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Show 19 Georgie went through the gate. He ducked behind the first little walnut tree and Jarvis followed. They squatted there a minute. Jarvis heard the wind in the trees. He didn't think he'd ever heard that sound before and wondered if the wind always rustled leaves. Beyond the back of the yard, over the next block, a crescent moon slept on its back. Jarvis and Georgie crawled on their stomachs to the tent. Stinky and Funly had the flaps tied down, hooked, somehow, on the inside. Georgie pulled out his jack-knife but Jarvis stopped him. "We can reach in there," he said. "Don't cut anything." Georgie wrinkled his face. "Shit," said Georgie, right out loud. Something stirred in the tent. Jarvis and Georgie froze. Inside the tent a flashlight burst, then a voice. "Dadl" Funly yelled. "DadI" The dogs howled. A floodlight poured from the back upstairs window and Jarvis and g Georgie scattered for the nearest trees. "D-D-Don't leave the tent, Funlyl" shouted Big Jimbo Funster from the window, but from the scream of it Jarvis could tell that nobody in the tent was going to do anything but keep screaming. Gazing up at the light he couldn't see anything, but he imagined the blue barrel of Big Funster's shot gun cocked on the window sill. The dogs kept howling and Funster yelled and stuttered out the window. Finally he managed something. "D-Don't, d-don't move I I'll sh-sh-shootl" That was enough. Jarvis made for the gate. The shot didn't sound threatening at all. It only sounded like a great big fire cracker. Funster couldn't tell how big the thing was he shot at but he knew he hit it. Jarvis felt a sharp burst in his leg and fell down, then he didn't feel anything. Then he saw the blood and felt white. Passed out. Even Funster's mind stuttered when he saw Jarvis Loop in a pool of blood. Red's kid. He'd shot Red's kid. But as soon as Funly Funster found out that Jarvis wasn't dead, just wounded, he felt great. He thought of every whacking and every pink belly he ever took and he was sorry Georgie Gorky hadn't got blasted too. Stinky Jinx looked |