While we were looking through the things we'd saved up, I started thinking it wasn't quite as good a collection of treasures as I'd once thought it was. It was depressing to think that these were the best things we'd been able to save in all our digging through mound after mound of trash.
My self-pity in the hole under the tree stump was interrupted by the distant sound of Madame Vickers screaming from the porch of the house.
"There's no place to run where I won't find you!"
Thomas and I both froze in the hole at the cold sound of her words.
"Everyone knows where you belong! There's no town that won't ship you right back to my front door, and when they do ..." She seemed to hang on those words, to make us wonder what she would say. "Those clangs of the bell will still be here waiting for you. And worse! Much worse punishment than that!"
I stared at the floor of the hole, not sure what to do.
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"Maybe we should turn ourselves in," I said hesitantly. "Take our beating and maybe even get something to eat." I hadn't eaten all day and wras very hungry.
Thomas could see that I was rapidly losing courage. He reached back into the place where he'd been pulling things out and produced a cloth bag that was tied at the top. When he opened it and laid the cloth out flat on the ground between us, there were dozens of coins, rings, necklaces, and medallions lying there. They'd even been polished up some so that it really did look like a bag of treasures, things that we might actually be able to trade for food or water. I hadn't known he'd been hiding such things.
"These will take us a long way," said Thomas. "Maybe as far as we need to go."
Then he yanked up both his pant legs. I hiked up mine as well and we sat in the dim light of the hole, looking at the strange markings on our knees, thinking of the piece of paper we'd found, and knowing in our hearts that we had to leave Madame Vickers's House on the Hill and find the Wakefield House.
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***
CHAPTER 7
Avalanche!
Night had come to the hill several hours before, and still we waited. We held out some hope that one of the other children would bring us something to carry along with us -- some food or water or both -- and that we might hear some news of what Madame Vickers and Finch were up to. The time passed slowly in such tight quarters, and we whispered our plans until sometime deep in the night I drifted off to sleep.
I don't know how long I sat sleeping, but suddenly there was a finger poking into my ribs and I jerked awake, thinking of the Mooch and hoping he hadn't gotten ahold of me in the night.
"Wake up," Thomas said. "Someone's coming."
I was alert at once, listening carefully, hoping not to hear any growling or barking. For a moment it was quiet, only the sound of a soft breeze blowing in from the Lonely Sea -- but then we heard a tiny voice from the outside.
"Thomas? Roland? Are you in there?"
Thomas was on his feet in a flash, pushing up on the stump and beckoning me to help. Two boys
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were outside. Their names were Philip and Henry, and they struggled to hold up the old roots as we scampered out, all of our possessions in the one bag thrown over my shoulder.
"I thought you'd never come," said Thomas. "Where are the dogs?"
"They're chained up in the usual place," said Henry, the smaller of the two boys. "We thought Finch would stay up forever, but he finally fell asleep in the chair on the porch."
"And Madame Vickers?" I asked, certain that she was watching the four of us and would come around a corner at any moment.
"She's gone," said Philip. "Left hours ago with the horse and the cart. My guess is she went to tell everyone in Ainsworth about you two. Maybe she even doubled back to the north. You better be careful who you trust."
"Did you bring anything?" asked Thomas.
Henry held out a sack. "There's not much -- a little bread and half an apple, a few nuts, and a bottle of water. That's all we had hid in the basement, and there's no getting at the kitchen tonight. They have it locked down tight."
There was an awkward silence on the hill as the boy handed over the paltry bag of rations. It wouldn't last a day - in fact, it would probably be gone before we reached the bottom of the hill -- and
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it was not the way in which my brother and I had hoped to get our start.
"Where will you go?" asked Philip, a look of genuine concern on his face. "You can't go into town or to the sea, and there's nobody stupid enough to go into the Dark Hills. I'd sooner stay under the stump than go that way."
I looked at Thomas, but he seemed unwilling to give away our plans. Maybe he knew, as I didn't, that Madame Vickers would question the boys mercilessly. Better that they really didn't know where we'd gone and why.
"What's that sound?" asked Thomas, always the most perceptive in a group of any size.
"I don't hear anything," said Philip.
"You'd better get back by the secret way and quick," said Thomas. "Don't wake Finch, and stay clear of those dogs."
The boys looked at each other and nodded, then started back up the hill. Henry turned back for a final word. "Don't forget what you said, about coming back for us if you find a better place."
Thomas waved them off in the moonlight, and the two boys raced up the hill toward Madame Vickers's house. When their footsteps could be heard no more and we felt certain they were safely in the basement, I turned to Thomas.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
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"I am, but we'll need to swing wide. Madame Vickers is coming this way."
A shiver ran through me as I thought of her in the cart, moving toward the house with the horse before her. It was then that I heard the clomping of faraway hooves and knew that she had indeed returned and would soon come up the hill toward us.
