The Curse of the Blue Figurine Read Online Free Page A

whenever Johnny passed Eddie, Eddie would glower and say things like "I wish I was a brain!" or "It must be great to be a brown nose. Is that how you get those good grades, kid? Because you're the biggest brown nose in the school? Is that how you do it?"
    All this had Johnny worried. He was short and he wore glasses and he was not very strong. Also he was in a new school, and he had not yet made any close friends.
    And he had a very great fear of getting beat up. It was one of his really big fears, like his fear that someday he would step on a nail, get an infected puncture wound, and die of lockjaw. Johnny was always reading things in the paper about people who had gotten "beaten to a pulp" or "beaten beyond recognition," which meant that they had gotten smashed up so badly that no one could tell who they were. Stories like this hit Johnny right in the pit of his stomach. And he wondered, often, whether someday Eddie Tompke might get it into his head to beat him up.
    One cold dark February day Johnny was standing under the big stone arch out in front of St. Michael's School. The school day was over. Everyone else had gone. As usual he was the last kid out of the building. He fiddled with his scarf and adjusted his stocking cap on his head. Johnny was a fussy kid—everything always had to be just so, or it was no good. Finally he was ready to go. Johnny peered out to his right. Oh, no. There was Eddie! He was standing on the corner, talking to some other kid. His back was to Johnny—he hadn't seen him yet. But he would when Johnny came that way, and he had to go that way to get home. Johnny peered quickly around the corner. A narrow alley ran between St. Michael's Church (which stood on the corner) and the school. If he moved fast, Johnny could zip down the alley and get out onto the street in any of three different ways. But for some reason Johnny decided that he would  duck into the church. He could say a prayer for his mother and hang around till Eddie went away.
    St. Michael's Church was a tall brick building with a brick steeple on the northeast corner. There were three big, pointed wooden doors at the front of the church. A flight of worn stone steps led up to each one. Johnny headed for the nearest door. It was a short dash, and he made it easily. Now he was tugging at the heavy iron ring. The door swung open. Johnny slipped inside, and the door closed behind him, Clump! Johnny heaved a sigh of relief. He had made it.
    Johnny was standing in the vestibule, which is what the front hall of a church is called. He dipped his fingers in the holy water font, made the sign of the cross, and shoved open one of the inner doors. He was in the main body of the church now. Rows of wooden pews stretched away before him. Overhead arched the high vaulted ceiling. It was painted midnight blue and was powdered with little gold stars. At the far end of the nave was the Communion rail, and beyond it was the altar and the massive carved altarpiece. Johnny liked the old church. It was vast and gloomy and smelled of incense and candle wax. He loved the flickering red sanctuary lamp and the strange pictures on the stained-glass windows. The church was a place where he often went just to sit and get away from the world.
    Johnny walked down the main aisle. His footsteps, though soft, seemed to echo from the high ceiling. When  he got to the broad polished steps that led up to the Communion rail, Johnny stopped. With his arms folded over his chest he gazed up admiringly at the altarpiece that the mysterious Mr. Nemo had carved. It was quite a production. Over the altar table rose a three-decker wooden screen with lots of pointed niches in it. Each niche had an elaborately carved hood, and in the niches were wooden statues. The statues were painted all different colors, and gold paint had been used lavishly. The statues in the lower two levels were of saints. There were Saint Peter and Saint Paul and Saint Catherine and Saint Ursula and some