Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV Read Online Free Page A

on the instant, but he won’t teach me! He calls them others ‘apprentice Makers’ but me he won’t even take on for a single lesson, all because I don’t bow down and worship whenever he starts talking about how a Maker can never use his power to destroy, but only to build, or he loses it, which is nonsense, since a man’s knack is his knack and—”
    “It seems to me,” said Taleswapper, his voice sharp enough to cut through Calvin’s raging, “that you are a singularly unteachable young man. You ask Alvin to teach you, and he tries to do it, but then you refuse to listen because
you
know what’s nonsense and what matters,
you
know that a man doesn’t have to make in order to be a Maker,
you
already know so much I’m surprised you still wait around here, wishing for Alvin to teach you things that you plainly have no desire to know.”
    “I want him to teach me how to get into the small of things!” cried Calvin. “I want him to teach me how to change people the way he changed Arthur Stuart so the Finders couldn’t Find him anymore! I want him to teach me how to get inside bones and blood vessels, how to turn iron to gold! I want me a golden plow like his and he won’t teach me
how
!”
    “And it has never occurred to you,” said Taleswapper, “that when he speaks of using the power of Making only to build things up, never to tear them down, he might be teaching you precisely the thing you are asking? Oh, Calvin, I’m so sorry to see that your mama did have one stupid child after all.”
    Calvin felt the rage explode inside himself, and before he knew what he was doing he knocked the old man down and straddled his hips, pounding on his frail old ribs and belly. It took many blows before he realized that the old man wasn’t fighting back. Have I killed him? Calvin wondered. What will I do if he’s dead? They’ll have me for murder, then. They won’t understand how he provoked me, begging for a beating. It’s not like I planned to kill him.
    Calvin put his fingers to Taleswapper’s throat, feeling for a pulse. It was there, feeble, but it probably was always feeble, given how old the fellow was.
    “Didn’t quite kill me, eh?” whispered Taleswapper.
    “Didn’t feel like it,” said Calvin.
    “How many men will you have to beat up before everyone agrees that you’re a Maker?”
    Calvin wanted to hit him again. Didn’t this old man learn anything?
    “You know, if you hurt people enough, eventually they’ll all call you whatever you want. Maker. King. Captain. Boss. Master. Holy One. Pick your title, you can beat people into calling you that. But you don’t change yourself a bit. All you do is change the meanings of those words, so they all mean the same thing: Bully.”
    Calvin, hot with shame, got up and stood over him. He restrained himself from kicking the old man until his head was jelly. “You’ve got a knack for words,” he said.
    “True words in particular,” said Taleswapper.
    “Lies, from all I can see,” said Calvin.
    “A liar sees lies,” said Taleswapper. “Even when they aren’t there. Just as a hypocrite sees hypocrites whenever he runs across good people. Can’t stand to think that anyone might
really
be what you only pretend to be.”
    “You did say one true thing,” said Calvin. “About its making no sense me waiting around here for Alvin to teach me what he plainly means to keep secret. I should’ve realized that Alvin wasn’t never going to teach me anything, because he’s afraid if peoplesee me doing all the things he can do, he won’t be king of the hill anymore. I have to find it out on my own, just like he did.”
    “You have to find it out by learning the same things he did,” said Taleswapper. “Alone or as his pupil, though, I don’t think you’re capable of learning those things.”
    “You’re wrong,” said Calvin. “I’ll prove it to you.”
    “By learning to master your own will and use your power only to build things, only to help