We veered away from the noise, toward the Lonely Sea, to a place where there was no path and the way down was steep and dangerous. Slowly we crisscrossed down the side of a mountain of debris until we came near the bottom in the dead of night. I became careless when I could see the bottom of the hill and went more quickly than I should have, which started a very small garbage avalanche. But the small problem became much bigger when the avalanche I'd caused met with Thomas's feet, for he was in front of me as we went. His feet slid out from under him, and he began sliding down the hill. I jumped into the fray of moving junk to try to rescue him, and the two of us went head over heels down the side of a hill that was now sliding out from under us, making a tremendous racket that no two dogs within a mile could have slept through.
Sure enough, as we tumbled down the hill, we could both hear the distant echo of Max and the Mooch barking. We toppled along the hill, hollering as we went, bouncing off sharp and hard objects
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alike until we slammed into the bottom. A wave of descending garbage threatened to cover us. We scrambled to our feet, out from under the onslaught of an avalanche that sparked and flew as it hit the bottom of the hill. As quickly as we could, we ran and ran toward the cliffs that dropped off to the Lonely Sea.
"Hold up!" I yelled to Thomas after a time. "You don't want to run right off the edge, do you?"
Thomas pulled up, and we both tried to catch our breath. We were tired and scraped up, scared half to death, and we hadn't eaten anything all day.
"Give me that water bottle," said Thomas. "My mouth is so dry I can hardly swallow."
I dropped the bag to the ground and opened it up, taking out the bottle of water. It was lucky for both of us that it hadn't broken on the way down. I took out the cork and handed the bottle to Thomas, then watched him drink down half of it. He coughed and sputtered, handing it back and gesturing that I should finish it off. When I was through, I tossed the bottle aside, knowing we had a wooden jug in the bag that would work better if we lived long enough to find water again.
As we calmed down and our breathing slowed, we both heard the sound of Max and the Mooch from far away. Looking u
p the hill, we saw firelight
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snaking down the main path. There were two lights, one bobbing up and down as though the person under it were running, the other steadier and well out in front. It was Madame Vickers, racing down the hill in her horse-drawn cart with a torch in hand, and Finch in hot pursuit with the dogs.
"This is bad," I said. "Very bad."
Thomas smiled wryly in the moonlight, as if he expected some miracle to save us.
"Maybe not quite as terrible as it looks," he said. "You forget how many favors I was owed."
As if on cue, there came a crashing sound from somewhere up on the hill. It was hard to see exactly what was going on in the night, but the bobbing torch carried by Finch sped up, then abruptly stopped, the dogs barking incessantly and the sound of Finch's voice screaming at them to shut up.
"I was beginning to wonder when it would come off," said Thomas.
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
Thomas smiled, still catching his breath.
"One should never go whipping around sharp turns in a wooden cart without checking to make sure all the wheels are on tight. Don't you think?"
We laughed at the thought of Madame Vickers lying in the garbage and hoped she'd landed in a stinky mud hole full of the nastiest stuff from the hill. We only stayed a moment, listening to the
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mottled sound of Finch and Madame Vickers cursing and screaming. Then Thomas grabbed the bag and we started running toward the city of Ainsworth.
"They won't give up so easily," I said as we ran.
"You're probably right," offered Thomas. "Which is why we should keep running until we get to the city. If we can make it there ahead of Max and the Mooch, I think we can lose them in the winding streets."
Going back to Ainsworth worried me. It would be best if we could pass through quickly - selling some of our treasure of trash for food and water -and be away before morning.
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***
CHAPTER 8
A Dark Night in Gaul's Ward
The sound of the dogs grew nearer as the night wore on, for though Thomas and I were fast on our feet, we were no match for a much older boy being ruthlessly pulled along by Max and the Mooch. The city of Ainsworth was an hour away at a dead run, which we couldn't keep up without resting every five minutes or so. We would be lucky to make it all the way in an hour and a half, and Finch was gaining on us as the distant lights of Ainsworth came into view.
We stopped short of the city itself, trying to catch our breath, knowing full well that we would have to sneak in without being seen. It was likely Madame Vickers had already visited while we had waited under the stump on the hill, telling the authorities to be on the watch for two young boys who'd escaped her grasp. They would be looking for us from the very direction we were coming.
"I'm not sure how we'll get in without being seen," said Thomas. It struck me then that he had no idea how we were to proceed. He had thought
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only of getting us out of Madame Vickers's clutches, not of the difficult tasks that lay ahead.
"There's one place we could probably get in," I said. "And it's probably the best place to trade what we have for the things we'll need if we're to make it all the way to the Western Kingdom."
To be fair, we had no idea where the Western Kingdom was. We only knew it was a long way off and to the west, through places hardly anyone had ever been, and that without at least some supplies we had no hope of making it.
The dogs were closing in, and we could see Finch's torch dancing over his head.
"I see you! I see you! Get back here or I'll let loose the dogs!" Finch was yelling at the top of his lungs, and we realized we'd let him get too close. If he did let the dogs go, they might overtake us before we could reach the edge of Ainsworth and get in.
