Wild Boy

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  The golden-eyed man hesitated, suspicious. But he wasn’t missing his chance. Holding the syringe steady, he leaned closer. “I am afraid,” he said, “that this will hurt.”

  Wild Boy braced, waiting. He had to time this just right. . . .

  Now!

  He slammed his palm into the loose end of the floorboard. The other end shot up through the bars and caught the man hard on the chin. The man’s golden eyeball fell from his face as he toppled back and collapsed to the floor.

  Again the porters banged the doors. The rafters shook. The horses stamped and reared in their stalls.

  Wild Boy lay flat in the cage and reached for the nail. If he could grab it, maybe he could pick the lock to the cage. His fingers were tantalizingly close, but it was just beyond his grasp. “Come on,” he begged. “Please . . .”

  And then — thump — two feet landed on the straw beside the nail.

  Clarissa!

  Beneath a long, dark coat, the red and gold sequins of her circus costume shimmered in the lamplight. She looked at Wild Boy, and her tongue flicked nervously across her broken tooth. “I heard what you said about the hooded man,” she said. “You didn’t snitch on me to my mother. You could’ve, but you didn’t.”

  Wild Boy gripped the bars, his heart surging with fresh hope. “Yeah, so now you’re gonna get me out of here.”

  Clarissa looked at the stable door, heard her mother order the porters to smash it down. She touched the bruise on her face, scared, unsure.

  “Clarissa, I swear I won’t tell your mother. She won’t beat you or —”

  “Shut your head about my mother! She ain’t never beaten me!”

  Wild Boy knew she was lying. He had to convince her that this was bigger than the fight between her and her mother. He knew that, as well as being an acrobat, Clarissa’s father had performed escape-artist tricks in the circus show. Perhaps he’d taught her some of his skills.

  “Clarissa, see that rope? Your mother is gonna hang me from it. She’s gonna hang me, Clarissa. Please use that nail. Try to open the lock.”

  “It won’t work,” Clarissa said.

  “What?”

  “That lock’s a Smithson. Can’t pick a Smithson with a nail.”

  Wild Boy swore, kicked the bars. “Try, will you? Please!”

  “Won’t work with a nail,” Clarissa insisted. She slid a leather pouch from her coat pocket. “I got my father’s old lock picks, though.”

  Wild Boy stared for a second — had she always intended to rescue him? He banged a hand on the bars, delighted. “That’s great! Now, use them!”

  Her hands shook as she selected two of the thin iron slips from the pouch and slid them into the lock. Metal rattled against metal.

  “Hurry,” Wild Boy urged.

  “I am hurrying!”

  “I know, but hurry faster!”

  Then — clunk — the lock turned. Wild Boy cried out in joy as the cage door swung free. He leaped through and landed beside Clarissa in the straw.

  And then the stable door burst open. The porters staggered inside, stopping when they saw the scene — the golden-eyed man unconscious on the ground, Wild Boy free from the cage, and Clarissa beside him with the lock picks in her hand.

  Mary Everett stood among them, staring, aghast. Again Wild Boy thought he saw the ringmaster’s hard eyes soften, as if she were fighting against a kinder person inside. Then she looked at her daughter with the freak.

  Clarissa reached out a shaking hand. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Mother,” she said. “I —”

  “Get them,” the ringmaster growled. “Get both of them.”

  Wild Boy couldn’t leave Clarissa, not after what she’d just done. He grabbed her arm to pull her with him, but she resisted. Still she stared at her mother, as the ringmaster approached with the mob.

  “Come on!” Wild Boy said. “I know a way out.”

  But now something grasped the tail of his coat. It was the golden-eyed man. His silver hair hung around his face, and blood oozed from a cut above his empty eye socket. “Do not run!” he said. “You are in danger! Great danger!”

  Wild Boy tore free and ran for the wall. Clarissa followed, fleeing for her life from her own mother.

  “Go!” Wild Boy said, pushing her through the hole in the wood. As he climbed after her, he heard the golden-eyed man crying out, and he knew the man was right. They were indeed in great danger.

  And now they had to run.

  Wild Boy ran.

