By the time he was eight, Jack was homeless. Street Urchin, the men in top hats called him. To the ladies in never-ending skirts, he was Poor Little Soul. He went from toys, a fireplace, and two parents to rats, puddles, and two headstones. But nobody forced him to take baths, and nobody told him he couldn't kick the puddle as hard as he liked (big splash!), and the rats didn't mean any true harm. One of them even had dark hair like his, so he called it JackRat.
At eight-and-three-quarters, with nobody to say "You need a trim!", that dark hair had gotten so unruly, he could hardly see through the fringe. London fog was pretty, and he'd learned to love its smell and navigate its constant hugs, but London fog paired with that hair was proving a new challenge.
The solution came one chilly morning. He had just finished a crust of decent bread from the baker's son in town. The baker's son liked Jack, because Jack was always smiling, even when it was cold outside. Even when it was dark. A ready smile deserved a hunk of bread now and again.
When it happened, Jack had been licking the last of the crumbs from his thumb, sitting beneath a lamp, waiting for the Admiral to fire off the last hour before bed. He liked to wait for it right underneath the Admiral's ship, so that his ears could ring with the sound of the cannon, and he could feel the ground shake beneath him. It was a wonderful, tickly feeling from the toes up.
A high, cheerful whistle reached his ears. Looking up, the boy saw a very messy gentleman with a kind of broom slung across his shoulder.
The gentleman paused when he reached Jack. At first he moved so quickly, so easily, Jack was certain he would not be noticed. Indeed, the man went right by without glancing down—that was what most people did to street kids, which was all right because most people were very busy—but then he stopped. He made a great show of doubling back, all legs and tapping shoes, and blinked at Jack with the most twinkly eyes. They were young and happy, and Jack's heart gave a little leap—he saw light in that older face. Light he felt inside, light he could never see in the other Poor Little Souls when their paths would cross on the street.
He turned his easy smile up at the messy man.
The man smiled right back at him. "Whatchu doin' down there, son?"
"Waiting for the Admiral, Mister!"
"Oh, waiting, are we?" The man's grin got bigger, whiter, and Jack tried to make his just as big. He pretended to check a watch from inside his filthy black coat. "Why, we've only got a minute or so. Mind a bit o' company?"
Jack shook his head as hard as he could and scooted over, making room for the dirtier gentleman. "What's that for?" he asked politely, nodding to the long broom.
The man made a surprised face, exaggerated, and twirled it expertly against the shoulder. "It's me toolbox, innit? I'm what you call a pro-fessional chimney sweep, best of!" He winked at Jack.
Jack winked too, after a moment of practice. Then he pointed to the house across the street. "Know what?"
"What's that?"
"That's Number Seventeen."
"Ah! A right lovely place it is, too."
"Whenever the hour comes," Jack explained, "an' the Admiral fires, all their house shakes an' rattles."
"Like a poker in a fireplace?"
A lot of nods. "I likes to hear 'em jangle—see if they catch things on time. They never miss!"
"Who don't?"
"Them." Jack jerked his chin excitedly toward the glowing windows of Number Seventeen. "Them who live inside. Saw the cook catch a—" he mimed the action with expert hands "—a big glass jar wif' one hand at tea today!"
A lower whistle, impressed, came from the professional sweep. Then he glanced at Jack with pinched eyebrows, looking and looking at him funny. "What's your name, me boy?"
"Jack."
"Pleased to meet you, Jack—Bert's what they call me." Bert extended a hand to Jack. "Now we shake—just cos we've got stars instead o' roofs over us don't mean we ain't got good manners, much as the rest of 'em, eh?"
The child's eyes took on a twinkle of their own as he filed this information away. He liked Bert, and those gloved warm hands that shook his heartily, and the smile that said stars were preferable to roofs anyway.
"FIRE!"
BOO-OOOO-OOOM!
That was the hour, and Bert and Jack watched the golden windows across the street with bated breath. Shadows dashed here and there through that light. Shadows of the cook and the nanny and the lady of the house—big, feathered hat—snatching things and diving for them as the house jiggled and jumped. It was always so startled by the turn of the hour, but now it could sleep; night had fallen at last on Cherry Tree Lane.
