Tom Burton came up and he stood and talked to us. He told us he knew all about the Red Avengers and that he had our memorandum book with Dad Veek's name in it and everything, and that he knew who had written the memorandum book, and the notice that was daggered on Dad Veek's door, and everything, and he asked us which one of us done it. Gee, I was scared! But none of us said anything. Maybe we were too scared to.
So then he said, “All right! it will only be a little while before all will be known, and the one that did it will surely be sent to reform school, so the other two, that didn't do it, had better tell on the one that did do it.”
But none of us said anything. So he talked awhile and then he went away. Me and Bony didn't say anything.
“Garsh!” Swatty said. “It's mighty bad.”
Me and Bony didn't say anything yet. We was too scared. Bony began to blubber.
“You don't need to cry,” Swatty told him. “You ain't going to be sent to reform school. You didn't do it.”
“Well—well,” Bony blubbered. “You and Georgie didn't do it, either.”
“Well, it don't matter whether we did it or didn't do it,” Swatty said. “We wrote down that we were going to do it, and they've got the warning and the memorandum book, and we both said we'd done it ourselves, and we both said the other had done it, and I guess they'll send us to reform school.” Bony kept on blubbering, so we told him he had better go home if he was a cry-baby, and he went. So then Swatty said:
“I guess it ain't much use; but we've got to say, no matter how they ask us, that we ain't the Red Avengers.”
“That'd be a lie,” I said.