The Good Thief: A Novel

The storage room has no windows, just a desk with an inkwell, a potbellied stove, and some wooden crates. Ren rests his head on the desk, hoping that "in an hour or two the door would be unlocked" (240) and his friends would be outside waiting for him. However, several hours later, Ren realizes this won't be happening. Rummaging through the desk, Ren finds several old notebooks, filled with "intricate, tiny killing machines" (241) for mice.

Later, McGinty comes into the room carrying "a paper sack the size and shape of a human head" (242). He sets the bag on the desk and tells Ren it's for him. Ren opens it slowly and finds it's filled with candy. McGinty pours the bag onto the desk and tells Ren to eat. Ren wonders if the candy is poisoned until McGinty picks up a peppermint stick and begins to crunch it, saying it's his favorite. Ren, famished, feasts on several kinds of candy. McGinty asks Ren if he saw any of the drawings. He explains his process for developing more sophisticated mousetraps as the mice's intelligence increased.

Suddenly, McGinty tells Ren he was an ugly baby. Ren's palm grows "slick with alarm" (244) as McGinty pulls out a pocket watch, opens it, then shows Ren the "miniature portrait of a young woman" (244) inside. Ren studies the beautiful young woman's smirk as McGinty explains she was his sister, Ren's mother. She told McGinty Ren had died after he lost his hand but McGinty "shouldha known […] she was lying" (244). Ren tells McGinty he's made a mistake. McGinty says he doesn't make mistakes and continues crunching his peppermint stick. Ren says he wants to go home but McGinty tells him to have more candy. Ren says he doesn't want a family; McGinty says he's got one now.

McGinty says he'll prove to Ren that they're related. He grabs Ren's arm and leads him out of the factory and into the village. They cross the town square and into a churchyard with black railings. Ren realizes this is the church graveyard where they found Dolly. Hat boys "spread across the perimeter of the church" (247) and Pilot holds the gate for them. McGinty leads Ren to a building "the size of a small carriage house, with a set of stone stairs leading up to a small portico, enclosed by another gate" (247). McGinty uses a key to open the gate and leads Ren inside the building. McGinty points to a marble tomb engraved with the words "Margaret Ann McGinty" (247) and the same Bible verse as the one on his pistol.

Ren feels in his pocket for the pocket watch he covertly stole from McGinty back at the factory. McGinty shows Ren a smaller tomb, carved with the name "Reginald Edward McGinty" (248). The hat boys pry the marble slab from the tomb's lid and pull out a coffin, smelling of "mold and damp tea leaves" (248). They open the coffin to reveal a "cloth sack, the size and shape of a baby" (248). McGinty uses a knife to cut the bag open then laughs, giving Ren the courage to look inside the coffin. He sees a bag full of stones stuffed inside baby's clothes. Ren lifts one of the rocks from the pile, thinking the rock is so ordinary none of the orphans at Saint Anthony's "would have saved it" (249). 

After removing the rocks from the coffin, McGinty seems exhausted. Pilot drags Ren back to the storage room at the factory and shuts him in again. That night, Ren makes a fire in the potbellied stove using "bits of wood from the box of broken mousetraps" (250) in the room. He sees a family of mice scurrying around the room, eating his candy bar. Ren studies the portrait of his mother in the pocket watch and wonders, having seldom seen his reflection, whether his features "matched hers in any way" (251). Ren digs his collar out of his pocket and studies the letters: REN. He realizes the N was meant to be an M; the letters are his initials.

The lock turns and two hat boys bring in a wooden rocking horse with "a painted saddle and a tail made out of real hair" (251). Ren asks the men why they brought the horse, which is much too small for Ren, but the hat boys only laugh. McGinty comes into the room shortly after the hat boys leave and asks if Ren likes the rocking horse. He tells Ren to ride it then gives him "a shove" (252) so that Ren rocks back and forth, banging into boxes in the cramped room.

