Mist

Mist by Marta Palazzesi CHAPTER ONE London, 1880.For a thirteen-year-old boy, there aren’t a lot of ways to get by in the slums of late-nineteenth-century London.Obviously, the first one’s thieving. But stealing from the rich is very risky. In neighborhoods like Belgravia and Kensington, with their pretty tree-lined avenues, freshly swept sidewalks, and nannies in uniforms pushing expensive baby carriages, people like us are watched by the coppers, looking for any excuse to arrest us. Stealing from the poor is even riskier: getting chased by a blood-splattered tanner or a hammer-wielding blacksmith isn’t much fun.Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.The second way to get by in the slums is to get yourself locked up in a workhouse by the Venerable Matrons of the Most Holy Charity. But don’t be fooled by their name: there’s not a lot that’s “most holy” or “charitable” about them.Imagine you’re standing on a bridge and looking out over the Thames. The sun’s warming your skin, the sound of the water’s in your ears, and your nose is being tickled by the confusion of different smells drifting up from the boats as they glide by on the river—spices from India, fruit and vegetables from the countryside, hops for the breweries, white bread for the table of some rich lord. . . . So you’re standing there, in the midst of it all, enjoying your freedom in the heart of the biggest, most powerful city in the world, when a handful of women dressed in black surround you, grab you, and drag you off to a giant brick monster, where you’re stripped, groomed like a horse, forced to wear a dingy uniform, and made to work ten hours a day in exchange for three lousy meals.The way I see it, you might even start to miss the blood- splattered tanner.The last way to survive in the slums of late-nineteenth- century London is the noble art of getting by on your wits. That’s how I do it.“Hey, Nucky, why don’t you tell us about the Great Stink of ’58?”It was a warm morning in late June. My friends and I had been working on the muddy banks of the Thames since dawn. We’d already collected a good amount of stuff: a few copper nails, a wooden pipe, a leather boot. When we sold them, we’d have enough money to eat for a couple of days.I straightened up, yawned, stretched, and looked around. The gray water of the Thames sparkled in the sunlight, and, on the opposite bank, the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral stood out white against the blue sky like a mountain of sugar.“Well?” I asked.Nucky gave me a half smile without stopping picking through the mud. The Great Stink of 1858 was his favorite story, and, even though we knew it by heart, Nucky always added some extra gruesome detail or some spicy new anecdote. Not everyone shared his enthusiasm for the story, though.“Oh, Clay, no. Not again,” Tod muttered, kneeling beside me, up to his elbows in mud.“What are you saying?” Nucky snapped.“That I’m sick of listening to you jabbering on about dead bodies, dung, and animal innards,” Tod answered. “We get it: in 1858 the Thames stank of dead animals. What a great story.”“In the summer of 1858, the Thames did not just stink of ‘dead animals’!” Nucky said angrily, as if keeping the memory of the Great Stink alive was somehow his responsibility. I never understood why he was so fixated by it. When I first met him, he was already obsessed.Nucky cleared his throat and punched the sky, ready to launch into one of his detailed accounts. “It hadn’t rained for weeks, and the river had dropped by yards and yards. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took a boat trip but had to go back to the palace because the stink was so bad. The Thames had turned into a putrid, pus-filled pool of entrails, excrement, maggoty corpses—”“Weren’t they flies?” I asked. “Yesterday you said the corpses were covered in flies.”“What difference does it make?” Nucky snapped, wiping his nose on the bottom of his shirt. “Before they’re flies, they’re maggots.”“Damn, Nucky, you’re obsessed,” Tod said in disgust. “And you,” he said, turning to me, “stop encouraging him or, sooner or later, I’ll have to shut him up once and for—”Whack!A ball of mud glanced off Tod’s head and slapped into the muck behind him. Purple in the face, Tod stood up and pointed his finger at Nucky, who was trying hard not to laugh. “I’m going to give you a damn good beat—”“Tod!”“What, Clay?! You can’t always stick up for him just because he’s little!”I shook my head and pointed to some dark shapes that were slipping and sliding toward us like a silent swarm of beetles.Tod followed my gaze and forgot about teaching Nucky a lesson. “The dogs. They still don’t know that this is our part of the bank?”“It doesn’t look like it,” I sighed.I didn’t feel like fighting that morning. Being a mud lark was hard enough without having to keep on fighting off other gangs.Everyone knew Nucky, Tod, and me as the Terrors of Blackfriars Bridge, and it hadn’t been easy conquering that bank of the Thames. It was ours now, though, and there was no way we were going to share it with other mud larks. Everyone knew that the best places were the ones closest to the bridges, since it wasn’t that unusual for people to throw a few coins or food scraps from a passing carriage. And that was exactly how the three of us had grabbed this spot years ago: by fighting with another gang of mud larks for a half crown thrown by some rich lord who’d watched us fight as he smoked his pipe with a grin on his face from up on the bridge.