Planning

"Mother, can I please go and visit Alec?" I asked in a sugar-sweet tone.

I saw standing with my hands behind my back, opening my eyes as wide as I could – I knew that always softened her up. Mother hesitated, flicking her gaze from my face to Alec's closed door, undecided. Though she looked at me, she would always avoid my eyes. I constantly stared her down, and her face would twitch with something like pain.

"Please?" I begged, pouting a little. I hated doing that. I was much too old for acting like a baby. But it worked, and mother's troubled expression heightened into something that definitely was pain, before melting into something like… love.

Her eyes looked a little moist – but they always were nowadays. She reached out a hand to stroke my face, but I deftly stepped out of her reach, my face immediately drawn - like shutters had been pulled down over my eyes. As she bent over, the chunky, metal key swung out from the folds of her grimy dress, and I followed its graceful movement with my eyes. This was only the second time I had ever seen the key. I fought the furious urge to leap up and snatch it from her neck. She must actually trust me, I thought with barely concealed loathing.

Seeing the expression on my face, mother sighed, her breath making the hairs on the back of my neck rise up. She made no attempt to hide the key from my sight.

My mother spoke quietly, "You know, Janey, you've really grown into some of your potential lately." Her words surprised me, but I resolutely gazed stonily back at her – my whole innocent façade long gone. Her watery eyes fluttered so much, that I thought she was going to start crying. She sighed again, a deep rattling breath, and continued. "You have such a winning smile, and your face… as pretty as a picture."

I resisted the urge to snort. My eyes were dull – just blue and entirely ordinary. My face was pale and, in my opinion, much too round to be beautiful. And I hadn't smiled in a very long time. But if I wanted to see Alec, I would have to play nice. Of course, mother not allowing me to see him wouldn't stop me sneaking out at night to talk to him through the barred window. I could stand the cold. But it was so much easier during the day.

I made an effort to look flattered. "Mother, what a thing to say!" I giggled. It sounded off; hollowly echoing off the dusty walls.

Urgh, giggling. I shuddered, disgusted with myself.

I saw mother's lips moving but I had stopped listening. My gaze was fixed on Alec's door the whole time. After a while, I cut off her twittering monologue with a swift, "Mother, I want to see Alec now."

And I don't want to look at your ugly face a second longer.

She stopped warbling, and her hands hung limply at her sides, helpless. I always acted like the perfect child. But I knew that she knew that inside… I really hated her. But what could she do?

I marveled at how much mother had changed in the past year. Her broken, dry hair had streaks of grey in it, and her shoulders were more hunched. The skin on her neck was sagging and withered. She was only forty years old, but she looked as old as the mad crone living in boxes across the street. But apart from the physical, she had also changed mentally. She had always been weak, always begging for forgiveness. But now… it was like her whole character had evaporated. She was so… pitiable.

I despised her. But I would never pity her.

"Well, I guess you can go… you've been a good girl, Janey," she said quietly. I didn't bother even correcting her with the standard 'It's Jane, not Janey'. I was already running to Alec's door. I pushed it open, almost tripping with my haste.

"Alec!" I cried happily, throwing myself into the room. I never ceased to greet my twin with as much enthusiasm as always, and he never ceased to shock me with his endless amount of patience. If I were he, I would be ready and firing all pistons to go and escape from this hellhole, but he was as calm as ever.

"Jane, you're here." He smiled back at me, getting up from his bed to hug me. His room was as bare as your average prison cell, with only a narrow bed, a rusty tap dribbling in the corner, and the few things I had collected for him over the years.

Various sized balls, several chewed cotton toys, random things that I picked up off the ground, and my own Dolly, were just some of the items. They were arranged lovingly, a neat row along the edges of the cell.

A warning twanged in my mind, and I whipped around and slammed the door shut in mother's anxious face.

"It's soundproof." I heard Alec say. I nodded – Alec would know. Then I settled myself onto Alec's bed. It wasn't very good for settling; it was cold and as hard as the back of mother's hand.

"So, Alec, when do you want to do this?" I asked quietly, turning to look at him.

Alec looked… the same as ever. His big, blue eyes blinked out of a face that matched mine. White hands from lack of sun, bones that stuck out from his body, as though some mad creature were coming out of him… same as ever. I felt another surge of hate towards mother.

"You don't have to whisper. Mother won't hear us," he answered with his quiet, measured voice.

"I'm not whispering!" I whispered. Pause. And then Alec laughed – a shaky, unfamiliar sound. After my initial shock, I quickly laughed along with him, just because he laughed so rarely. His eyes sparkled.

"You didn't answer my question," I teased after he had caught his breath.

"I don't know," he answered simply.

