Free The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

with the boy. My sister dropped him on his head when he was a baby, and he’s never been right since. Always walking into things and kneeling down in the middle of the street.” Benjamin leaned in and whispered, “He thinks he’s a Catholic .”
     
    Jefferson raised his eyebrows.
     
    “It’s true,” said Benjamin. “He’s collected all kinds of popery. If you don’t take the book, I’ll have to burn it.”
     
    Ren could see that the thought of burning any book, even a Catholic one, was distasteful to Mister Jefferson. The man bent over his purse again.
     
    Benjamin gave Ren a savage look and pointed at the door. Ren let go of Jefferson’s sleeve. He pressed his fingernails into his palm. There was no way to get The Lives of the Saints back, but he decided right then that he was not going to leaveMR. JEFFERSON’S NEW , USED & RARE empty-handed.
     
    If he was going to steal the book, he would need a distraction. Ren closed his eyes, and instead of going to the door as he was instructed, he walked deliberately straight into the nearest pile. It toppled over. Volumes went crashing into the next stack, and the next, histories and biographies and collections of maps, science textbooks and series of lithographs, slave narratives and songbooks, were all mixed together, a huge mess across the floor.
     
    Benjamin crawled out from under a mound of pamphlets. He shook his head, then got unsteadily to his feet. Jefferson stood in the back, his store ruined. With a grim face he handed Benjamin the money. Then he plucked his green handkerchief from his pocket, reached down, took up a collection of poetry, and began to dust the jacket.
     
    “You better leave now,” Jefferson said to the book in his hands.
     
    Benjamin nodded. And with that he pushed Ren out the door, slammed it behind them, and started off down the street.
     
    Ren lagged behind. “It was an accident,” he said feebly.
     
    “No, it wasn’t,” said Benjamin. He turned to look at the store, and when it was clear that Jefferson had not chased after them, he started to laugh. “He deserved it, though. Five cents!” He slipped his fist into his pocket and rattled the coins, then slapped the boy once on the back of the neck. “That’s for not telling me first.”
     
    Ren nearly lost his grip on The Deerslayer, now tucked underneath his coat. It was smaller than The Lives of the Saints and fit between his shirt and where the sleeve began. Ren slipped his arm inside his jacket and took hold of the leather binding. It had been easier to take than he’d thought.
     
    They went past candlemakers and blacksmiths, fishmongers and cloth merchants. Before long Ren realized that they were walking in circles. Down to the wharf and back again, in and out of side streets, and then returning to the main square, where the people bargained over prices and smoked in circles and gathered in a crowd around a small puppet show. All the while Benjamin was scanning the street, looking into people’s faces.
     
    They came to the butcher shop. Carcasses hung in the window, white and red hollow casings. There was a row of tiny rabbit skulls, the flesh still hanging from the bone. Benjamin stopped and Ren stopped beside him. Somewhere close by, a bell began to ring. Ren turned and saw a square stone church with an iron steeple set back from the road and he remembered that it was Sunday. He had never missed a mass before. And he realized, in the confusion and transition of the days past, he also had not gone to confession. He could see the doors of the church beginning to open, and he almost expected Brother Joseph and Father John to emerge and point him out.
     
    Parishioners were coming down the stairs. There were families. Lots of families. Mothers and fathers and grandmothers in their best clothes, children in starched white linen. They were laughing and talking and wishing each other good morning, the boys and girls screaming and chasing one another up and down the