Free Curse of the Midions by Brad Strickland Page B

after the retreating group of boys, already at the mouth of an alley. “Oh, get along with you,” he thundered. “But if any of you gang show your noses around here again, I’ll break ’em for you, understand?”
    Murmuring thanks, Betsy ran after the boys—and as soon as she joined them in the alley, she broke into laughter. “Charley, you should be on a stage, and no mistake,” she chortled. “You can act a fool better than anybody I know.”
    Jarvey laughed for the first time in what felt like weeks.
    â€œStop your mouth with that,” Charley crowed back, tossing Betsy a yellow pear. “Got enough for a right feast here, haven’t we, boys?”
    â€œHalf a bushel!” Puddler shot back, hefting the apples and pears he had stuffed down inside his baggy shirt.
    And then they emerged from the alley and saw the tippers, four of them, brandishing their staves and grinning. “Got ’em,” one of the big men said softly, tapping his staff in his left hand. “Round’em up and we’ll have ’em before the magistrate.”
    Betsy hit Jarvey hard on the back. “Scatter!”
    Apples and pears rolled underfoot. The gang flew headlong down the alley, with the tippers in hot pursuit. Their hobnailed boots rang on the cobbles, and Jarvey ran harder than he had ever run before.
    They burst out onto the wharves, Puddler diving to the right, Betsy and Charley to the left. Jarvey felt a hand swipe down his back, just missing him. Without thinking, he made a jump for the deck of the fruit ship. The owner howled in rage.
    Whirling, Jarvey grabbed a couple of apples. The tipper behind him was tangled with the boatman. Jarvey’s heart sank as he saw one of the black-clad tippers grab Betsy and lift her, kicking and shrieking, into the air. The tipper shoved the boatman away and started to take the long step onto the boat deck.
    Jarvey wound up and pitched, a fast apple to the face. The fruit smacked into the tipper’s scarlet forehead, and with a bellow, he missed his step, tumbling from the dock into the water. Jarvey kicked back and threw the second apple at the tipper carrying Betsy, but he was too far away and the missile fell short. Another tipper was blowing furiously on a whistle, and from down the wharves more of them showed up, coming at a steady trot. One of them pointed toward Jarvey.
    There was no way to escape—tippers closed in from left and right.
    Maybe there was one way: Jarvey leaped to the far side of the boat. The river was wide here, fifty yards across, and it looked deep. Jarvey threw himself off the deck, lowered his head, and felt the cold shock of water as he dived in.
    He plunged deep below the surface, holding his breath desperately. Using a kind of breaststroke, Jarvey followed the current, vaguely aware of the looming shadows of boats off to his right and overhead. Bars of green-tinged daylight streaked through the water.
    His lungs burned, but Jarvey forced himself to stay under. Another stroke, another, and another. He had gone incredibly far, farther than he should have been able to swim underwater, but he had to breathe.
    Instead, he blew bubbles and made himself swim under a boat, into the dark water under the pilings of a dock. At last he let himself come up, and the moment his head broke the surface, he gulped in a lungful of blessed air.
    Then he dived again and made his way still farther downstream. When he dared to come up a second time, he couldn’t hear any commotion. For a moment, Jarvey clung to the rough wood of a piling. Then, with infinite caution, he pulled himself up so he could peer over the edge of the wharf.
    This dock lay empty, and so was the next one, but then the boats began. Far down the line, he saw a crowd of tippers. One was stomping around and streaming water—the one who had fallen in the river, Jarvey decided. The others bent over, holding on to their captives. He