The thin sunlight slapped them all awake. It was an especially cold
November morning, as the frost decorated every windowpane and froze every ounce
of breath on their lips. Luckily they were in some sort of shack in Islington, outside
of London, their bodies covered with stolen jackets.
“Everybody still alive?” David was the first to stand up, still
wearing his hat and the orphanage uniform. Besides for slightly growing out of
his clothes, at that point he looked like one of them - he proudly wore the
dirt on his face and the matted down bangs that reached down to his eyes. He
had grown since he first joined them, now slightly taller than Oliver, but
still had his high-pitched proper-city voice and all of his baby teeth.
“Yeah. Willy’s still ‘ere.” He pretty much stayed the same, except
for the black eye; it switched eyes.
“Ughhhh, Oliveh’s h-h-h-‘ere.” He had lost one of his front baby
teeth in a scuffle a week ago, and now wore a beret to warm his head.
“What kind of a stupi’ quest’n is that, Davey?” Johnny had slimmed
down- after doing much scouting around town- but had as chubby of a face as he
did before, his head covered in a wool hood. Somehow, he always seemed to know
what was going on in their mad world.
“Just makin’ sure we’re all okay. You know wha’ ‘appened to the
other group. One of them died an’ they didn’t even know it ‘till after they all
tried to leave. It makes me feel good.”
“Yeah, like getting tha’ last punch on Tony yesterday. That really ‘elped
us make a few allies.”
David glared at Johnny. “Shut up, Johnny. He was so annoying about
how I talk. You know you wanted one too.”
He shrugged in agreement. “’Es got’a point. So, the usual
everyone?”
“Yep.”
“I’m game.”
“I’m ready.”
“Then let’s go. Before we mee’ the twins.”
“Yeah. An’ befo’e the owna finds us.”
They snuck out of the shack and into the brightening morning as
they backtracked to London’s city center and marketplace, using markings and
pieces of scarves on light-posts. David remembered the first time they had walked
at dawn. He was not used to waking up so early, so his legs ached from fatigue
and his head hurt. Yet now he was used to it.
They kept flowing through the tiniest alleys, the smallest openings
in walls, just to avoid the public eye and the bobbers. David now moved next to
Oliver, with Willy and Johnny not too far behind, so when they split up into
groups to mooch a fancy breakfast café in the richer part of the neighborhood,
the guests wouldn’t know what was coming. It was a common technique amongst the
orphan groups. There would be ruckus generated by the faster boys, while the
slower ones took the rest while they weren’t looking. It was fool-proof,
usually. Today would be a good one. He felt it.
David and Oliver went inside first, weaving through the tables,
snatching up not only sweets but even wallets. He had gotten so much better at
snatching wallets, Oliver thought that he was better than him, even if he had
joined only a few weeks before David showed up. At that point, it just became a
contest. However many they took, they both loved the reaction behind them,
almost as if a carriage had crashed through the place, horses and all.
(By the way, Black and White needs your votes! Thanks so much! http://www.wattpad.com/story/21897628-black-%26-white-wattys2014)
“Goodness! Filthy mongrels!”
“Ahh! James, watch for those rats!”
“They got me wallet!”
“After them! Police, do SOMETHING!”
“Oh, my HEAVENS! They took the good jam!”
They would laugh about it later, but they couldn’t at that point.
They took off and covered themselves in an alleyway before circling back to the
hideout and sharing their breakfast. David never liked saying grace, so nothing
stopped him from chowing down on the biscuits- the stolen, sweeter kind.
“So why are we goin’ to the twins again?” David remembered the last
time they had met. It was when he got the black eye from a stray punch.
Johnny looked up after wiping the crumbs on his face with his
sleeve.
“There’s a new judge in town. Rumor is they know which terri’ories
he goes fo’ fi’st. We need to know wheh so we could dodge him, and the’e askin
for money. We go’ enough?”
“Plenty. From today alone, we got enough.”