The sweep stood up, wiping his hands on his trousers. He was giving Jack the funny look again. "Here's what you need, Jack, got just the thing for you, carry spares just in case—"
And he plopped the softest, roundest, best-smelling cap over Jack's brown head. It smelled warm, like standing near a fire on icy evenings, and it was a pale color that went with everything. It was also a little too big.
Bert stooped down, making quick work of trapping many of those troublesome curls beneath the hat. "There we are. Can't have turned your hand at much with locks like them in the way, can you've, no siree!"
Jack flicked the lip of the cap up over his eyes, awestruck. Forgetting a thank-you, all he could think to say was, "Turn me hand?"
"Work! An' work's only work if it hasn't got any fun, not like bein' a chimney sweep." Bert grinned, brandishing his broom. "That's fun all the time."
"Can you teach me?"
"What? Be a chimney sweep?" A click of the tongue that was very different from the clucking posh ladies gave him as he went by in the park. Bert's was a click that looked Jack up and down like he was full of possibilities. "I can teach you more'n that, my boy, with the right attitude."
"More?" Jack leapt to his feet. There was more to be on the streets than an urchin or a chimney sweep?
"Yes sirree," promised Bert. "Much more. Like—" He looked around, spying another man in front of Number Seventeen, who nodded solemnly to them. The man was carrying a long pole, not unlike Bert's broom, with a wick on the end. Carefully, he propped up a ladder against the lamppost, took to it, and with a few slight movements, the lamp slowly flickered to life. Bert looked at Jack as though they'd just discovered a great secret. "A leerie!"
"What's a leerie?"
"Why, it's what we lamplighters call ourselves, o' course."
With great difficulty in the growing dark, Jack examined the end of the broom Bert was holding. It was prickly, and it didn't look as if it were able to hold a wick. "You a leerie, Bert?"
"I am. Among other prestigious professions, I'll 'ave you know. And you will be, too, Master Jack, just you wait!"
So in one night, Jack had gained a hat, a job, and a friend. Bert gave Jack a place to stay—somewhere safer than the alleys and nicer than the benches—and something to do. Every day, they learned a new skill, because in addition to being a sweep and a leerie, Bert seemed to have all kinds of lovely talents. (Jack's favorite was the one-man-band Bert became when strolling the parks.)
For ordinary people, Bert was a handyman, someone looking to make extra money any way he could. A poor man with charm. But to his friends, and to his pupil, Jack, Bert was a helper. He wasn't looking for money, he was looking for frowns. Instead of making a name for himself, he made smiles. The money was nice, Bert said, but it was the helping that really made him feel as though he'd earned something. The other chimney sweeps were the same—taking gloom and black and dirty away so that warmth and comfort could have a place to stay.
Jack adored his mentor, and all the things he learned, but the best of it all was being a leerie. In time, he saved up enough for his own bicycle, and Bert gave him his very first ladder to use as a birthday present when Jack turned nine. Every night, they would walk the streets of London and light the lamps. Every dawn, they would return to douse the glow as the sun took the place of a hundred gas-lit flames in their glass suites.
And for every street they lit, Bert had a story to tell Jack. His favorites seemed to be stories of a wonderful lady called Mary Poppins. Bert swore she was magic—he also swore she was the prettiest, kindest person in the whole city of London. In the whole world, even. He said she liked to help people, too, but that she had "a long sort of way to go about it".
Jack knew Bert had many lady friends—he had many friends in general, but ladies especially seemed fond of him—and yet however many lovely women turned their heads and hearts in his direction, Bert always appeared to be waiting on one who hadn't come. Jack began to suspect, in time, that this missing heart and head belonged to the Mary Poppins of Bert's tales. Being nine, he wholeheartedly believed there was such a person. He simply had to wait until she "flew back", as Bert said, to meet her.
For the longest time, Jack didn't understand why Bert waited on one heart, one fountain of affection—any kind of affection—when he could have as many as he liked. Street people found comfort in one another, but somehow, having no proper home and no proper family, you always craved more. One more smile, one more wave, one more name to add to the list. One more person to recognize your grubby face from all the other grubby faces dotting the cobblestones of London.
The night he began to understand, it was spring, and a lovely breeze was tickling the flop of curls that kept freeing themselves from his hat. He and Bert walked slowly and contentedly along Cherry Tree Lane, admiring the blossoms in the moonlight.
