I went as quite as I could down stairs into Aunt Sally’s room. I had one more thing I had got to do before I left. It was risky and if Jim had known he would’ve told me not to do it. I slipped in and ducked to the floor, reaching under her bed I found the safe she kept all of my money in. I knew we didn’t need it, surviving off of nothing before and all, but it was good to have just in case. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a loaf of bread, and left.
Tom was waiting outside for me when I got there. It was still dark out and we were in such a rush that he didn’t notice the box in my arms. We ran through the woods down to the river where Jim was waiting with the raft. It was just the same as before; we loaded it up and went down the river. But this time we were only going for a short while on the river. At the first sign of daylight we were to pull off to the side, ditch the raft, and make our way westward. As I was getting onto the raft, Jim noticed the box in my hand. I explained that it was all my money, incase we ever needed it, incase of emergencies. Jim wasn’t happy about it, but said it was too late to do anything about it now anyways. Tom on the other hand was in astonishment and thought it was a brilliant idea.
So we headed off down the river. None of us got much sleep that night on account of Tom talking the entire time about what our next plan should be. I recon Jim wasn’t really listening to him anymore than I was on account of neither of us saying anything back.
When the sun came up we pulled to the bank of the river and started putting everything in sacks for us to carry. Jim was first off so me and Tom could hand him the sacks.
“Go ahead Huck, I got the last one.” Tom said as I reached for the last sack to hand to Jim. “I said go ahead!”
I jumped off the raft and as I did so Tom pushed off the bank of the river with the raft and paddled away as fast as he could. Jim and I were in shock, it took us a moment to comprehend what had happened and by the time we gathered our thoughts he was gone. The current was going too fast down stream for us to catch up with him. I looked over at Jim to see him laughing. I gave him a confused looked and he explained.
“The river is endin’ soon. He’s got two days, maybe, before he has to go ashore. Your Aunt Sally will be looking all over for you two, she’ll find him for sure.” And Jim continued to laugh.
“But Jim, he’s got my money, he’s got all my money!” I tried to argue.
“What do you need all that money for, Huck? We’s didn’t have any before and we’s don’t need any now. Besides, sooner or later someone was to come and steal it from us anyways.”
“I guess you’re right, we can do without it.” I unwillingly agreed.
“We can do without it? We’s better off without it, and we’s better off without Tom. It’s just the two of us, just like before.” This time I had to agree, after all he did have a point, it had always been the two of us and it always will.
“We are better off! Just you and me, no Tom, no Aunt Sally, no kings, just you and me. You’re my best friend, Jim,”
A huge smile came across Jims face as I said that, and I realized it was possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to him. We got our things and headed off to the west. We weren’t too sure on where we was going, but we went anyways. After all, it didn’t matter, we could do whatever we’s wanted to.
