Angeline's father had never cared much for his daughter. For him, a daughter meant a weight around the neck that grew exponentially heavier every year, a weight that had to be supported and fed. It meant unnecessary frustration that he felt never should have been his to begin with. It meant a fiery-eyed whip of a child who always seemed to be underfoot and who glowered defiantly, refusing to make a sound, when he gave her the belt for it. It meant fading memories of a woman, black-haired and frail, who had never been able to stay silent under the lash. It meant a burden that needed to be transformed into an expedient. It meant a small wraithlike figure that was sent out each day with a little bread and the slurred words, "Don't come back home till night," uttered in such a way that belied the idle hope in the back of their speaker's mind that perhaps one day the wraith would not come back home.
For Angeline, home meant a filthy room at the end of a dank corridor. It meant stepping over the ashes and broken glass that littered the hall and praying the mice chattering in the corners wouldn't fling themselves at her skinny ankles. It meant curling up on a shredded pallet that smelled of urine and smoke and liquor. It meant forfeiting whatever coins she had managed to earn or steal during the day, which in turn meant more smoke and more liquor. It meant a disheveled form that always seemed to be half-hidden in the shadows that frequently reminded her she would soon be on her own in the world. It meant half-formed thoughts and sharp slaps and the making of a colorful vocabulary. It meant huddling outside the door with a ringing head and a roaring stomach, thinking that being alone in the world sounded quite appealing in comparison to the alternative.
He had begun sending his daughter out the year after her mother died. Angeline was six years old at the time. Initially she had been frightened and disoriented, and the bit of bread she left home with had been snatched out of her hands by a pair of snaggle-toothed scarecrows that had been scarcely recognizable for the children they were. She had been lost many times, repeatedly coming very close to fulfilling her father's wish of never returning home. The city was a labyrinth of indistinguishable streets, and each one of them seemed to be slathered with mud as sticky as molasses and riddled with unseen ridges and craters that housed hundreds of malicious scarecrow-like beings. Angeline's education had begun.
She quickly learned to see the other street children as potential allies instead of monsters. They proved to be surprisingly valuable as far as navigation was concerned, and Angeline more than once exchanged her morning bread for directions. This trade eventually gained her the approval of a few urchins who accepted her willingly enough. By watching them she also discovered the merits of stealing, and immediately began to experiment. The streets, by then, began to feel more like home to her than did the dark room at the end of the hall. At seven, she was expert at combing the gutters for any items of value; at nine, she was a proficient pickpocket.
One of her favorite occupations was wandering down the boulevard past the expensive dress shops and making off with the handbags of women enthralled by displays in the windows. Another was loitering outside the theaters and dancehalls and, more and more frequently, slipping inside them, where she amused herself by mimicking the dances she saw the actors and performers rehearsing.
She would dance through the streets and the alleys, outside the shops, her feet winding around each other like ribbons and her arms tracing abstract designs in the air. Every now and then someone would toss her a coin, which she would pocket. And then, as time went by, she began to receive more. She continuously found herself with enough money to buy something to eat while still having more than enough left over to hand to her father.
By the time she was ten, instead of dancing at random, she began to note the most profitable areas and then to frequent them more often. At first, she did her best to reproduce the polished movements of the dancers she observed, attempting to act ten years older than she was. It was no mean feat; Angeline was small for her age and far from polished.
Within a month, she had produced a solution. Instead of attempting to emulate adult dancers, she used her diminutiveness to her advantage. She would wear her most ragged dress and tie an old ribbon in her hair and smile her saddest, bravest little-girl smile in the hope of appealing to the sympathy of the passerby. They continued to toss coins, but more and more frequently a pitying woman or a philanthropic gentleman would murmur endearments and give her a handful of change. When this happened, Angeline would open her eyes wide with wonder, bestow a few delighted smiles, and launch back into the dance with renewed satisfaction. Maturity and poise were admirable, but childlike appeal was lucrative.
Occasionally one of her benefactors would ask her name and she would shyly give them an abridgement she had invented years ago. Charming little Lini, they called her, and kept handing her coins.
Lini would shed her ribbon at the end of the day and rendezvous with a cluster of urchins to trade boasts, acquire dinner, and run through the city "mixing up" any neighborhoods that seemed too peaceful. Sometimes she would spend the evening on her own and go back to see the dancers in their halls, or use her earnings to go to the theater. Towards midnight, she would place a few coins beside the massive form slumped on the grimy floor of the room at the end of the hall, curl up on the pallet in the corner, and prepare to leave again the next morning.