"Everybody's got a favorite lamp to light their way, Master Jack," Bert said suddenly. "Same as you once 'ad a favorite lullaby." After a moment of comfortable silence, he glanced over in surprise. "Don't tell me you ain't picked one out yourself yet?"
Jack tested the sturdiness of his ladder against a post, proud he could lift it himself by now. He shook his head jovially at his friend.
"Why's that?"
Jack shrugged. "Think I'll know it when I see it."
Deeming this a wise answer, Bert walked on ahead, lighting lamps much faster than his companion could. One day, Jack would be that quick about it. He would climb to the highest places and command his own army of helping men, the way Bert did. Bert made everything look easy, everything look possible. He made everything look useful, too. Jack wanted to be that useful—he was well on his way already.
The last lamp for Jack to light was the one right underneath the window of Number Seventeen. Sometimes, Jack could hear the nanny crying out for the children upstairs to get ready for bed. Most of the time, they wouldn't climb under the covers without a fight, from the sound of it. Often he could hear two young voices, much like his own—not screeching disagreeably or squabbling like toddlers—simply debating with the nanny on why they should have to go to bed now. Why not five minutes from now? Or sometimes they had a good reason—they had lost a toy and would be frightened to go to sleep without it, or they wanted to stay up and "see mother in her new sash". Jack had never actually seen, face-to-face, any of the people in the house the Admiral's cannon terrorized. But he felt he knew them, somehow. He'd been catching glimpses of them for a full year now; they were like his secret cousins or something.
Climbing his ladder, Jack paused before touching the wick to the lamp's center. Paused before turning the dial that would summon the gas. He always paused. He liked to look up at the London sky—to see if there were any starts out, before the lamplight hid them from view. There hardly ever were; London's was a cold, often cloudy horizon, even in the summer. He liked to think that one day, it would cheer up. Something would make it just as pretty as the cherry blossoms lining the road.
As his eyes drifted up to the endless expanse of gray, he saw something new. He saw a pair of eyes. And it wasn't the man in the moon (you couldn't see the moon for clouds, anyway). It wasn't his imagination. There were two eyes, not looking at him, but looking toward him. He could just see them in the darkness, the flames Bert had switched on across the street reflecting slightly in both.
Surprised, Jack quickly lit Number Seventeen's lamp.
They were very blue. It was like looking at a pair of blueberries, shiny with morning dew. For a moment, in the gold the lamp gave off, right in his face, the eyes were all Jack could see before his vision adjusted. And now they were looking at him.
Jack wanted to be able to fight off the aggressive flickering of the light by blinking. But if he blinked, the eyes might prove to be his imagination after all, and then they would go away. It was too different to be gone so soon, too out-of-the-ordinary to look up at the bleak London sky and see something pretty after all.
Instead, he lowered the lamp's flame a bit, squinting.
Above him, standing on Number Seventeen's balcony, was a blonde girl near his age. She wore a white nightgown, all ready for bed. Her very shape was so clean and cozy that Jack immediately pictured the angels in the cathedral windows downtown. There was some resemblance, to be fair—not a spot of dirt on her, and such a curious, open way in which she held her mouth. It was hard to see many fine details with the light of the room behind her and the light of the lamp in front, warring for a spot on her canvas.
She was only a little girl, but Jack had never seen anything more interesting in his short life. She was exactly like a China doll, made big and quite well taken care of.
And she was staring at him as though he were just as interesting. More accurately, she was staring at his work. After a short moment of silence where both looked and looked at one another, she called something down in a whisper.
Jack's eyebrows drew together. "You what?" he called, cupping a gloved hand to his ear.
Blueberry eyes went wide and she shook her head violently. Cupping her own hands around her mouth, she hissed loudly, "You mustn't shout! Katie Nana will hear."
Katie Nana? The name was strange, and Jack itched to ask who she meant, but he didn't want to frighten her. Only a fool frightened angels, and then they left and never came back, he was sure. If she wasn't an angel (she was wearing a bow in her hair, he saw, that was coming undone, and certainly angels' bows never came undone), she must be related to one. Perhaps her mother was an angel, or there was a bit of angel in her great-great-aunt. He bit his lip, head bobbing obediently.
The girl spread her soft little fingers along the rail, leaning toward him. She was still gazing intently at the pole in his hand. "Please, if you don't mind," she asked, voice still very low, "what's that you're carrying?"
