Jinks more keenly than Joe. It was as if he had lost his only friend—which, in a way, he had. And not only was she dead but she had been branded a thief, and that hurt him all the more. The truth will always come out. That was what she had said to him. But how could he go to his parents or the police and tell them that it was Granny who had taken the jewelry and the gold teeth and that it was she who had killed Mrs. Jinks by pouring gravy powder over her when the police dogs were near because…because… What reason could there possibly be? They would think he was crazy. Every day when he got home from school, Joe found himself on his own. He took to walking down to the back of the garden, where Mr. Lampy would be waiting for him and the two of them would sit together next to a coal stove with the family of moles watching them through the window of the shed. “I’m going to run away,” he would say. “I’ll go to China and work in a rice paddy.” “I don’t know, Master Warden,”