  In among the sprawl of vans behind the circus, slipping over, staggering up. Wind whipped at his eyes and dried his tears. Caravan doors burst open. Voices rang out, horrified, confused.

  “What is it?”

  “One of the freaks killed the Professor. That one with the hair.”

  “There! It’s there! Grab it!”

  “There’s two of them! It’s Clarissa an’ all!”

  Clarissa raced up beside Wild Boy as he hid behind one of the vans. She was breathing hard and shaking, her face as pale as snow. “What do we do now?”

  Close by, a gang of showmen charged past, heading for the big top.

  “Quick,” Wild Boy whispered.

  As soon as the men had gone, he darted around the side of the van and scrambled breathlessly up the ladder. Clarissa came up after him and they lay flat against the rain-slicked roof, sides pressed together. Wild Boy could feel her heart beating even harder than his as they listened to the circus crew run past on the path below.

  And then they heard something else.

  Dogs — coming closer.

  “Your crazy mother’s set the hunting dogs on us!” Wild Boy gasped.

  The porters must have given the dogs a smell of the Professor’s blood, and he was covered in the stuff. He bolted upright, rubbing frantically at the blood on his hands, tearing thick clumps of bloody hair from his skin. But there was too much blood, too much hair.

  They needed to get away from those dogs, but there was no way they could escape on the ground. There had to be another way out.

  Clarissa was no help. Her gaze was fixed on the big top. She didn’t look like she could move, let alone escape. Wild Boy thought about leaving her, but she had helped him escape when she didn’t have to, and because of that she was on the run too.

  “The roofs,” he said. “We can use the caravan roofs.”

  He turned and looked across the roofs of dozens of vans parked behind the big top. There were only a few feet between each — they could use them as stepping stones to reach the edge of the park. Beyond was a street and a muddle of houses. Maybe they could find somewhere there to hide.

  Behind, the barking grew louder. The dogs raced closer.

  “You coming?” Wild Boy said.

  “I . . . I’m coming. . . .”

  “Then let’s go.”

  He ran across the roof and jumped.

  THUMP!

  He landed heavily on the next caravan, windmilling his arms to stop himself skittering off the edge. He recovered his balance and jumped again, then again and again, springing over the dark crevasses between the vans. Each time he landed he heard plates smash inside, people crying out in alarm.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  Clarissa overtook him in moments, leaping the gaps with ease. “Hurry!” she cried.

  Ahead, Wild Boy saw carriages on the street at the edge of the park. They were getting closer, but so were the porters. He glimpsed the men as he flew over their heads. Hands snatched at him. Fingers swiped.

  “They’re up on the roofs!” someone shouted.

  “Get the dogs over here!”

  Clarissa landed on the next caravan, and stopped. “No —” she breathed.

  One of the porters stood on the next roof, blocking the way. The man had a meat cleaver in his hand and a bad smile on his pockmarked face. “I got them!” he called.

  Dogs reared at the side of the van, snarling and slavering.

  “Get back!” Wild Boy yelled at the man. “Get back o
r I’ll tell your wife about your mistress.”

  The porter, and Clarissa, stared at him. Only now did Wild Boy understand what he’d said. Before he’d even realized, his eyes had sought out clues to use against the man.

  “Your wedding ring,” he said. “See the line where you’ve taken it off tonight? And that stain on your collar is lipstick. I seen your wife, Jack, and she don’t wear lipstick. Let us go and we won’t say nothing. Ain’t that right, Clarissa?”

  “I . . . Yeah, that’s right.”

  The porter looked at them, dumbfounded. Then, very quietly, he stepped aside.

  Wild Boy and Clarissa leaped to the next roof and kept going. They could see the edge of the park now, enclosed by a hedge about thirty yards from the last van, and the carriages rattling by on the other side. Lights teased from the houses beyond. They were getting closer.

  Clarissa jumped from the top of the last van, somersaulted in the air, landed below. “Hurry!” she screamed.

  But then Wild Boy saw something awful.

  A porter charged into the caravan below. He was carrying a shotgun.

  BOOM!

