The Great Trouble (6 page)

They weren’t the only ones either. Fisheye Bill still had fishmonger pals from the old days, before he took to crime. They often gathered at the open windows of pubs after work, cradling their pints and keeping a sharp eye on everything that went on around them.

I could just imagine one telling my stepfather: “Bill, my friend! I saw that lad of yours today, walkin’ right through the market, bold as brass. Run off, has ’e? Now, that’s a shame, after all you done for him. His name is Eel, ain’t it? Too slippery for you, is ’e?”

Talk like that would make Fisheye Bill boil with rage. He couldn’t stomach the fact that I’d been smart enough to disappear. Could I let Fisheye get near me again?
Never
.

The smell of onions and frying potatoes wafting out from the pubs made my stomach growl. I was pinched with hunger, and hadn’t touched a morsel since breakfast at the Lion. The Lion. I wondered about Queenie. I wouldn’t be there to feed her anymore. How would she get on? Would anyone remember to give her scraps or fill her tin water cup?

Then I thought of Abel Cooper. When the foreman had come in on Monday, he’d found the scrawny black kitten, still a bit damp, curled up in the center of his chair like she owned it. “And who, may I ask, is this?” he’d grumbled.

“This here is Queenie, sir. Some boy threw her into the Thames. Lucky for her I was there,” I told him.

“Very gallant of you, I’m sure,” Mr. Cooper said sarcastically. “But how did she end up on my chair?”

“Aw, c’mon, Guv, have a heart. Besides, the Lion needs a good ratter.”

Abel Cooper grunted. Later, though, when I’d gone back into his office to deliver a message, I found Queenie still on his chair—only this time on his lap.

Queenie would be just fine.

The closer I got to the Thames, the worse the air smelled. I thought about how this day had begun, with Abel Cooper warning of the trouble miasma would bring. As bad as my own troubles were, things were a lot worse for Mr. Griggs. How was he doing now? Maybe I’d been wrong about the blue death. Tomorrow I’d go back and check.

But I had somewhere else to go first thing in the morning. I swallowed hard, thinking about what would happen when I appeared without four shillings. I’d had those shillings yesterday, put away safe in my tin box. But that was yesterday.

I couldn’t think of that now. I might not be able to add more than a penny or two to what Mrs. Weatherburn had given me, but I had to try. I had to be a mudlark again, like it or not.

The sour, rotting, filthy smell hit me full in the face as the river came into view. My stomach lurched. Probably just as well it was empty—and likely to stay that way for another day. But luck was on my side—it was low tide.

Pa had taken me for walks by the Thames, I remembered that much. I’m not sure it smelled as bad back then. What I do keep from that time is the feel of his large, firm hand around mine.

Pa never tired of watching the river. “Just look—the barges, the fishing boats, the coming and going of goods!” he’d say, throwing out his arms. “The Thames is like a rich, throbbing blood vessel keeping all of London alive.”

Pa felt so sorry for young mudlarks that he sometimes called the littlest ones over to give them a penny. He couldn’t have imagined how true his words would turn out to be for me: this river had kept me alive many a day before I got my place at the Lion. And now it would do so again.

I wouldn’t get many pennies a day selling coal, bits of wood, or globs of fat tossed overboard by a ship’s cook. But it would keep me going. With what I earned from Dr. Snow, I might just be able to make it—at least until winter set in.

With a sudden, fierce stab, I missed Pa. He’d been gone three years now. Just as London was divided by the Thames, my life was divided in two. There was the part before Pa died. Then there was everything else that had come after. More and more, that earlier time seemed to be fading, like a dream that drifts away when you open your eyes to the light.

One moment I was staring at the glittering river. The next I was rammed hard in the back. I went flying through the air and tumbled into the mud. I managed to land on my hands and knees. I leaped up, ready to fight.

“Don’t even try, you pigeon.” Nasty Ned stood a head taller than me. I cursed myself for being careless. Ned was bad enough. What if it had been Fisheye who’d snuck up behind me?

I wrinkled my nose and stepped back. It was as if Ned took baths in a cesspool. Well, seeing as he was rarely out of the river, that was more or less the case. He narrowed his eyes. “Now, Eel, something’s puzzling me.”

