The Whatnot. Stefan Bachmann

      He would still get that caramel apple. But he was more practical now.

      He shivered and stuffed his blanket down the front of his jacket to keep out the chill. His hole was set inside the foundations of the shop, flat on the dirt. Four feet long. Half that high. Above him, through the floorboards, he could hear Jem and his wife snapping at each other. He had to pull in his knees and bend his neck to fit, and the winter could come right in at the door.

      But it didn’t matter. He was leaving. Things would only get worse in London once the fighting started in the North. And anyway he didn’t want to stay here, in a hole in Spitalfields. Someday he wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere green perhaps, with plums and pies and the voices he had dreamed about, the loud, happy voices.

      Pikey fell asleep, and dreamed of them all over again.

      The next morning, he made himself a badly sagging patch out of one of his socks and tied it over his bad eye. Then, pushing the gem deep into the one pocket that still had all its stitches, he wriggled out of his hole.

      The foot with only two socks instead of three noticed its diminished state almost at once. It went numb, then unfeeling. Pikey felt sure it did so out of spite. But better a frozen foot than holding a hand over his eye all day like a simpleton, and so he ignored it and hurried up the alley toward Bell Lane.

      The chemist’s door creaked as he passed it. The bolt scraped, then the hinges. Pikey knew who it was before she even stepped into the alley. Not Jeremiah, this time. Worse.

      “What you got there, laddy?” Missus Jackinpots could coo like a dove to her little one, but to everyone else she was worse than a crow.

      “Nuthin’.” Pikey’s hand tightened around the gem in his pocket. He took a few more hurried steps, his frozen foot jarring against the ground.

      “Jem says he’s seen not hide nor hair of you for almost three days. Where’s the news? What are the prices at? You know the deal, and you oughta keep it. Prices and news six times a week, else there’s no point keeping you.”

      Pikey turned a little, his glance skipping over Missus Jackinpots for the briefest instant. She was a small, buxom woman with a stained, flowered handkerchief tied over hair like stringy black joint oil. There were smudges under her eyes. Pikey looked at the ground.

      Missus Jackinpots didn’t. She eyed him steadily, hands on hips. “Jem’s too soft, he is. I’d have ’ad you out from under our shop the moment we found you, and off to the workhouse, make no mistake.”

      You didn’t find me, Pikey thought. Anger rushed up suddenly, hot behind his ribs. I lived here before you did. The old chemist let me stay here. It’s my right. He gritted his teeth.

      “What’s the matter? Goblin ate your tongue? Look at me, boy!”

      “Old Marty said I could stay here,” Pikey said. His voice was dull and sullen. “And so did Jem.” He focused on a sickly thread of grass pressing up between two cobbles. He didn’t want to look at the hard, flat face staring at him, the smudges under her eyes.

      “You call him Mister Jackinpots,” she hissed, taking a step toward him. “Or sir. It’s his place now. Old Marty’s dead. He’s dead, and don’t you forget it.”

       Blood, dripping between the stones.

      Pikey stumbled toward Bell Lane, but Missus Jackinpots lunged forward, blocking his escape.

      “Come on, ma’am, lemme go,” he said. “I ain’t got nothing.”

      Missus Jackinpots was looking at his pocket. “Oh, you’ve got something. What’re you hiding, boy? Bloody roses, if you’re keeping things from me, I swear I’ll—” Suddenly she froze, and such a rage came over her face that Pikey felt his own anger evaporate. He took a step back, startled.

      “That eye patch,” she said slowly. “Let me see that. That ain’t yours. It’s my Jem’s sock, it is. On your filthy face! I knitted that! My own hands knitted that and you’ve been pinching—”

      Pikey shoved past her and pelted into Bell Lane, ignoring her screams as they bounced up the houses behind him. He didn’t stop running until he was halfway to Ludgate. Then he stooped down under the window of a tailor’s shop and felt in his pocket for the gem. His hand closed around it and he let out a sigh.

       Away from the war. Away from leadfaces and faeries. Away from horrid people like Missus Jackinpots.

      He was going to do it. He was going to get out of here and he was never coming back.

      The walk from Spitalfields to anywhere respectable was a long one. He trudged for miles, out of the slums and along the slow, greenish river toward the wide streets and straight-backed houses of St. James’s. One hand he kept under his arm, trying to stop his fingers from cracking off. The other stayed in his pocket, clamped tight around the gem.

      Every time he thought of it there he felt a little thrill, a pleasure at its weight. It would turn into so many shillings and sovereigns for him. A whole stack of them. He would sell it and fill his pockets, and then he would leave London behind him once and for all.

      An hour later he was in the part of the city that folks called Mayfair, on a big, noisy street full of shops and carriages. He walked along, darting around bicycles and the frozen brooms of the mechanical street sweepers. The horses and gas trolleys meant that the air was somewhat less icy than in the more old-fashioned parts of the city, but it was still cold enough to make Pikey’s teeth chatter. A squadron of soldiers marched by, real grown-up ones in splendid red-and-blue uniforms. They stomped in formation, and a whistle at their head played a jaunty tune. Pikey watched them as they passed.