Free The Figure In the Shadows by John Bellairs, Mercer Mayer

MAGICIANS SOCIETY stamped on them; there were the foreign coins that Jonathan used as poker chips. On a plate with a bright purple border was a big pile of chocolate-chip cookies, and there was a pitcher of milk. Mrs. Zimmermann was there, and she promised not to pull any funny business with the cards. Everything was ready.
    They played for a long time. Then, just as Jonathan was about to announce that it was bedtime, Lewis asked if he could have a few words with Rose Rita, alone in the library. As he asked this, Lewis felt that tightness in his chest again. And he felt a sharp pain right where the amulet was.
    Jonathan chuckled and knocked his pipe out into the potted plant behind his chair. “Sure,” he said. “Sure, go right ahead. State secrets, eh?”
    “Yeah, kinda,” said Lewis, blushing.
    Lewis and Rose Rita went into the library and slid the heavy paneled doors shut. Now Lewis felt like somebody who is trying to breathe under water. But hedragged the words out, one by one.
    “Rose Rita?”
    “Yeah? What’s wrong with you, Lewis? You look all pale.”
    “Rose Rita, remember when we said the . . . the magic words over the coin?” Lewis stopped and winced. He felt a sharp pain in his chest.
    Rose Rita looked puzzled. “Yeah, I remember. What about it?”
    Lewis felt as if someone was sticking red-hot needles into his chest. “Well, I . . . I kind of lied about it.” Sweat was pouring down his face now, but he felt triumphant, because he was winning over whatever was trying to keep him from telling the truth.
    Rose Rita’s eyes opened wide. “You lied? You mean the coin was really . . .”
    “Yeah.” Lewis reached inside his shirt and brought the thing out for her to see. He expected it to be red-hot. But it felt cool to his touch, and it looked just the way it had always looked.
    Now that he had gotten out the important part, Lewis found that he could talk more freely. He told Rose Rita about how he had punched Woody without meaning to; he told her about the postcard and the paper on the street, and the figure under the street lamp. Now it was like running downhill. He talked faster and faster until he had nothing more to say.
    Rose Rita sat there, nodding and listening, through hiswhole speech. When he was through, she said, “Gee, Lewis, don’t you think we ought to tell your uncle and Mrs. Zimmermann? They know all about stuff like this.”
    Lewis looked terrified. “Please don’t, Rose Rita! Please, please, don’t! My uncle would get mad and bawl me out and . . . and I don’t know what he and Mrs. Zimmermann would think! They told me never to mess around with magic again! Please don’t say anything to them!”
    Rose Rita had not known Lewis long, but she did know that he spent a great deal of time worrying about being bawled out. He worried about it even when he wasn’t doing anything bad. And she didn’t really know how Jonathan would react. Maybe he
would
lose his temper. So she shrugged and said, “Oh, okay! We won’t tell them then. But I think you ought to give the darned thing to me so I can throw it down the sewer for you.”
    Lewis looked hesitant. He bit his lip. “Could we just maybe . . . kind of put it away for a while? You never know. When I grow up, it might be that I could do something with it.”
    Rose Rita looked at him over the tops of her glasses. “Like fly to the moon? Come on, Lewis! Stop kidding around. You just want to hang onto it. Give it here.” She held out her hand.
    Lewis’s face suddenly grew hard. He stuffed the coin back in under his shirt. “No.”
    Rose Rita looked at him for a moment. Then she took off her glasses, folded them up, and put them in theholder in her shirt pocket. She jumped at him, and at the first lunge, got her hands around the chain that the coin was attached to.
    Lewis got his hands on the chain too, and he struggled to keep it down around his neck. He fought hard, and Rose Rita was amazed at his strength. She