McGinty asks Ren if he thinks Benjamin ever killed anyone. Ren says he doesn't think so. McGinty says Benjamin was probably going to sell Ren but Ren says Benjamin told him he "wasn't worth anything" (253). McGinty agrees with that sentiment and says his sister, Margaret, did, too. Ren asks McGinty how Margaret died. McGinty glares at Ren and tells him Margaret died of a fever a few days after he was born. Ren asks what Margaret was like and McGinty says she had a birthmark she used to cover with a bonnet because it made her feel "she'd been mahked fah something" (253). Their father used to tell Margaret she was ugly but McGinty heard their father bother her "at night" (254). One night, McGinty killed their father. Margaret washed their clothes in the river then they dragged his body into the woods.

After that, McGinty says, things were all right. He supported them both with money from the mousetrap factory but Margaret never "took ta life in town" (254). She used to wander in the forest and once found an old mine filled with the bones of dead men huddled together. After seeing that, McGinty says, Margaret changed. She began dressing nicer and going to church. Then, "outta nowhere" (254), Margaret tried to drown herself. A few months later, she gave birth to Ren and wouldn't tell McGinty who the father was.

Realizing McGinty's locked him in the room to get his father's name out of him, Ren tells McGinty that he doesn't know who his father is. McGinty says Ren will and Ren's father will "ansah fah what he's done" (255). Ren asks what will happen if they don't find his father and McGinty's silence lets Ren know that he "would be the one doing the answering" (255) in that case. Ren says Margaret must have hated him. McGinty says he wouldn't know about that but that he certainly hated Ren. 

As the fire in the potbellied stove dies down, Ren stuffs newspaper in his sleeves and pulls a ledger book around his shoulders to keep warm. He contemplates, with sadness, what he's learned about his family from McGinty. Just after midnight, Ren hears a key in the door's lock. Expecting McGinty, Ren is surprised to see Jenny there. She tells him she's come to get him out. Jenny tosses Ren a "mousetrap uniform" (258) of blue dress, bloomers, bonnet, and shawl. Ren says he won't wear it and Jenny says he can stay, then. She makes to leave but doesn't.

Ren changes his mind, realizing "how much she had risked to come for him" (258). Jenny helps Ren into the uniform and he asks why she's helping him. Jenny says Benjamin asked her to marry him when she turns 18, in one year. Ren counters that she's "not even fifteen" (258) and thinks to himself that "no one would ever marry her" (258). As though sensing this thought, Jenny twists Ren's arm behind his back, slaps him hard, then kisses him where she hit him. She tells him she's going to open the door now.

They pass through a hallway "full of shadows" (259), past a hat boy, and Jenny tells Ren not to look up "no matter what happens" (259). Ren shadows Jenny at her station for hours, until his shoulders ache from the work. Finally, the factory whistle sounds. One of the girls from Mrs. Sands's house distracts the front door guard while Ren slips out with Jenny. Jenny takes Ren's hand and pulls him into an alley. They run until they're safely away from the factory. Ren kisses Jenny's hand then feels embarrassed. Jenny tells Ren not to ever come back. 

Ren arrives at the hospital just before dawn. He wants to see Mrs. Sands once more before he leaves North Umbrage forever. Ren rings the bell at the front gate and Dr. Milton answers, holding a lantern. He greets Ren "as if he had been expecting" (263) him all along. Dr. Milton tells Ren that "they're waiting" (263) and are "about to begin" (263). Ren follows the doctor across the courtyard to the hospital's basement.

As his eyes adjust, Ren sees "a damp, cool room with a dirt floor" (263) that holds "several operating tables" (263). Tom lies on one of the tables, with Brom and Ichy on either side of him, holding his hands. Ren feels "a flood of relief" (263) as the twins lunge at him and explain that they stole a donkey cart from a woman to get Tom to the hospital. Ren pulls a burr from Tom's tangled beard and Tom asks Ren if he's seen Benjamin. Confused, Ren asks whether Benjamin was with them. The twins shake their heads.

