Brenda Whitten
Mr. Barnes
Honors English III
10 March 2013
POV rewrite—Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Chapter XXX
By this point, I was fumin’! That damn kid. He’s always bustin’ my plans. He musta done sumthun to lead them dumb townsfolks on. It’s that n***. He prolly knew it all the time. They prolly had it all planned out. They was gon’ steal all mah money and break out. At leas’ he didn’t get no money either. I had to escape from this town and get back to that blasted raft. I was paddlin’ down the way when who do I see but that kid? Paddlin’ down toward that raft with the n*** already floating. When we finally caught up, I went after the kid and shook him by his crusty lil collar sayin’ “Tryin’ to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company—hey?”
That idiot bumbled back “No, your majesty, we warn’t—please don’t, your majesty!”
He still thinks I’m a real king. Even after all of this. He’s such an ignorant fool. Jus’ the kind I woulda loved to know out in da real world. But I press on “Quick, then, and tell us what was your idea, or I’ll shake the insides out o’ you!”
And boy if I’d a ever heard such a tall tale. That kid thinks we’s gon’ jus’ believe every lie he utters. He don’t know how a conman works. He don’ know how many lies I say ‘for I go to sleep. His big imagination musta thought ah this one a while ago. Kids. Always lookin’ for some adventure. Never realizin’ they was gon’ get hurt.
The n*** automatically agreed to this tall tale, but I immediately shut him down. This blubbering fool and his n*** had about as likely a story as any. I knows they was tryin to gets rid o’ me. I knows it for a whiles now but hey, they been some good company and sho’ did help us out back there by having this here raft. But I knew this boy was a tellin’ a tall one. Ain’t nobody gon’ believe this one so I grabbed him and shook all the while shouting at his dumb little face “Oh, yes, it’s mighty likely!” I reckon I better drown this youngun while I still got the chance, after all wes gone through for ‘im. That’s when that phony duke started talkin’. He thinks he’s so much better then all o’ us. Well who’s king? Me. So he better step it down an’ listen to me when I gots a good idea. But I let him talk sayin’:
“Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would you a done any different? Did you inquire around for him, when you got loose? I don’t remember it.”
So I let him down, but not before I cussed him and the town and everybody else. But again that blasted duke interrupted:
“You better a blame sight give yourself a good cussing, for you’re the one that’s entitled to it most. You hain’t done a thing, from the start, that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky with that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That was bright—it was right down bully; and it was the thing that saved us. For if it hadn’t been for that, they’d a jailed us till them Englishmen’s baggage come—and then—the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took ‘em to the graveyard and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the excited fools hadn’t let go all holts and made that rush to get a look, we’d a slept in our cravats tonight—cravats warrented to wear, too—longer than we’d need ‘em.”
Then silence commenced, led on by my lack of a comeback. I had nothing ‘gainst the younger duke. He was smart. Tricky, but smart. I slowly but surely came to thinkin’ out loud:
“Mf! An’ we reckoned the n****s stole it!”
But then the strangest thing started happenin’. That duke started blaming me for the gold incident. Sayin that I musta been asleepin’ and walkin’ ‘round hidin’ the money. Well that was just about the craziest thing I’d ever heard. Whys he think I did it? I ain’t been nothin’ but a friend to him. that ungrateful little swine! Hes never gon’ hear the en’ of this now. He ain’t gon’ get away with this. Not while I’m still here to tell him he’s wrong.
That crazed Duke grabbed me tight, his hands graspin’ my throat, squeezin’ out all mah air. He admitted he woulda took the money but someone beat him to it. Well clearly he musta took that money. He hid it there all for hisself. He was gon’ go back an’ get it after he got rid of me. I had been one step ahead of him—I thought. I was plannin’ on stealin’ that money and takin’ it an’ puttin’ it somewheres safer and keepin’ it there ‘till this whole thing blowed over but nevermind that now. That duke gone and beat me to it, stoled all that money and hid it in a coffin. The only thing that did was buy us a bit more time. But now we’s out all our moneys.
At some point I musta made that damn thief so mad he decided to choke me for real. He grabbed harder, tightenin’ his grip with every second I didn’t lie to make him happy. That’s all he cares ‘bout anyways. Long as he gots his name and his confession. It don’ matter if it’s true or not. Long as he got you to say you did it he don’ care who done it. So I ‘fessed. Only I didn’t do it. I never did see that money from the time that we hid it in that mattress. But that’s no matter now. I was a blubbering fool now, just like the kid. I was a blubbing for our loss but mo’ importantly for that duke choking my air all out. I snuffled out “Why duke, it was you that said make up the deffersit; it warn’t me.”
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