another brushful of paint on the fence and went on whistling as if he hadn’t heard Frankie.

  “Hey, Tom,” I said. “Did you paint your ears closed?”

  Finally Tom turned to us. “Oh, hey, Devin, Frankie. Sorry, I didn’t notice you. I was all caught up in this.”

  “Take a break, man,” I said. “Maybe you don’t know it, but you’re working!”

  Tom dipped his brush again. He whistled a bit, then said, “Depends on what you call work.”

  “This is work,” I said, tapping the fence. “Believe me, if it doesn’t involve pillows and a remote, it’s work.”

  “Not for me,” said Tom, moving his brush a bit. “It’s not every day a boy gets a chance to paint a fence.”

  Frankie and I looked at each other while Tom stepped back to survey his work as if he were some kind of artist. Slowly, he nodded as if it was good, then dipped the brush again and started on a new spot.

  “Are you saying you like to do that?” I asked.

  “It suits me just fine.” Tom whistled a new tune now.

  I watched him slap the dripping white paint on the wood and spread it around. He was making the dirty fence all nice and neat and fresh. It did look like fun.

  Lots of fun, actually.

  “Um, there’s a lot of fence,” I said. “Maybe you could use some help?”

  Tom wrinkled his brow. “Oh, no, no. Aunt Polly’s very particular about this fence. I’m the only one who’s supposed to do it. Besides, you’ll probably mess it up.”

  So, he wanted the whole thing for himself, did he?

  “That doesn’t seem so fair,” I said.

  “We’ve painted before,” said Frankie, stepping closer to the bucket of paint and looking into it. “I mean, lots of stuff has paint on it where we come from.”

  “Lots,” I said, stepping in front of Frankie.

  “I don’t know.…” said Tom.

  “I’ll be very careful,” I said.

  Tom chewed his lip, then started shaking his head slowly. “Aunt Polly said not to …”

  “I’ll let you play with … this paper clip!” I said, slipping my hand into my pocket and pulling out my jumbo paper clip. It gleamed in the sun.

  Tom gave this no response.

  “Okay, you can keep the paper clip!”

  Finally, Tom breathed in, took the clip, and, frowning all over the place, handed the brush to me.

  “Just a little, then. And please be careful!”

  Ha! I was too clever for the kid.

  I grabbed the brush and began dipping and sloshing it on the dirty fence. “Look at me, Frankie. I’m an artist!”

  While I painted, Tom sat in the shade of a big oak tree that stood close by, dangling his legs, and, still whistling, he began to twist the paper clip into different shapes.

  I hated taking turns with Frankie, but she gave Tom her wad of wound-up kite string, and Tom forced me to share the brush with her.

  We were doing just fine, but the story messed it up for us. Suddenly, bunches of other kids came along and traded Tom all kinds of stuff to let them join the painting fun that Frankie and I had practically invented.

  By afternoon, the fence was done, and in addition to the paper clip and the string, Tom had a nail, a piece of blue glass, a bit of chalk, a toy soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a one-eyed kitten, a dog collar without the dog, a knife handle, four pieces of old orange peel, and a fairly well packed mud ball complete with a pouch to carry it around in.

  It was when I saw Tom laughing to himself at the end of the day that I realized something.

  “Frankie!” I gasped, pulling her aside. “I thought I was tricking Tom into letting me paint, when the whole time we were being had!”

  “That’s crazy talk,” said Frankie.

  “Nuh-uh,” I insisted. “Tom suckered us—all of us—into doing his chore for him! He didn’t do any work, plus he got a bunch of really cool stuff! Totally for free!”

  Frankie’s eyes bulged when she realized it, too. At first she was mad, then she began to laugh. “Devin, Tom is good. He’s very good. And you know what he is?”

  “A character in a book?”

  “No. Well, yeah. But I mean that Tom is like the original slacker. Actually, he’s the role model for people like you and me. Maybe we can pick up some tricks from him!”

  I was grinning now, too. “Whoa, good brain flash, Frankie. They call this book a classic, but it’s more like a training manual on how to goof off! If there have to be books, I suppose this is the good kind.”