Ren sees that Tom's leg has "swollen to the size of a tree trunk" (264) and fears Tom might die. Dr. Milton says if they'd like to keep the leg from "being removed entirely" (264) they need to operate immediately. Dr. Milton gives the boys instructions for helping him set the bone right. Brom holds a bottle of whiskey to Tom's mouth, which he sucks down "as if he were nursing" (264). When Ren takes hold of Tom's ankle and Dr. Milton pops the broken bone "back into place" (265), Tom shrieks so loud it leaves Ren's ears ringing. Afterwards, the twins dress Tom's wound and Dr. Milton applies a splint and sling to Tom's leg. Dr. Milton says with some time, Tom will be able to walk. He says he'll give Tom some salve and tincture to ease his pain.

Dr. Milton motions for Ren to follow him into his office. Inside, Ren finds a windowless room "littered with books and paper and labeled containers" (266). In one corner, Ren sees "something large" (266) under a blanket, stretched out on a table. Fearing that it's Dolly, Ren pulls back the blanket to see that it's a stranger floating in "a sweet-smelling brown liquid" (266). The man has one leg amputated, and a "hole in his center, from his throat to his groin" (266). All of his internal organs have been removed. Ren nearly faints as Dr. Milton mixes powders for Tom's salve.

Approaching Ren with a tobacco pipe in his mouth, Dr. Milton tells Ren that the cadaver "saved ten lives today" (267). Seeing Ren's faintness, Dr. Milton tells him that everyone feels that way their first time. Changing the subject, Dr. Milton asks Ren what happened to the five bodies they were supposed to bring. Ren tells Dr. Milton that they're leaving so there "won't be anymore" (267) bodies. Disappointed, Dr. Milton begins consulting a notebook. He asks Ren how he plans to pay for Tom's leg and Mrs. Sands's care. Ren fishes McGinty's gold pocketwatch out of his pocket and offers it to the doctor. Dr. Milton studies it but returns it to Ren. He asks Ren if he can read and when Ren says he can, Dr. Milton pulls out a sheet of paper and pen and begins writing. When he's finished, Dr. Milton passes the paper to Ren and tells him to sign an X if he can't sign his name. Reading over the paper, Ren sees that the contract releases his body to Dr. Milton upon his death. Ren's body will be used "for the greater purposes of science, to further the understanding and knowledge of anatomy" (269). Dr. Milton assures Ren he doesn't have to give his body now, just when he dies. Ren imagines Dr. Milton's knife cutting into his skin but signs the paper anyway. 

Ren arrives in Mrs. Sands's private room as the sun rises. Mrs. Sands sleeps in a bed with a gauzy tent draped over it, to keep the air moist because of her cough. Beside her bed, Sister Agnes sits in a rocking chair, knitting. Sister Agnes tells Ren that Mrs. Sands is doing better and asks if Ren came to say good-bye. Ren says he has and isn't sure when or if he'll be back.

Sister Agnes asks Ren if he came from Saint Anthony's and Ren says he did. Sister Agnes produces a letter written by Brother Joseph and hands it to Ren to read. In the letter, written recently, Brother Joseph confirms that Ren used to live at Saint Anthony's and was recently "claimed by a relative" (272). Though Brother Joseph "had some doubt as to the man's intentions" (272), he felt he couldn't prevent Ren from being claimed. Brother Joseph asks Sister Agnes to give him his blessing. Ren asks Sister Agnes why she wrote to Brother Joseph.

Sister Agnes explains that years ago, a woman covered in blood came to the hospital in the middle of the night. The woman told Sister Agnes that she "killed her baby" (272) and had brought the body so the baby could have a proper burial. She told Sister Agnes she's hidden the baby's body under some bushes near the front gate. Sister Agnes finds the baby, wrapped in blankets, and still alive, though "one of his hands had been cut off" (272). Sister Agnes brought the baby into the hospital, where the doctors saved the baby's life. Afterwards, Sister Agnes tried to put the baby back into his mother's arms but the woman refused him. Instead, the woman removed the baby's clothes and "filled them with stones from the yard" (273). She told Sister Agnes to watch over the other baby until she returned.