“Come on, lads!” he’d shouted. “Put on a good show for me!”And we did put on a good show. Fighting like angry terriers, Tod, Nucky, and I had made the other mud larks turn tail and run, even though there were more of them and they were bigger than us.“I’m too old for this,” I said, shaking my head, as Nucky and Tod came alongside me, ready for battle.I let Tod do the talking. He was the biggest of us, and, with his messy black hair, dark eyes, thick eyebrows, and scarred face, he was pretty good at scaring his enemies. Getting on the wrong side of Tod wasn’t a good idea. Think before you act and stay calm just weren’t in his vocabulary.Nucky, on the other hand, was blond, pale, and looked puny and sickly. He made up for it, though, by being cunning. He was the one who negotiated with the people who bought the things we pulled out of the mud of the riverbank, and he always got the best prices.Then there was me, not too big and not too small, with brown hair and eyes, and an anonymous enough face so that people didn’t notice me. I always seemed to be calm, and that made my enemies underestimate me, which was often an advantage. There were six mud larks invading our territory. Once we got a closer look at them, though, they didn’t look like they’d come to fight. They were smaller than us and had the confused look of someone who still hasn’t worked out their place in the world. For a moment, they reminded me of myself when I was five—when, after being orphaned, I’d ended up without a place to live or a grown-up to turn to. I’d wandered the banks of the river for a few days, eating scraps of food I found out the back of pubs and taverns, knowing that I wasn’t going to last very long like that. Then, out of nowhere, Old Sal had appeared with his long beard and hooked staff. He’d taken me under his wing and taught me about life as a mud lark.The Terrors of Blackfriars Bridge had their territory and reputation to defend. So even though I felt sorry for these brats (compassion was another word Tod didn’t know, while Nucky only ever thought about the Great Stink of ’58), we couldn’t be too kind to them.“This is our territory,” Tod said, getting straight to the point. “Clear off.”The leader of the other mud larks, a skinny, redheaded kid, put his hands up to signal peace. “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to pass through.”“To go where?” I asked.“Vauxhall Bridge,” he answered.“Bad idea. It’s taken.” I looked at Tod for confirmation. “By the Blonde and her Scabby Dogs, right?”Tod nodded and touched the scar under his right ear, a souvenir the Blonde had given him after a little misunderstanding a couple of years ago. It was a miracle that we’d gotten away alive, to be honest. But that’s another story.“They’re not people you want to play games with,” I warned. “If I were you, I’d keep well clear of them.”The children exchanged worried glances. “Do you have anything to eat?” the redheaded one asked hopefully.“Of course, and would you like a nice cup of tea to go with it?” Nucky grinned.“Of course we don’t,” growled Tod. “And we don’t have any time to waste, either. Clear off, brat.”“I can pay,” he said quickly. “Well, not exactly,” he admitted to Nucky’s skeptical glare. He reached into his jacket pocket and rummaged about for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out a small wooden box. “I found it this morning on the Isle of Dogs.” He held it out to me, and, after a quick glance at Nucky and Tod, I took it.It was about the size of my hand and, under the layer of dry mud, you could make out quality inlay work. I rubbed it against my trousers to clean it and then opened it, sliding the wooden lid back along its groove. Inside was a deck of hand-painted tarot cards in perfect condition.Nucky came over to get a better look. “Crikey,” he said, “that’s quality stuff. Look at those colors.”I closed the box and threw it back to the redhead, who caught it. “Sell them. You’ll get enough money for bread and cheese.”He shook his head. “I don’t know who to sell them to.” “This isn’t a job for lazy brats,” Tod growled. Theconversation had gone on too long for his liking. “You have to work hard if you want to get by. Now clear off or I’ll throttle the lot of you!”The redheaded boy and his gang set off again, parading past us with their heads bowed and a gloomy air.“Mad,” Tod said, rolling up his sleeves and getting back to digging in the mud.“Aye,” Nucky agreed.“Giving food to a bunch of lazy . . . What did they take us for?!”“Aye,” Nucky agreed again.“As if we didn’t have enough problems already. Right, Clay? . . . Clay?”

Autor:	Palazzesi, Marta
ISBN:	9781636550695
Sprache:	Englisch
Produktart:	Gebunden
Verlag:	Ingram Publishers Services
Veröffentlicht:	05.09.2023
Schlagworte:	Children’s / Teenage fiction: Action & adventure stories Children’s / Teenage fiction: Historical fiction Historical fiction (Children's / Teenage) JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General JUVENILE FICTION / Historical / Europe
Altersempfehlung:	9 - 12