"Follow me!" I said, and we were off toward the edge of the city at a full sprint. When we came near enough to see the buildings and the streets of the city, we veered quickly to the left and ran along the outer edge in the dark. No one could see us in the night, and no one would expect us to enter at the place I'd chosen. We ran with everything we had in us, as Finch's voice boomed, "Go get 'em! Go get 'em!"
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He had let Max and the Mooch off their leashes.
"Here, Thomas!" I pointed toward Ainsworth and turned sharply in the direction of dim lights.
"You're crazy!" he said, but we both kept running.
"There's no other way in without being seen!"
The Mooch advanced within a few yards of us. He'd moved out past Max and was closing in on me, growling as though he'd come within range of a victim he could devour. He needed only to charge a few more feet to do it.
Thomas reached the surrounding fence before me, scampering up the side. He looked back, and by the dim light of the streetlamps I saw in his expression that the Mooch was about to take hold of me by the leg. With a final burst of effort, my lungs stinging with pain, I leaped into the air and seized the top of the fence, kicking to reach the top. The Mooch stood up on his back legs and clamped his mighty teeth into my new black boot.
"Not this time! That boot belongs to me," I said. Turning my body in midair, I kicked the Mooch square in the ear with my free foot. He yelped in pain as Max came alongside him, and the two dogs barked angrily at the base of the fence. Reaching the top, I pushed Thomas over the edge and jumped
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down beside him, where we lay in a heap on the ground.
And so it was that we entered Ainsworth by a very dangerous way, a way not intended for children. And worse, the sound of the dogs had alerted someone. We were not alone on the other side of the fence.
"Well," came a slippery voice over the sound of the dogs, "what have we here?"
We were in the worst part of Ainsworth, the slum of all slums, and there was a big man with greasy hair and a tangled beard standing before us. He took us both by the backs of our shirts and hauled us up on our feet, forcing us down a darkened alley with hands so big I thought they couldn't be real.
"Word's on the street about you two," he muttered. "I'm pleased you've come my way."
He laughed thunderously, as though he couldn't have cared less who knew he was dragging two innocent boys down a dirty street. I tripped and started to fall, and the man's big hands lifted me clear off the ground by my shirt and set me to walking again. In that moment I glanced back and saw Finch staring over the fence with a look of amusement on his face. He knew, as I did, that Thomas and I were in the biggest trouble of our young lives.
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We had come upon Gaul's Ward with only an hour of night remaining. A cool mist hovered in the alleyway and a strong smell of rotting vegetables stung my nose as I tried to catch my breath. There was trash strewn everywhere on the cobbled streets as we walked past crisscrossing alleyways and broken-down houses. Gaul's Ward was the place you went if you had no money and no prospects, and it was not a place you ventured into alone or at night. It was sheer madness to come here if you were a child, for children were known to disappear into Gaul's Ward all the time, never to be seen or heard from again.
"Where are you taking us?" asked Thomas, usually the bolder of the two of us in times such as these.
"Where Madame Vickers won't find you," the man growled. We couldn't be sure if he wanted to hide us so that we could become his slaves or because he truly did want to protect us from being found.
"How far is it?" Thomas continued with the questions, which clearly annoyed the man who had us in his grasp.
"Keep quiet!" he answered with a firm and booming voice.
The more we walked, the fewer lamps there
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were, the darker the alley became, and the more rats I saw darting back and forth before my feet in the shadows and mist. We came to a set of stairs that led down into the darkness. Only the first three steps could be seen; the rest were shrouded in mist and deathly quiet.
I craned my neck to the
side so I could look back down the alley from which we'd come. Through the swirling mist I saw the inhuman strides of Madame Vickers and heard the clomp of each boot on the grimy cobblestones before her. She looked positively wicked in the dim light, like a monster coming through the haze to catch us and take us back for some terrible, lengthy punishment. The sound of those big boots and the quickness of their approach were made worse by Finch's cackle from behind as he tried to keep control of the dogs.
"Mister Clawson," cried Madame Vickers. She was still twenty paces away, but her voice echoed through the darkness of early morning. Her arm raised up and a bony white finger pointed down the alley. "Those two belong to me. You would do well to give them back."
The hand on my neck clenched tighter, and the man knelt down beside us. There was a single lit streetlamp glowing dim over our heads and the sound of squeaking rats darting back and forth.
"I want you to go down these stairs," said Mister
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Clawson. "And when you get to the bottom, I want you to open the door and go inside. Understood?"
"Understood." There was a surprising resolve in Thomas's voice, as though he knew instinctively that we should go down the stairs and open the door. I was not at all sure this was the best choice before us. Going back with Madame Vickers would be terrible, but going down there?
"Mister Clawson!" Madame Vickers was closing in on us. "I might remind you of your obligations."
It was clear the two of them knew each other and had established an arrangement neither Thomas nor I understood.
"Down the steps if you value your life!" yelled Mister Clawson, pushing the both of us and releasing us from his grip. He turned to the alley and crossed his massive arms over his chest, waiting for Madame Vickers to arrive. Thomas and I crept slowly into a swirling fog that hung thick and heavy over the stairs.