Two weeks later, the mother hasn't returned. Sister Agnes decides to take the baby to Saint Anthony's. She does this in the middle of the night, so that the men at Saint Anthony's don't think the baby is "one of the sisters'" (274). After pushing the baby through the gate's swinging door, Sister Agnes "felt regret" (273) and tried to pull the baby back towards her. Unable to reach the baby, Sister Agnes leaves. She tells Ren she was "wrong to leave you out in the rain" (274). Ren tells her that he was fine because the brothers found him there. Sister Agnes seems relieved.

Ren takes hold of Mrs. Sands's hand and tells Sister Agnes that he has "an arrangement with Doctor Milton" (274) that will cover the room and nurse, "however long it takes" (274) for Mrs. Sands to recover. Sister Agnes looks troubled again and hands Ren Brother Joseph's letter, telling him to keep it. Ren hugs Mrs. Sands and she awakens, yelling, "Take me home" (275). Ren tells Mrs. Sands that he's leaving and she says she's ready to go home because she's had "enough looking after" (275). Mrs. Sands frets about feeding her brother, the dwarf, and Ren feels guilty about leaving the raided pantry empty. Mrs. Sands tells Ren she has some money buried in her yard. She wants Ren to take it to the market and restock her pantry, then take the rest with him. Thinking of McGinty and the hat boys searching for him, Ren says he can't go back. Mrs. Sands begins to cry, begging Ren to care for her brother. Ren finally agrees to care for Mrs. Sands's brother.

Ren drives the stolen donkey cart from the hospital back to Mrs. Sands's house in pouring rain. Brom and Ichy ride in the back, holding blankets over Tom. They find the house "unlocked and disheveled" (278), with rain from the storm leaking in. Ren helps the twins maneuver Tom inside and settle him on a bench in the kitchen. Ren then goes outside and digs around the chicken coop until he finds a preserves jar with "a thick roll of money inside" (279) of it.

When Ren comes back to the house, the twins greet him at the doorway. They tell Ren they're going back to Saint Anthony's and they think Ren should, too. The twins say they'll tell the brothers that Tom died, so someone else will take them. Frustrated, Ren tells the twins that "no one is going to adopt" (279) them because their mother killed herself. At this, the twins lunge at Ren and the three boys begin a fierce fight. Tom breaks them up by dumping a bucket of rain water on Ren's head. Tom calls the twins to his side, kisses their foreheads, then tells them to find him something to drink. While the twins search for a bottle, Tom pulls Ren close and asks why Ren didn't tell him about the twins' mother. Ren jerks himself out of Tom's angry grip and the twins, seeing Tom "floundering" (281), tell Ren they need to get him upstairs.

Tom, now sitting at the kitchen table, drinking, asks what "the mousetrapper" (281) wanted with them. Ren grumbles that McGinty thinks he's his nephew. Tom says that's "a pickle" (281) but there must be somewhere for Ren to hide until "Benji comes back" (282). Ren says Benjamin isn't coming back because he left Ren and Tom to die. Tom says he's been through this "a dozen times" (282) and Benjamin always comes back. The twins help Tom upstairs and Tom tells Ren he's not leaving until he gets word from Benjamin. Ren, "sick of arguing, sick of being the one in charge" (282) asks Tom what he's supposed to do. Tom says Ren is "the thief" (283) so he'll think of something.

Ren tucks himself into the potato basket to hide and listens to the worsening storm. Suddenly, he hears a "hard thumping" (283), as if someone is trying to break down the door. Ren, peering out of the basket, sees the door's "boards straining" (283) and hears a voice outside the door call his name. Ren gets out of the basket and pulls open the door's bolt. Dolly stands outside of it. Ren throws his arms open but Dolly pushes him aside and makes his way to the fireplace. Dolly says Ren left him; Ren says he didn't mean to. Ren explains that it wasn't his fault and tells Dolly about everything that had happened with the hat boys and McGinty. Finally, Ren admits that he left Dolly. Dolly takes hold of Ren's head in his massive hands and kisses his forehead. Dolly says they're "friends again" (285). 

