Yanked (David Brin's Out of Time Book 1)
Page 21
Maybe the singing swans had been good luck after all. Or maybe it was the bit of a poem that had come to her from nowhere. Another piece of it lay in her mind yet, a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme...
Something, she had no idea what, told her the two of them might somehow achieve remarkable things together. In some way, he...and me, we'll be worth remembering.
She lifted her chin and smiled at Erik Kettilson.
“Stop, thief! Stop him!”
Robbie dashed toward the London street, away from the shouting voice. Something lay in his hand…what? A bracelet it was, snatched off a lady’s wrist just moments ago. What lady? Where was he?
“Stop him! He’s a thief!”
Robbie ran into the cobbled street to escape to the other side. He didn’t see the gentleman who thrust a walking stick across his path to stop him, but he felt the cane trip him. He went down, already rolling, just as a chestnut mare harnessed to a tilbury came at a spanking pace over the cobblestones. The horse’s hooves sliced the air above Robbie’s head. A woman screamed.
Then Robbie was clear, having rolled through the plunging hooves, and was running down an alley on the opposite side of the street.
Lor’, but that was close! Losing his touch, he was. One more fork like that and he’d be in the basket for sure, dead as Wallam’s cock.
Robbie leaned against a cookshop and breathed hard for a few minutes. When he had his breath, he started back to Whitechapel, keeping a sharp eye out for the beadle. Wouldn’t do to get caught now, not when he had this little bauble. Old Joseph’d give him three pounds for it, easy.
By the time he’d sold the bracelet, it was almost sunset. Robbie loitered beside a tavern he knew alongside the river. From inside came great shouts of laughter, but he didn’t go in.
The way the river light shimmered on them cobblestones, it made a kind of mist, like. No, not a mist, something else. It looked like a...a...
Lor’, what was wrong with him tonight? A body’d think he was bosky, and he hadn’t never had a drop! But look at that river mist again. Look at it shimmer...
The sun set, and the shimmer went away. Still Robbie stayed outside the tavern, leaning on the railing by the river. Finally, a larger boy passed him.
“Ned, you had some schoolin’ once, ain’t you? Can you read?”
“I can read,” the older boy said. “What for, Robbie? T’ain’t no help forking the gentry.”
“I know,” Robbie said. “But can you read that, then, Ned?” He pointed at a poster attached to the brick wall outside the tavern.
“You always was a rum lad, Robbie,” Ned said, but he read the poster aloud:
LECTURE
The Public Is Cordially Invited To Hear
At the Royal Institute
On June 30 at Seven O’clock
Dr. William Herschel, Astronomer
Discoverer of the Planet Uranus
Speak on
The Future of the Astronomical Sciences
“Uranus,” Robbie said. Then, all at once in a little explosion he didn’t know was going to happen, “Neptune!”
“What?” Ned asked.
“Neptune. Sally port.”
“Don’t know no Sally Port, only old Sally Wutherspoon over to the Boar and Crown,” Ned said. “You be a rum lad, Robbie. Always was.” He went inside the tavern.
Robbie stood still. He had no idea what those words meant. “Neptune.” “Sally port.” And that shimmer off of the river...
Robbie shook his head. He must have a touch of fever. Be all right tomorrow, he would.
Still, he might just go hear this astronomer cove, this Dr. Herschel, talk about the future. You never knew, did you? Might be something interesting there.
Just might be.
David Brin’s Out of Time series continues with Tiger in Sky
Pre-order Tiger in the Sky for Delivery on December 29, 2020
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