“Then let’s move. They wan’ us the’h by the time Big Ben strikes
seven.”
“But I haven’t finished yet.” Willy was so tired, he looked like he
was wobbling even when seated.
“You gree’y scut. You’ll be better off to run if we bail from ‘ere
now, wi’out your gut so full.”
They fly on the move again, avoiding the public roads- and
grown-up’s eyes- and slipped through alleyways, passed other groups of boys-
lost, just like them- and were embraced by London’s busy mornings.
The traffic of carriages and bodies made it difficult to squeeze
through, especially when the meeting place was where Johnny called “the Big
Bells” were- the center of town.
The center of London. David had heard about it. It even used to be
in his dreams. He heard about the massive river that ran through it, the huge
towers jutting up to touch the sky. It was majestic and big and mysterious at
any other time. Now it just seemed threatening, the huge clock tower looking down on them as
if it knew what they were. For a second, David thought that it might even be a
watchtower , waiting to snitch on them to the bobbers once they put their
guard down.
They got to the meeting place before anyone seemed to call for
them. Johnny showed them through a hidden door behind one of the grey
buildings, tucked away from view behind the fireplace that jutted out, like the
building grew it later on in life. Once down there, Johnny motioned for us to
do one thing; keep our mouths shut. He was the best at talking than the rest,
so the group understood. For all they knew, he could talk a wallet out of a
pair of trousers.
There they were, staring down on them as they walked through the
entranceway. The lamp behind them cast an eerie shadow of the twins, as well as
the other three beside them. This wasn’t like the last place they had “met”,
rather a new place they made for themselves. While it might have been an
illusion to petrify anyone who entered, they didn’t need to fool anybody; the
boys were actually bigger than all of them- even more than Johnny.
The twins wore the most suitable clothes for their swindling;
jackets and pants so filled with greys and blacks, with bright ties hanging
loosely off their necks. Rumor was that one of them even killed someone.
The boys surrounding them didn’t look too shabby either. Their hair
was cut down to their heads, their narrow stares visible from the candle light
and dirty white shirts rolled up their sleeves. It didn’t seem right that boys
so big needed even bigger friends to help them. One of the other boys kept
looking towards David. Then he recognized him. He didn’t know how. But he
couldn’t help it.
“N-Nathan?”
All the boy did was put a finger to his own lips.
“Well,” One of the twins growled in a deep voice, the innocence
sucked completely out of it. “You made the deal. You’ve got the money?” He
spoke in a high-class accent too, as if he was born rich.
Only Johnny had a chance with words. “Give us wheh th’ Judge be
searchin’, and the money’s all yours. Show ‘em Willy.”
With quick precision, he took out their collective pouch and showed
them the exuberant amount they requested. Nathan, supposedly brought the money
to the other twin. He examined it while the others kept their eyes on all of
them.
Then David realized that one of them had disappeared. He tried
getting Oliver’s attention, but he was too concentrated on looking tough.
“Not enough, boy. What else you got in that pouch of yours?”
Johnny kept his composure, even though they were clearly trying to
take everything they had.
“Nothin’ else. That’s all we got.”
“Balderdash. There was more in there. I hear it. Troy, check it.”
David felt Willy turn pale white. As fast as he was, he knew that
some ruffles of pounds got away. Why didn’t they take it out before they
came in? They looked ready to steal a bank! The biggest question was: What
was Johnny going to say now?
David’s ears perked to the back of the room. Was that a door
hinge? Were they going to close them in? Was this… no…it was a trap?
The boy called Troy brought back the pouch to the twins. One of
them immediately looked up and condescendingly shook his head, slow enough to
push the perpetrators into guilt. They were so good at being horrible, greedy
people, and David barely even knew them.
“Why do you lie to us, Johnny? We were on such good terms.”
“We di’n’t. You asked fo’ tha’. And we did! We gave ya’ the
money. Doesn’t mean you can take any mo’.”