Ren and Dolly sit by the fire together, eating apples, as Dolly's shepherd's robe dries. Dolly tells Ren he followed the tracks in the mud and found the dead horse and broken wagon. Ren sees the bruises around Dolly's neck have healed and he tells Dolly they have to start packing. Ren knows Tom is determined to stay and the twins will take care of him. Ren begins packing. Dolly says they could go to Mexico or California. After packing the little he can, Ren writes a letter to Mrs. Sands. He tells her he will do what he promised with the money he found and tells her to take care of the twins. Ren then makes a bed on the floor beside Dolly and the two men sleep soundly until morning.

Ren awakens to a sound he thinks is a mouse "scratching its nails against the door of a trap" (290) but then realizes someone is picking the front door's lock. He rouses Dolly as he realizes the hat boys have surrounded the house. Ren tries to escape out the kitchen window but the hat boys break into the house and grab him. They restrain Dolly with "ropes around his arms and neck" (291) and try to "wrestle him to the floor" (291). Pilot approaches Ren with a burlap sack and tells him McGinty isn't done with him yet. One of the hat boys stuffs Ren's body into the burlap sack.

Just as the sack closes over Ren's head, he hears "a huge thundering" (292) in the room, as though the "house had been lifted from the cellar to the attic" (292). Ren falls onto a man's body then uses his fingers to rip free from the burlap sack. He finds Dolly, who has killed one of the hat boys and severely injured three of them, including Pilot, whose arm dangles at the shoulder. Pilot raises a gun at Dolly and Ren. Dolly pushes Ren up the fireplace. As Ren reaches the chimney's opening, he hears several explosions from the kitchen. He calls down to Dolly but hears no response. Suddenly, the dwarf grabs Ren and pulls him onto the roof.

From below, the hat boys shout Ren's location to each other. The dwarf guides Ren over a series of nearby roofs before climbing into a neighbor's chimney. Ren tries to climb in, too, but gets stuck. Calling for help, Ren feels the dwarf "grab hold of his boots" (295) as one of the hats boys "seized a chunk of [Ren’s] hair" (295). The hat boy pulls Ren out of the chimney. 

Taken back to the mousetrap factory, Ren waits for McGinty in his office. McGinty enters the room with two hat boys. McGinty says nothing but slams Ren against the window and begins tearing through the boy's pockets. He finds his gold pocket watch and calls Ren a thief. McGinty sits at the desk and pulls out Pilot's knife—the one he used to cut off the bartender's hand—and sets it in front of Ren. McGinty asks Ren who was with him at Mrs. Sands’s house because that man killed Pilot and three other hat boys. Ren says the man, Dolly, is his friend. McGinty says he's the man who came to kill him "about a month ago" (297) but he sent some of his "boys ta get rid a him" (297). McGinty asks Ren if Dolly is his father. Ren says he's not and tells McGinty he doesn't know who his father is.

McGinty opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a silk bag with black embroidery. From it, he produces a "small, square cube of glass" (298) in which a "tiny, tiny hand" (298) hangs suspended. McGinty says he saved it as "a souveneah" (298). He explains that all Margaret had to do was give him Ren's father's name but she wouldn't, "even when tha knife was going in" (298). Ren pushes McGinty away from him and makes a dash for the door. The hat boys easily stop him. McGinty says he's been trying to bargain with Ren and grabs Ren's left hand to study his scar. He drops the left arm and grabs Ren's right. He uses Pilot's knife to make "a thin break of the skin" (299) just under the thumb. McGinty says he likes to have "a place ta aim fah" (299).

Ren begins to scream. McGinty asks again for Ren's father's name and to know everything about him. Ren thinks of his mother, how she once sat in this office, and how she "had loved him" (299). This motivates Ren to start talking. Elaborating on bits of stories Benjamin has told to deceive people and repurposing a few characters from his own life, Ren constructs a narrative for his father. Ren claims he was raised in the West, "raised by a tribe" (299) of Native Americans. Later, he became a sailor, exploring the world and going whaling. After a storm leaves Ren's father the only survivor of a shipwreck, he's sold to an army commander, "an angry dwarf" (301) who eventually gives Ren's father a leave of absence to visit him Native American family. Ren's father, though, comes to North Umbrage, where he meets Margaret, Ren's mother, in the abandoned mine. Together they explore the tunnels where the men died, trapped beneath the earth. They fall in love but Ren's father must return to the army. Margaret writes him a letter telling him about their baby and asking Ren's father to take her away from North Umbrage and “give her and the baby his name” (301). Ren’s father deserts the army but gets caught by soldiers who "beat him until he became not a man anymore, but a living skeleton" (302).