  Suddenly Frankie had the same sort of twinkle I’d seen in Tom’s eyes. “Actually, Tom has given me an idea. Let’s get him to help us find the lost page. If we tell him it’s treasure, I bet he’ll help us!”

  We sauntered over to Tom as he stood there scanning the finished fence. “Beautiful,” he said. Then he turned to us. “I’m hungry. Let’s go snatch a pie. You first.”

  “Sorry, Tom,” said Frankie. “We need to go find something else.”

  “What else?” asked Tom.

  “Oh, just something hidden,” I said. “You probably wouldn’t be interested.”

  Tom’s eyes bulged. “Did you say … hidden?”

  “It’s very valuable,” said Frankie. “It’s probably the most valuable treasure there is, but we’ve got to find it alone. Sorry—” She started to turn away.

  Tom jumped. “Wait! I’m mighty good at finding treasure that’s been hid. I know all the places to look. Let me help!”

  And he did help. But we ended up having to wait a couple of days. Aunt Polly wanted Tom to stick close to the house the rest of Saturday. And Sunday wasn’t good because Tom was in church for most of it.

  Finally, it was Monday morning and we were on the dusty street when Tom came running by.

  “Late for school!” he said, flashing by us.

  “Stop!” shouted Frankie.

  Tom screeched to a stop. “What?”

  “You promised to help us look for our treasure,” Frankie reminded him. “And you’re going to help us.”

  “But school,” said Tom.

  “But … treasure!” said Frankie.

  You could see the poor kid was all torn up inside. Suddenly, he grinned and tossed his books to the ground. “All right, treasure!” he said. “But we need to find Huck first.” He started straight off into the woods.

  “What’s a Huck?” I said, as we crawled over bushes.

  “Huck ain’t a thing,” said Tom. “He’s a who!”

  “Huck’s a who?” said Frankie. “Who is Huck?”

  “Finn,” said Tom, crouching under some low trees.

  I gave Frankie a look. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”

  “Speaking of clearing up,” she said. “Somebody should clear u
p these woods. It’s a junk heap in here!”

  She got that right. Just as we were coming around a twist in the path, we came upon a little area scattered with open cans and bottles, and featuring a smoldering fire and a pair of ragged pants hanging on a branch. And, oh yeah, an enormous barrel with two mud-caked feet sticking out of it.

  Before I could say something funny, a voice echoed out of the barrel.

  “Hey, you, get out of my yard!”

  Chapter 5

  We stood there, frozen to the spot, staring at the feet.

  Suddenly, Tom gave out a yelping sort of laugh. “Everybody, meet Huckleberry Finn! Known as Huck to his friends.”

  “Except I don’t have any friends,” the voice in the barrel said. “And I like it pretty fine that way.”

  At that moment, Tom kicked the barrel over, and out rolled a kid in a rumply old coat, a filthy shirt, a crumpled top hat, and a very bad look about him.

  Huckleberry Finn was maybe a year or two older than Tom, but he was dressed in what looked like the clothes of grown-ups. His coat hung nearly to his heels, and one skinny suspender held up his pants, which were so long they dragged behind him in the dirt and had been worn to fringes on the bottom. Everything sagged and dragged on him.

  “Hey, Tom,” he said. “Come on over to my yard. But watch your step so you don’t smush my garden. It’s looking good this year.”

  Huck’s “garden” was a clump of saggy weeds, and his “yard” was nothing more than a dried-up swamp.

  “Nice place you got here,” said Frankie.

  Huck snorted a laugh.

  “It suits me just fine,” he said. “Nobody likes me much, mainly because I don’t do anything, don’t listen to anyone, don’t obey any rules, don’t go to school or church, don’t have money to pay for things, sleep when I want, stay up late, and live in a pickle barrel.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Frankie.

  “And I’m hungry,” I said. “Do you have any actual pickles in there?”

  “Got a dead cat,” said Huck. He reached into the barrel and pulled out a string. To the end of the string was tied a furry stiff thing that might once have been a cat, but now looked more like the kind of hat grandmothers wear when they go to church. It smelled quite a bit.