The Seal of Solomon Read Online Free

said.
    â€œWhat do you mean that’s not your favorite?” he snapped, then caught himself and said, “Then you name it, Al, whatever you want!”
    â€œI’m not hungry,” I said, and I went to my room and closed the door.
    Kenny was lying on the top bunk in semidarkness; the blinds were drawn. He muttered softly above me as I stretched out on the bottom bunk, trying to wrap my Kropp brain around the fact that I was now a billionaire.
    Kenny whispered, “What are you doing, Kropp?”
    â€œTrying to figure out how I’m going to avoid becoming Horace Tuttle’s son. What are you doing, Kenny?”
    â€œNothing, Alfred Kropp.”
    I rolled onto my stomach and glanced under the bed. I flopped back over and said, “All right, Kenny, give it back.”
    â€œGive what back?”
    â€œYou know what.”
    After a second I could see the faint light gleaming off the black metal of the blade as he lowered my sword from the top bunk. I knew it was very sharp, so I took it from Kenny carefully. “I told you not to touch it,” I said as I held it against my chest.
    â€œI’m sorry, Alfred Kropp. Please don’t be mad at me.”
    I was running my fingertips along the flat smooth part of the black sword. “Don’t bother it anymore, okay?” I said.
    â€œOkay, Alfred Kropp.”
    I slid the sword beneath the bed. When I first got back from London, I took Bennacio’s sword from its hiding place under my bed every day. But as the months went by I took it out less and less. Looking at it created this hollow feeling in my chest. The last time Bennacio wielded this sword it was in defense of the whole world, and now it was just a keepsake. I imagined myself as an old man showing it to the neighborhood kids and croaking, “Look at this, boys! You know what this is? This is the sword of the last knight who ever walked the earth, the bravest man I ever knew.” And they would probably laugh and run away from crazy ol’ Kropp with his tall tales of magic swords and doomed knights and the singing of angels.
    â€œWhat are you thinking about, Kropp?” Kenny whispered above me.
    â€œWhat would you do, Kenny, if you just found out you’re going to inherit a billion dollars and Horace Tuttle has plans to adopt you so he can get his hands on it?”
    Kenny was silent for a while, thinking about it, I guess.
    â€œI would run away, Alfred Kropp.”
    â€œExactly,” I said.

5
    I didn’t run away that night. Or the next night. Or the night after that. The last time I ran away from Knoxville I left with just the clothes on my back and no planning whatsoever (at least on my part), so this time I was determined not to leave without some clean socks and underwear and a firm destination in mind.
    A couple of days after Mr. Needlemier’s visit, Horace informed me a court hearing had been scheduled to hear the merits of his petition to make me Horace Tuttle Jr. Then he proceeded to shower me with gifts. He bought me an iPod, clothes, and a cell phone. He started calling me “my boy,” as in, “Good morning, Alfred, my boy!” When he wasn’t following me around like a puppy desperate for attention, he and Betty were out house hunting, mostly in the fancier neighborhoods in Knoxville. I knew I had to escape from the Tuttles as soon as possible.
    Still, I couldn’t think of a single place I would run to or what I would do once I got there. England was a possibility: since my father had come from there, I figured there must be relatives around, but I couldn’t imagine myself just showing up at their door and announcing, “Hi there! I’m your cousin Kropp!”
    On my way to the bus one afternoon, I got seriously Kropped. Four football players jumped me, ripped my backpack from my shoulder, and knocked me upside the head with it a couple times. They took off, leaving me rolling in the grass.
    I heard a