"You don't know?" I repeated doubtful. Didn't he want to leave?

"Yes! I mean, no, I don't know!" he responded. "I really don't mind." He assured me earnestly.

"You're sure?"

"Yes. We can go any time you want." I didn't know what to say. I fiddled with my apron while the silence echoed dully around us.

"But I can't decide everything…" I muttered. Alec frowned; a little crease between his troubled eyes.

"Yes, you can," he disagreed. "And what is there to plan, anyway? We just have to sneak out in the middle of the night…"

I continued where he had trailed off, my voice slightly louder than his reasonable one, "… and board a train that we have no money for, to a place that we have no idea about, on a day that we haven't decided yet!"

I stared at the wall, frustrated. "Alec, tell me what's going to happen when we get there, if we don't die on the way!"

He didn't even hesitate. "We live in the freezing slums because we are only poor, homeless, runaway children, and we die a miserable, bitter death for a miserable, bitter life." When I raised my eyebrows at him, unimpressed, he added, "Sound good to you, sis?" I twisted away from him to look at the wall, exasperated. But I couldn't be mad at my adorable brother for long. No matter how much he infuriated me, I would always love him a thousand fold more.

"You say that you decide everything? Well, how about… I take charge from now on?" he asked. I didn't say anything, only challenging him with my eyebrows.

"Okay," he said, happily. "First thing's first." His tone suddenly took on a business-like manner.

"The little problem of money… well, while I was in here-" he waved a hand around the little square of a room "-I got an idea for that."

"Oh, really? What's that?" I asked, truly eager now for an idea… any idea.

"We'll beg!" he said triumphantly. I stared at him, despair evident on my face.

He sighed when he saw my expression. "We won't really be begging; it'll be more like asking," he clarified.

Not begging, asking. I replayed the words in my head, trying to make sense of it. Beg, ask… barsk?

"What, barsking?" I said out loud.

"Busking! That's catchy, Jane."

I glowed. "Thank you." I sniffed, feigning snobbiness. I was starting to get excited.

"So, this, busking, you say… how will we do it?" I asked. Alec smiled.

"We'll earn our money, by performing to them," he said dramatically. When I continued to stare at him dumbly, he elaborated, his hands waving madly in the air with excitement. "I have my flute, and you can dance, and we can perform to the people walking along the path you built outside this very window! Once they hear and see what we can do, they'll gladly throw their money at our feet! It's the perfect plan, Jane!"

I continued to look a little doubtful, and I fired more questions at him to answer. Which he did so without hesitation.

"There aren't enough people."

"Yes there are. I see one hundred, maybe even one hundred and fifty people cross my window every day. We have a good audience on our hands."

"I haven't danced in years."

"You said it yourself: Dancing isn't something you forget easily."

"What about your flute?"

"Don't be daft. I play it all the time whenever I'm bored. Which is pretty often. I've gotten pretty good at it."

I threw up my hands in exasperation. "What about mother? She'll never let us do this."

That stopped Alec in his tracks. He thought for a while, and then answered, "Mother goes out a lot during the day as well. She isn't a hermit." He suddenly sank into his usual quiet. I yearned to just hug him.

"But she comes in and out frequently…" I trailed off, trying to break his nostalgia.

"We'll just have to stop and start frequently as well, then." Alec declared with determined finality.

This could be the worst mistake both of us would make, and I was desperate to find a safer solution to our train-fare (or lack there of) problem.

"I have chores to do." I cried out, hoping that would do the trick. "I won't have enough time to sneak in here all the time. And you know mother keeps the door locked all the time."

"You'll figure something out." Alec said, with such assurance that I knew I could never ever let him down.

When I reluctantly left Alec's room hours later, my eyes were fixed on the grey key to his room, hypnotically swinging back and forth over mother's ches


"Baaaaaby cabbage! Get your baby cabbage here! Fresh and veeery cheap! Caaaaaaabbage!" I cringed at the booming voice of the large shopkeeper, bellowing so close to my left ear that I felt his spittle flick onto my cheek. I slowly turned to face him, and fixed him with a malevolent glare. The shopkeeper fell silent, eyes narrowing, deliberately securing his great hams of arms on his wobbling waist. He sneered at me, and then a glob of spit flew out of his big, red mouth. It met the earth with a sickening splatter near my feet.

My lips twisted into a mocking grin, and I stepped tidily over the glistening blob, flouncing away down the dirt market place aisle.

The shopkeeper was one of the few who didn't avoid me like the plague. Even as I walked, a harassed-looking mother snatched her toddler out of my path, avoiding my gaze just like everyone else. A young man with a swagger in his walk and a tin of tobacco in his hand, stopped and gawked at me. Even the group of balding, half-drunk gamblers who were cheering on a cockfight inched slightly out of my way before resuming their raucous laughter.