  Wild Boy barely knew what happened next. One moment he was on top of the van, and the next he was sprawled in a pile of straw on the ground. Slowly, his senses came back into focus, and a sharp pain screamed in his shoulder. His coat was torn, and blood flowed from a gash in his arm.

  Clarissa leaned over him, trying to pull him up. “Get up! Get up or I’ll leave you!”

  He heard the dogs barking, the circus crew shouting. He had to keep going. Clutching his wound, he staggered after Clarissa toward the hedge.

  He dived through the first gap he saw and tumbled onto the street. A carriage thundered toward him, passing so close that its wheels brushed the hair on his face. Carriages flew by, packed with people leaving the fair. One of the horses saw Wild Boy and reared in panic. Its coach skidded across the road and slammed into a lamppost. The driver yelled curses, but Wild Boy and Clarissa were already gone.

  They raced down an alley between the houses, and into a dingy scullery yard. Snarls echoed around the walls, as if the dogs were coming from all directions.

  Wild Boy turned and looked around the houses. He saw high walls, drainpipes, and gutters kissing gutters above. This place was a climbing frame for someone like Clarissa, but not him, not injured. The idea of going on alone made his stomach churn with fear, but he knew what they had to do. Without him she could escape.

  “We gotta split up,” he said.

  “What? No, we don’t need to run. You can get us out of this, can’t you? You can find clues, prove that we’re innocent.”

  They locked tearful, desperate eyes. Wild Boy wondered if it was possible. He wished it was. But he shook the thought away. No one would listen to what he had to say — he was just a freak.

  “They’re coming now,” he said. “You gotta run.”

  She didn’t move — she was too scared.

  Wild Boy didn’t look at her again, in case he lost the courage to go on alone. Instead, he turned and ran in the other direction down another alley, shaking all over from pain and panic. He tried to scramble up a wall, but a bolt of agony shot from his wounded arm. He tumbled down and splashed into a stream of filth that trickled down the alley.

  “Sewage . . .” he muttered.

  In an instant he knew what to do. He ran on through the alley, his eyes raking the cobbles until he spotted a brown stream gushing into an open drain. The drain fed into the sewers, and the dogs wouldn’t smell him if he was covered in sewage.

  Tendrils of rotten-smelling gas rose from the depths. But now was no time to be squeamish. Now was the time to survive. He held his breath, and dived into the hole.

  Brown muck sprayed at his face as he slid through the slurry. His cry was cut short by a sudden drop and a splash-landing in sludgy water. He came up spitting, swearing, wiping the hairs on his face. He couldn’t hear the dogs anymore.

  Too tired to go on, he leaned his injured shoulder against the sewer wall. His coat was torn and his wound was smeared with filth. He looked away from the infected mess, struggling to stop himself from crying.

  Don’t you cry. Don’t you bloody cry. . . .

  But he couldn’t hold back the tears. He clamped a hand over his mouth as they escaped in gulping, gasping sobs.

  His head swam. Terrifying visions loomed from the dark — the hooded man’s sinister beaked mask, Professor Wollstonecraft curled up in the mud, and the golden-eyed man warning him, “You are in danger! Great danger!”

  Wild Boy forced another step but his legs buckled and he sank to his knees in the sewage. He reached for the wall, making another effort to walk. But it was too much.

  He slumped forward into the waters, his long coat splayed across the curdled surface.

  A trickle of slime stole down a wall, glistening in a slant of moonlight that fell between the nodding shedlike houses. It slipped between the cobbles, gathering as it went the particles of waste spattered across the street — gobbets of phlegm, flecks of vomit, the reeking overspill from domestic cesspits.

  The filth of the street percolated down. It nudged at the ceiling of an ancient sewer, crept through a crack in the crumbling mortar. It hung from the bricks in a single fat drop. Then it fell and landed — pat — on the head of a small boy covered in hair.

  Wild Boy opened his eyes.

  Everything was black. Not a crack of light anywhere. He was lying on his back on what felt like wet cloth. He heard dripping water, although his mouth was dry and tasted like mold. He extended a foot cautiously into the darkness, felt cold slime on broken brick. He tried to stay calm, but panic overwhelmed him.