I brushed mud off my pants, scowling. “I imagine with your tiny brain there’s a lot that baffles you.”

“I’m just wondering what you’re doin’ here,” he went on, ignoring my insult. “By my count, that’s twice this week. I don’t mind an occasional morning now and again, given that we’re old pals. But here you are back again.” He glowered at me, then tipped his river stick under my chin.

I pushed it away. “You don’t own the river, Ned.”

“Really? I wouldn’t be so sure.”

He jerked his head to where a few younger boys were wading along the river’s edge. “See them lads? They work for me. They’re under my protection, so to speak. And I don’t like for ’em to come up empty-handed after a day’s trolling. I don’t like people pushin’ in.”

“Oh, come on, Ned,” I said lightly. “You know I’m a better mudlark than that ragged lot. How about we go in together? It won’t be long before you’d be working for me, I wager.”

Ned uttered a hoarse growl and swung his stick, this time aiming for my middle. I jumped aside just in time, and barely missed getting prodded in the stomach. Then I ran.

I made for Blackfriars Bridge. Nasty Ned might not want me in his gang, but Thumbless Jake had to put up with me. For all his bluster, he simply didn’t move as fast.

By midnight I’d scavenged enough coal to add a penny to my pocket. It was enough for some shrimps or a piece of bread with butter. My belly would have to stay empty, though. I owed this penny elsewhere. I found a place to curl up under the bridge. But I couldn’t let myself drop into a deep sleep, not with coins in my pocket. The chances of waking up to find them gone were too great.

As it turned out, I couldn’t have slept even if I’d wanted
to; my mind was as choppy as the river in a strong wind. I kept seeing Hugzie’s smug smile, Betsy and Bernie sitting so still and scared, Mr. Griggs writhing in pain.

I tossed and turned on the hard stone. I’d have to get used to it. I’d been a mudlark before. I could do it again. I was good at it. That’s what made Thumbless Jake first notice me.

“Hey, you, lad. Get over here,” he’d called out one evening when the fog had shrouded everything in strange, blurry shadows. It was dangerous when it got like that. A barge or other boat could come upon you so sudden there was barely time to move out of the way in the thick, sludgy water.

“I been watchin’ you,” Thumbless Jake declared. “You make a good haul. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you could peer through the murk. You been a mudlark long?”

I shrugged. “Not long.”

“Hmph. Well, I don’t know how you’re doin’ so well, but keep your distance,” he warned, raising his stump of a thumb in my face. “I might be missing this, but I still got another hand that can wring a boy’s neck if ’e gets in my way.”

Friday, September 1

First thing I did the next morning was check my pocket. All safe.

I sold the rope and the few copper nails I’d managed to find to a rag shop for a penny. Then I was on my way—me and everyone else. Our feet tapped out the rhythms of a new day: the slap of bare feet on cobblestones, the clomp of hard leather boots, the brisk click of ladies’ heels. It seemed a wonder that the cobblestones weren’t worn down flat.

By the time I reached a little warren of streets near Field Lane, it was seven. The streets were already shimmering with heat. I slipped round to the back of a small house and knocked softly at the kitchen door.

“So it’s you.” A large, red-faced woman opened the door a crack and peered at me. “Got it?”

“Mrs. Miggle, I do,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder. I shifted from one foot to the other and fished inside my pocket. I wanted her to invite me in—now. The smell of warm, fresh biscuits and coffee enveloped me, sending an actual pain through my stomach. I was that hungry.

She held the door open and I slid in. Now was the time to say it.

“Leastwise, I have half,” I said, holding out the money.

Mrs. Miggle snapped it up, quick as a frog snatching a bug. Before I knew it, the shillings had disappeared into some hidden place in her vast skirts. I reached into my other pocket and drew out the penny I’d gotten that morning. “And here’s payment for the ragged school.”

Mrs. Miggle took that too, then folded her arms across her wide body and glared down at me. “So where’s the rest? Where’s the other two shillings?”

I wondered if she had
ever
smiled. Mrs. Miggle couldn’t be more than thirty, yet she seemed as stern and hard as if she’d had all the softness rubbed away years before.

“I’ve been easy with you, young man, on account of I have such a big heart, but I have much to bear.” She leaned so close I could see tiny hairs sticking out of her upper lip. “Much.”