As I walked, I discovered a knot of young men blocking my way. They were lounging against the rickety wooden stalls, whistling whenever a pretty girl passed by. Not hesitating to stop walking, I hissed at them, and there were many mumbles as I pushed through.

When I had asked Alec why so many people avoided me, Alec had looked at me in surprise, and when he finally opened his mouth, he did it with hesitation. I didn't like his answer.

"Don't you do it on purpose?"

No, I really didn't mean to be so… blunt… if that was even the right word. I guess I just had a presence. A frightening one. And when I really thought about it, I realized that I didn't mind so much, after all. I only heard snatches of the fat shopkeeper's voice as his voice faded away.

"Cabbage… get… fresh… baby… cheap…"

Walking in the opposite direction to me, one child caught my eye. Her watery eyes were almost the same colour as my mothers – muddy brown. She looked to be around my age, with perfectly positioned blue ribbons in her. Another girl, who looked too young to be her mother, and too old to be her friend, was holding her hand. I paid no attention to her, only staring at the younger girl's brown eyes with open hate as I passed.

Her eyes widened, her pretty little mouth fell open, and I saw the fright evident in her eyes. My lips twisted again in Alec's smile, my eyes still boring into hers. The girl stumbled, clutching at her sister's sleeve, nervously skirting the edges of the stalls to avoid getting near me. As she lurched away, I saw her occasionally shoot frightened glances at me over her shoulder. I turned away in scorn.

She must be around the same age as I was, but somehow I seemed so much older. She would play with idle toys while I labored as a chimney-sweep. I was living in the endless night, whereas her life was as sweet as treacle and bright as the breaking dawn. Innocent. Naïve.

No words could describe my jealousy of her.

I looked down at the grimy ground, biting my lip hard, and my hands clenched into hard, little fists.

I only looked up again when the noisy market sounds had all but evaporated, and the smell of fresh pine and biting ice were sharp on my tongue. Mother's house was slumped in the background, and there was not a single person in sight.

Suddenly I felt an icy coldness seep through my shoe. I groaned; I hadn't yet gotten around to mending the hole in the sole of my shoes. I bent down to check; sure enough, the ice was already melting into my worn-out stockings. When I straightened up again, someone was sitting on a log near the forest edge. I squinted – I was sure there had been no one there before.

The noticed his hands first. They were long and spidery and were sheathed in a pair of odd gloves with the tips of the fingers cut out. Golden hair poked out from underneath a floppy cap that was worn jauntily on his head. He wasn't wearing nearly enough clothing for this weather. He was as tall and thin as a flagpole.

By the youth's feet was an open wooden case, and propped carefully against it was a violin. Suddenly, his face turned away from the ground, and I was lost in his eyes, so green they didn't look real. A little frown line formed between his eyes as he gazed at me. "What're you inspectin' my mate so close-like for?"

I jumped. I realized that the violin-boy wasn't alone. Standing right in front of me was another youth. This one was a little shorter, a little bulkier, and altogether a little more average. He had muddy brown hair and was smiling widely. His voice, despite his dicey language, was rich and pleasant. I glanced at the violin-boy; he had stood up and was walking slowly towards us. I ripped my gaze away. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare." I stammered, off guard. And then I caught myself.

Jane, not Janey.

"What's it to you?" I challenged, flicking my gaze between the two boys. "And why're you two hanging around here anyway? On my land?"

The shorter boy's eyes widened in surprise, and he raised his hands as if to say, Whoa, I'm backing away…. "Geez, miss, apologizin' if I'm on your land. But I'm here for a reason. Your lil' bro asked us-" he waved between himself and his friend "-to wait for ya here. Or hide, actually, as the case may need," he added as an afterthought.

"My brother?" I asked suspiciously. He nodded lazily, up and down. Silence. The violin-boy still hadn't uttered a sound. He was beginning to make me a little uncomfortable.

"So… who are you?" I demanded, distracting myself.

He hooted. "Whoa, aint you straight to the point, huh?" he said with a good-natured chuckle. I stared back at him stonily. He grinned all the wider. I was starting to get just a tad annoyed at this boy's constant cheerfulness. He would probably still be laughing even if a carriage rode over his dog, I thought grimly.

"Just call me Boo," he announced, winking. He stuck out a tanned hand, so much different than that of violin-boy's. I ignored it.

"And what's your name?" I asked a little softer, to violin-boy. He had to lean down for a long way until his face was level with mine.

"They call me Jem," he whispered in a light, fluty voice.