Ren says they put his father in the cell with a killer who had "giant hands" (302). The killer uses his hands to break through the bars so they can escape. Ren's father reaches North Umbrage too late and Ren's mother has died. Ren's father falls into a depression and begins to drink "in cheap taverns" (302), devastated. After years of associating with "the lowest of people" and performing "the lowest of tasks" (302) to keep himself going, Ren's father hears rumors that Ren is still alive. He draws on all his navigation and hunting skills to track down Ren. One day, Ren's father arrives at Saint Anthony's and picks Ren out "in an instant" (302), recognizing him from his dreams.

McGinty slams his fist on his desk and demands to know Ren's father's name. Ren replies, "Benjamin Nab" (303).

McGinty screams for more hat boys to come and bring Benjamin now. Ren goes to the window that overlooks the factory floor and sees the mousetrap girls, including Jenny, working. The hat boys drag in Benjamin. He has a bit of blood-soaked blue cloth tied around his head, an arm that looks broken, and a "pale and bruised" (305) face. McGinty tells Benjamin his money was on him, "right from tha staht" (305). Benjamin lifts his head and, seeing Ren, gives a weak smile, showing broken front teeth. Ren says he thought Benjamin left them but Benjamin says he "wouldn't dream of it" (305). McGinty says Benjamin has been stashed in a basement room where he tests all of his mousetraps. McGinty says he knew Benjamin was Ren's father because no one else "wouldha picked a cripple outta that orphanage" (305). Ren says he was lying about Benjamin being his father.

McGinty moves behind the desk and pulls out the gun with the inscribed barrel. He begins putting bullets into the chamber. Benjamin says, "Margaret" (305), and McGinty says not to say her name. Benjamin says he "didn't know about the baby" (306) until after Margaret died. McGinty calls Benjamin a liar then nods and one of the hat boys wraps a thin cord around Benjamin's neck. McGinty orders the hat boy to stop after a moment. Benjamin says he wants to "write a will" (306) so he can leave Ren his body to sell. McGinty thinks it over then hands a pen and paper to Benjamin. Benjamin drafts the will and McGinty signs as a witness.

Ren grips McGinty's well-polished desk then reaches for his scrap of collar, which fell to the floor when McGinty turned out his pockets. McGinty asks where Ren got it and Ren says it was left with him when he arrived at Saint Anthony's. Ren says the collar, with its N for Nab, means Margaret "meant to take" (307) Benjamin's last name. McGinty says it proves Margaret was lousy at sewing then tosses the collar into a desk drawer. He makes a puzzled face as he pulls a jar out of the drawer, filled with "Ichy's pee" (308). Ren notices Benjamin waving his blue bandage in the window overlooking the factory floor, as though signaling someone.

McGinty sniffs the urine then his face turns "a darker shade of crimson" (308). He lunges at Ren and pushes his revolver under Ren's chin, accusing him of peeing in the jar. Ren gasps for breath then reaches the jar of pee with his fingertips and flings it into McGinty's face. McGinty backs against the window overlooking the factory and Benjamin, now on his knees, keeps signaling in the window "like it was going to save their very lives" (308). A "huge boom" (308) sounds, the window shatters, and McGinty, standing before the window, has a "blooming of red" (309) across his chest. One of the hat boys helps McGinty to the floor then yells down to the factory floor, asking who fired.

McGinty, on the floor, orders the hat boys to get Ren. They drag him out from under McGinty's desk. Then, McGinty says "Margaret[…]open tha door" (309) and dies. 