“Yes, ma’am. I do realize that, and I am grateful for your kindnesses,” I said quickly. “And if, just this once, you could
give me until next Friday, I swear I’ll have the four shillings for next week, and the two I still owe for this. Plus a penny for the Field Lane Ragged School fee.”

I cast my head down, forced a tear out of one eye, and did my best to look forlorn. It sometimes worked, even for someone as hard-hearted as the formidable Mrs. Miggle.

“All right. No need to pull that pathetic act on me.” Mrs. Miggle couldn’t be fooled. She turned away to take the kettle off the stove.

“How is he, ma’am?”

“ ’E’s just fine,” she said shortly, measuring out some tea. “Goin’ to the ragged school every day, like we agreed. But ’e grows, you know.

“Boys have an awful habit of doing that, whether you want them to or not,” she went on in a complaining whine. Mrs. Miggle had a high voice, like a fiddle that wasn’t tuned. “I can’t be expected to get ’im new shoes and clothes. Not on what you pay for ’is keep. I got real lodgers to worry about.”

“I know, Mrs. Miggle. I’m working on getting more money for the winter,” I assured her. “I’ll get him a new pair of shoes, and a coat too. But there’s time yet.”

I paused, wondering how to put what I wanted to say next. “Mrs. Miggle,” I began. “You haven’t … you haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary of late?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Like what?”

I licked my lip and tried to sound casual. “Oh, just someone nosin’ around, maybe one of my old mudlark pals.”

“You’re not in trouble for thievin’, are you, boy?”

“No, ’course not,” I said quickly. “It’s no matter. Can I … can I talk to him?”

She went to a back room off the kitchen, no larger than a cupboard. I followed, peering in past her at the small sleeping boy.

“Henry, lad,” called Mrs. Miggle. “Your big brother’s here to see you.”

“Henry,” I said softly. “Wake up. It’s me.”

I went to sit on the edge of the narrow straw mattress. Henry startled upright, a hint of fear in his face until he realized it was me.

“Eel! Did you come to take me away?” he whispered, his dark eyes darting toward the kitchen. “Mrs. Miggle … she’s mean.”

I frowned. “As mean as
him
?”

“Nothin’ like that.” He rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Just a bit rough.”

“Mrs. Miggle is an honest woman,” I told him.

Though even as I said it, I wondered: was she? For now, she was content with the four shillings a week I paid for Henry’s room and board. But if Fisheye found out where Henry was, would Mrs. Miggle be happy to hand him over for one large sum?

A lad like Henry was worth a lot to Fisheye. Henry
could be made to steal and run simple cons. With his sweet face and high voice, he could bring in money by begging, especially if he was taught to cry. I couldn’t let Fisheye find my little brother, no matter what.

Henry dressed and went to sit on a low stool in the kitchen, where Mrs. Miggle gave him bread dipped in bacon grease and a cup of milk. She must’ve been feeling more kindly toward me than she let on, because I got some bread too.

“It’s just the crust,” she said, not willing to admit she had a soft heart somewhere inside.

Henry didn’t want me to leave. “Will you walk me to school, Eel?”

“Not today,” I told him as Mrs. Miggle gave me a cup of water (her generosity did not extend as far as milk). I couldn’t take the chance of our being spotted together.

“My time’s up anyway. I’ve got to go now, Henry.” I finished gulping down the cool water and patted the top of his head.

“Wait!” Jumping up, he scrambled back into his little cupboard of a room and came back with a slip of paper, folded once and crumpled.

He grinned, which made his dark eyes sparkle like coal in sunlight. “Go on, Eel. Open it.”

I read it out loud while my little brother sat and giggled beside me.

I gave him a hug. I was glad to see that his bones weren’t sticking out the way they had last winter. Mrs. Miggle might seem rough, but she wouldn’t let him starve. “You keep at your writing, Henry. Mum would be proud.”

I left soon after, tucking the note into my pocket and patting it as I walked away. It was like a promise for comfort later, I thought, almost like having a small meat pie wrapped in paper waiting at the end of a long day.

I’d forgotten about my birthday. It was about to be the worst one anyone could imagine.