  “I didn’t do it,” he gasped. “It wasn’t me. . . .”

  He scrunched his eyes shut and prayed that when he opened them he’d be back at the fair and everything would be normal.

  He opened his eyes and gazed heartbroken around the sewer. He was lying on a narrow ledge that ran along the tunnel wall. Someone had taken his coat, and the hairs on his body were stiff with dried sewage. His injured shoulder, though, had been cleaned and wrapped in bandages. Had he been captured or rescued?

  Slish slosh . . .

  Something moved in the sewage.

  Wild Boy sat up and stared into the arched darkness. He heard liquid dripping from above. He heard his own shallow breaths getting deeper and faster with fear. And then, there it was again — a slow sloshing sound echoing off the curving walls. Was it a rat?

  “. . . Wild Boy . . .”

  That was no rat. Someone was coming this way. He had to get up and move.

  He slid from the ledge and dropped into a river of stinking slush. Foul water soaked his hair as he groped through the dark, crawling away from the voice.

  “Hear that?” the voice said.

  “Hear what?” another replied.

  “Swear I heard something up ahead. Gimme the knife.”

  The voices grew louder, closer. Wild Boy was too dazed to escape. He had to fight. Whoever these men were, they sounded almost as scared as him — maybe he could catch them by surprise. If he screamed and ran at them they might turn and flee. He braced himself, shaking with fear, as they came even closer.

  Now, he thought. Now!

  He opened his mouth to scream — but then a hand shot from the dark and smothered his cry.

  “Keep silent,” someone whispered in his ear.

  Wild Boy tried to pull away, but the hand tightened around his mouth, almost crushing his jaw. A wrinkled face leaned closer. “They’re after you, Master Wild. Bounty hunters.”

  It was Sir Oswald! Wild Boy cried out again, but this time in delight. He had never been so relieved to see another person. He wanted to ask what was happening, but now his friend gripped his arm and guided him into an alcove in the wall. Sir Oswald slid in after him and huddled close, resting the stumps of his thighs on Wild Boy’s lap.

  In the tunnel, the footsteps came closer.

  Wi
ld Boy’s eyes had become used to the darkness and could just make out the squat shapes of two men crouched low as they waded past.

  The man at the back sounded nervous. “What if Wild Boy is down here?”

  “Then we’re rich!” his partner replied. “Ain’t that the point? Reward’s doubled this past week.”

  Reward? Week? But Wild Boy stayed silent. He waited, deadly still, until the men had passed and their voices were a distant echo in the dark.

  Sir Oswald shifted from Wild Boy’s lap and gave his knee a cheery pat. “That was a wheeze, eh? Come on, they might turn back.”

  Wild Boy didn’t follow. He pulled his knees to his chest and curled up tight, wishing the darkness would swallow him. “Sir Oswald?” he said. “What are you doing here? What’s happening? That man said they’d been after me for a week.”

  “Been in a fever, old chap. That wound of yours got infected. Wasn’t sure you’d make it at first. Should have known a tough chap like you would pull through, eh?”

  “But I ain’t no killer. I gotta tell the coppers.”

  “Out of the question, I am afraid.”

  “Sir Oswald, I gotta tell someone what really happened.”

  Sir Oswald turned on his palms. When he spoke again, it was in a voice that Wild Boy had not heard from him before — deep and serious and full of force. “Master Wild, you are the target of the largest manhunt this city has seen since Jack Sheppard. If you go back up there, the mob will kill you in the street. And the police . . . I’m afraid they will hang you as soon as look at you.”

  He clapped his hat on his head and grinned. “Good news is, it’s almost time for supper.”

  Wild Boy sat in the alcove as Sir Oswald splashed away. He wished desperately that he could convince people of his innocence. He wanted to climb back to the street and scream it until they believed him. But Sir Oswald was right — it was too dangerous. He needed a plan, a way out of this, although his mind spun with fear and confusion, and he couldn’t think straight.

  At least he wasn’t alone. There was a reward on his head, and most people he knew would sell their own mothers for a few pence. But he could trust Sir Oswald, he was sure. With a heavy heart, he set off after him into the dark.