The Wild Man - Softcover

Barratt, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802853773 ISBN 13: 9780802853776

Verlag: WM B EERDMANS CO (JUVENILE), 2010

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Having escaped the clutches of the criminal mastermind Mother and his life scrounging through the sewers of London, Joe Rat is back, now working as a sweeper in the more upscale Lomesbury Square. After he foils a burglary at one of the 'posh' houses on the square, the owner, Mr Harvey — a rich philanthropist — determines to help Joe. Harvey manages to track down Joe's father, a British army deserter now living wild in Canada. Joe has never met his father, but Harvey brings the wild man back to England and helps set them both up in better jobs. But when Harvey’s son, jealous of the kindness shown to Joe, risks the lives of those around him, Joe will have to decide where his loyalties lie.

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THE WILD MAN

By Mark Barratt

Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Copyright � 2009 Mark Barratt
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5377-6

Chapter One

Joe

There was a crack like a rifle shot.

"Oi, you can't do that 'ere!"

Joe ducked instinctively and twisted sharply around. Three big boys were standing on the dirty London roadway ten feet away, glaring at him, while the messengers and shoppers that crowded the narrow street pushed past. The noise had been the sound of three heavy-handled brooms being clashed together like weapons.

Joe stood his ground. Tough-looking kids had been pushing him north of the City all week. It was the fifth time today.

"Weren't nobody here," he said defiantly.

"We're 'ere, ain't we?" said the tallest of the boys. "Watchmaker's shop down to the crossroads. That's our pitch. And you're on it!"

Joe took a step backward, shooting a glance over his shoulder. Through the crowd an old man was hobbling toward him. In his hands he held the same kind of broom as Joe and the three boys — stout wooden handle with birch twigs tied tight with twine around the business end. Seemed like trouble whichever way he went.

"Look," he said, turning back to the boys, "I paid for me broom same as you. I got a right to work."

The tall boy looked down at him and laughed. "He's little but he's fierce, ain't he?"

They all laughed at that. Then they moved toward him in a group. Joe took another step backward. He was going to have to make a run for it. Again.

Suddenly one of the boys shot out a hand, stopping the other two. A hansom cab had pulled up beside them, halting traffic. The driver pulled his lever to release the doors of the cab, but the immaculately dressed gentleman inside hesitated, eyeing the filthy roadway between him and the watchmaker's.

Forgetting Joe, the three boys stepped briskly forward. One took the cabman's horse by its bridle, the other two swept busily, clearing the street of horse dung, mud, and rubbish. Joe hovered in the entrance to the shop, watching.

Less than half a minute and there was a clear path from the cab to the watchmaker's door. The sweepers made a flourish in the air and tucked the brooms under their arms, as if they were sheathing swords. Then all three swept off their caps in unison and made a low bow.

The gentleman laughed and reached into his waistcoat pocket. He disappeared into the shop, leaving the three boys splitting the coins he'd handed out. One of them looked up to see Joe still standing by the shop door. He lowered his broom and dug the handle sharply into Joe's ribs.

"See you round 'ere again, we knock out your teeth for marbles. Understand?"

Joe understood.

The boys headed off through the crowd, pushing each other and laughing. Joe turned up the road, holding his side painfully. The old man with the broom was blocking his way. He saw Joe try to dodge past and reached out a hand.

"Easy, boy. I ain't gonna hurt yer. New to this game, eh?"

Joe nodded.

"Ain't got a trade of yer own?"

Joe hesitated. Then he shook his head. It wasn't true. He did have a trade, but he wasn't going back to it.

He'd been a tosher five years and more, searching the stinking sewers of Pound's Field for scraps, and robbed of most of what he earned by an old monster of a woman he'd called Mother. But it was three months now since he'd left Pound's Field and nothing on earth was ever going to get him back to that rat-infested hole again. Couldn't go back anyhow. He'd left owing Mother money. If she ever got hold of him again, it'd be a lot worse than getting his teeth knocked out.

The old man eyed Joe slowly, taking in his decent clothes and boots. "What you want to go sweepin' for, anyhow?" he said slowly. "You look like you got a bit put away."

"Did have," said Joe shortly. "Got thieved off of me, didn't it?"

As he spoke, Joe could feel again the sickening sensation of waking up a week back to find his gray cloth bag gone. Inside that bag had been every scrap he'd ever saved from Mother. He'd kept it out of sight day and night. He'd slept with the bag tied to him under his vest, but that hadn't stopped it going. They'd slipped something in his drink. Must have, to make him sleep through it. There'd been a filthy taste in his mouth when he came round in the morning and it wasn't just the taste of being dirt poor again. Anyway, the bag was gone and it wasn't coming back by wishing.

The old man had been watching him silently. "Can't work nowhere down here unless you're part of a gang," he said finally.

"How do I join?"

"You can't."

Joe thought about that for a moment. Then he looked sharply at the old man. "You ain't part of no gang," he said.

"Me? I bin on my corner so long nobody bothers me. Police know me. Kids know me."

"You make a livin' at it?" asked Joe eagerly. "Sweepin'?"

"Sometimes." The old man pointed to a scruffy-looking mongrel with a white rump and one torn ear that hovered a short distance off, avoiding the passersby. "That dog yours?"

Joe looked over his shoulder. The dog's eyes never left him.

"Boy ain't mine. Just follows me around."

"Same difference," said the man. "Might be a help. Might not."

"How d'yer mean?"

But the man had spotted someone and he was already leaving. "Find yer own pitch," he said, limping away as fast as he could.

"Yeah, but where?" Joe called after him. But the man didn't respond.

Joe headed north on Lower Road. A thin, cold rain began to fall. He passed a one-legged man in a ragged uniform. He had a broom. A couple of hundred yards farther on there were two more fierce-looking kids who eyed him suspiciously. They had brooms too.

There'd been crossing sweepers in Pound's Field, but Joe didn't remember seeing so many. Maybe he just hadn't noticed. It hadn't mattered back then.

Where Lower Road became Upper Road he passed a line of ragged women and children huddled on the pavement. Joe took a quick look down the side street where a gas lamp burned dimly. They were waiting for a soup kitchen to open: you didn't see a crowd like that anywhere else; and it must have been getting close to five o'clock because arguments were breaking out at the front of the line. They never had food or lodging for everyone.

Joe hurried on. He didn't like hanging around places like that too long. It always felt like bad luck.

Upper Road was wider and straighter than Lower Road but just as dirty, and the area looked poorer. The glovers' shops and haberdashers had given way to pawnbrokers and dingy slop shops. Joe didn't see anyone with a broom, but the chances of any tips for sweeping the street around here seemed pretty slim.

It was getting dark now and Joe's stomach was telling him it was time to take what little money he had left to a cookshop when a carriage passed him at a brisk trot, breath steaming from the nostrils of its pair of jet-black horses. Then two gentlemen swinging silver-handled canes came out of a side street and strode on up the road in front of him. Joe peered through the drizzle at the dark streets. He was an hour's walk north of anywhere he knew, but this was still the East End. Where were the gentry off to in these parts?

Then he saw it.

Up on the next corner, high over the entrance to a tall building, a single enormous gas lamp lit up the night, making the thin rain glow like a shower of gold. There were boarded-up windows in the upper stories of the building where the...

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