“Maybe, but you’re in our place now. We need to keep this place in
order. And our business. It needs to be kept up. Bribing takes a lot of coin,
Jonathan. (They call others by their proper names? Now they sounded like
grown-ups. I don’t trust them. Then again, when did I?) We’ll just take
this all.”
The pouch’s contents were poured onto their table, to another boy’s
open glee. Johnny was speechless, Willy was white in the face and Oliver’s eyes
covered his face. David was shocked before, but he was too confident to care at
that point. He never saw a single pence after it went in and only kept what he
snuck out of his “share”. One of the twins noticed his face. Big mistake on his
part.
“Well, aren’t you just the brave one, little piss head? Not
surprised, are you? Then you must be hiding something. Got anything on you?”
Surprisingly, he still had those twenty pounds. Yet he
unsentimentally took it out and threw it to the ground by his feet. His
confidence turned to heartless frustration.
“Come pick it up.”
The rest of the group turned around and didn’t know what to be
shocked about: that he had twenty pounds or that he had the gall to talk down
to them. The other twin tried calming the other one down. David could see through
their silhouettes.
“Now, now. Don’t get so mad-”
“How dare you-”
“What? I gave it to you, didn’ I?” The rest of his group looked
very tense. They had seen this heartless side of him before, and when it went
bad, it went really bad for all of them. It’s how he got that black eye in the
first place.
“Bring it to us now, filthy orphan.”
“I’m pre’y sure you can afford to do that yourself. We can’t no
more.”
“Well, then. If you won’t then, you’ll be forced to.” They were
taken aback by David’s defiance and resorted to only the best method.
“How will I-”
Then they gave the motion to the back of the room. He knew what was
coming.
The moment they turned their heads up to the door, David bolted for
it. Then the room went dark. The lamp had been extinguished. David suddenly
tensed up in terror.
“Grab him! Don’t let the rest get away!”
Oh schweest. Which way was the exit?
The next few seconds were chaos. He heard the table smash, punches
thrown, grunts forced out, even a few recognizable screams. The fright wasn’t
worth being a part of such a nasty world. He didn’t feel like he belonged here
anymore. He not only realized the trouble he got for everyone else, but how
much danger he had put himself into at that point. He had to get out of that
dark room.
“David,” he heard
Nathan whisper, “I’ll open the door. Go!”
Then he saw a sliver of light come from a crack in the door. He
bolted for it, every muscle pushed to the limit and tensed for the impact.
Little did he know how the door opened to the outside, so when he rushed the
guard, he not only barreled him over but knocked the door completely open. He
stumbled out onto the stone stairs, but didn’t feel anything but a strong push
to get out, to somewhere safer, anywhere but there.
“Nate, you fool! Close it up! Don’t let them get away…”
He thought he heard others spill out, but he was around the block
at that point. He didn’t take a breather until he was in another alleyway. For
another time in a year, he was alone again. But this time, he wasn’t so scared.
He had changed significantly since he had ran away the first time. He was more
confident. He was- Ouch! What the-? So much pain. Coming up too quickly!
What hurts?
He suddenly felt tremendous pain on his left shoulder, then noticed
that a hole had been torn through his right knee, revealing a growing bump he
knew would bruise. He didn’t expect it, so it was much harder for him to move.
Then he began to panic. How on earth was he going to be able to get
better? He couldn’t steal medical supplies because not only had he become slow
but no one else was around to help him. How was he going to eat? Where to
sleep? What was he going to-
Suddenly he remembered-
Wait- Who was that guy a while back that offered to help? From that
really nice courtyard… Ivan… Jacob…What was his name? Ich…Oh! Ichabod! That was
it! He was in that… that courtyard behind the market place! Yes, that’s the
best bet to go to! Maybe he can help me. Well, it’s worth a shot. Now we just
have to get there without being seen.
So, what do you think? Let me know!!
See you all in the sunlight!!
-Zach
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