Benjamin and Ren exit McGinty's office in the jumbled confusion after the shooting. Jenny helps them slip out a side door and they emerge onto the street. The mousetrap factory's bells chime and soldiers begin spilling out of the tavern and running towards the factory, ready to fight. Benjamin pulls them into an "alley cross with clotheslines" (311) and begins taking new clothes for himself to use as a disguise. Benjamin says McGinty knew who he was "right from the start" (311) but wanted to hear Ren say that Benjamin was his father.

Benjamin gives the paper McGinty had witnessed to Ren. He tells him to give it to Tom and no one else then says he has to leave because the hat boys will be looking for him. Ren cries, asking if Benjamin can take him but Benjamin says he can't. He gives Ren a huge sweater from the clothesline then asks him what the thing he wants "most in the world" (313) is and presses the glass cube containing his left hand into Ren's palm.

Ren reaches Mrs. Sands's house and hears furniture being slid away from the door so the twins can open it. Brom and Ichy tell Ren they heard fighting so Tom came down with his gun but everyone was already dead, including Dolly. Ren finds Dolly's body in the stall with the donkey, "the ground turning red" (314) with his shed blood. Tom sits on a stool in the yard, cradling a gun in his lap. He asks Ren if he wants to come inside but Ren sits out with Dolly's body all night, telling him all about what happened with McGinty and Benjamin. As dawn breaks, Ren tells Dolly about how Saint Anthony spent his last years in a walnut tree, to "get as close to heaven as he could" (316). 

Tom and the boys break up the remaining furniture in the kitchen and use it to start a fire. Ren finds the jar of pickles he'd packed, old lard, and a few potatoes, which they turn into a meager meal. Tom tells Ren that Benjamin has "nine lives" (318) but he won't come back. Tom says he'll take them all back to the orphanage because he can barely afford to feed himself, let alone three boys. Ren says he won't go back then reaches into his pocket and hands Tom the paper Benjamin gave him.

Tom squints at the page then reads it three times before bursting into laughter and handing it back to Ren. The boys read the paper together. It's a letter negating Silas McGinty's previous wills and leaving his estate to his nephew, Ren. It's signed by McGinty himself. They realize Benjamin must have planned this from the beginning, knowing that McGinty wouldn't read the paper before he signed it. Tom says Benjamin didn't do this for the money but for Ren, "his own little monster" (320).

Just then, the front door knob rattles. Startled, the boys all grab things to use as weapons. A key turns in the latch and Mrs. Sands enters the house. She hugs Ren, calling him her boy, and asks the filthy boys what they've done to themselves. Ren says they've "been lost" (321) and Mrs. Sands says Sister Agnes told her all about Ren's life story. Ren leads Mrs. Sands into the kitchen and she looks around at the "torn books[…]blood and soot strewn across the floor, the pile of busted furniture" (322) and begins yelling. She grabs her broom and begins beating all four of the guys, demanding to know what they've done to her house.

On the day of Dolly's funeral, Mrs. Sands, Tom, Ren, Ichy, Brom, and all the mousetrap girls file into "the oldest part of the cemetery" (323), where a young minister gives the service. Mrs. Sands shows Ren her family's plots and tells Ren he'll be buried with them when he dies. Mrs. Sands burned the contract Ren had with Dr. Milton in her fireplace then paid the doctor off with money from her chicken-coop stash.

Tom went through McGinty's "business records" (324), talked to the foreman about getting the factory running again, and accounted for "all that had been stolen by the hat boys" (324), all of whom left North Umbrage. Tom uses Ren's money to fix Mrs. Sands's house and rent rooms for himself and the twins.

After Dolly's service, the mousetrap girls and Mrs. Sands set up a picnic in the cemetery. Mrs. Sands makes up a plate for leftovers for her brother, who had been furious about "mousetrap girls and murderers crawling over his roof" (326). After they eat, the mousetrap girls and the twins start a game of tag. Ren notices Jenny looking off into the distance. Ren realizes she's looking for Benjamin. Ren wonders if Benjamin is "hiding there in the trees" (327) but decides he might "always be looking for him" (327). Ren turns his attention back to the game of tag and watches Ichy reaching out for the girls, his fingertips just missing their dresses.