Jack's eyes tore from the creature on the balcony to the precious tool he held in both hands, realizing he had been holding it a long time. His arms were getting tired. But something a little more grown-up than the rest in him roiled. It roiled and huffed and insisted that he could not let her see his arms were tired. Well, of course he couldn't!
Hefting it higher still, Jack shot her one of his dazzling smiles. It was a smile that danced a duet with the lamp's single flame. He didn't know it, but tonight, it was off-beat, smaller. It was his first shy smile. The fact that it had appeared this late in his life spoke of how often and confidently he put on his grins.
"It's a wick," he explained proudly. "I uses it to light the light."
"That light?" She pointed gingerly to the house's lamppost, staring spellbound into the glass from several feet above.
"That's the one," he gulped, but his tone was encouraging, however wobbly. "Miss."
He must have said something extraordinarily funny, because she let loose a sound like sleigh bells—it was a giggle, persistent and breathless. She went on like that for several seconds, and it was all little Jack could do to lean his shoulder against the lamp's crown, keeping balance, listening to it with his mouth slightly open. Wondering why he found it so nice. She was only a girl, it was only a laugh. Yes, but a very pretty laugh! Nothing wrong with admiring nice things.
"But I didn't know people did that," the angel whispered. "I wanted to see the cherry blossoms. I thought the lamps would all be on. Do you light them?"
"'Course, Miss."
"With the wick?"
"That's right, Miss. Every night," he repeated, thinking he would like to pull his hat off and catch some of the absolute awe cascading from her expression. She looked so impressed. It was all the little fire in the lamp, really—it burned all night long, it was the real worker between them. And even if she was impressed with the light, not with him, it made him all the happier, because he had thought only leeries could appreciate the servant's heart of a lamp. "We trip the light."
She grinned, face open and delighted. "Fantastic!"
The shyness was still in his smile, but at the sight of hers, it heard the beat at last and matched the lamp step for step.
"I'm Jane Banks," she told him eagerly, dropping into a crouch. It wasn't a lot nearer, but to Jack, it made all the difference. The warm light made her hair look like sunshine. "How do you do?"
Jack thought that soon he should close his mouth; it kept slipping open, like a codfish's. But he couldn't help it. This magic other child was so much more welcome a sight than what he was used to. And she wanted to talk to him. He suddenly came to the conclusion that he couldn't very well close his mouth and answer her, so he stammered out, "I do jus' fine, Miss Banks. I think."
He was unaware, but the dancing smile that made his cheeks rounder and his eyes browner seemed to grow in between words, and it was making Jane feel very at ease. She sat cross-legged, rather improper, and let one of her slippers poke out between the bars holding the rail up.
"You see," she said slowly, "I always thought the lamps came on by—well—I thought it might be magic."
Jack climbed one step higher on the ladder, excitement trying to burn holes into his already-tattered shoes. "But it is magic, Miss Banks!"
Bert had told him exactly the same thing.
What makes the gas share the light? Jack had asked, the very first time his wick dipped fire into the glass. What makes it come?
Well…it's magic, innit? Bert had replied simply, tongue in cheek. Sure as I'm standin' here with you.
"Do you really think so?" Jane gripped the bars, pulling her face lower, eyes now fixed on the reflection the candle made inside the lamp. With the glass walls around it, there seemed to be five flames, not one.
"Sure as I'm standin' here, it is, Miss."
"Oh, wonderful! I've always thought so." Jane beamed at the light, quite as if she were talking to it instead of the boy who had called it. But then she said, "What's your name?"
He swallowed. "Jack."
"It's very nice to meet you, Jack." Jane chattered away, lower lip making much more of an appearance than the upper one, so that she always looked a little melancholy, even while she smiled. Like a painting in the big, fancy shops, the kind of painting that seemed to have its own heart. "I like your hat. I like your lamp, too!"
"Than—thanking you kindly." This was almost too much. She liked his hat. Jack's gaze dipped down to the cobblestones below, bashful, and back up at her. "I do me best," he chortled. "It's a bit big…" Suddenly rankled, he shoved the hat up, away from his line of vision.
Jane giggled again—she seemed prone to giggling, and it made Jack want to laugh too, but he was worried his laugh might not mix well with hers. That same roiling, grown-up something told him he'd better not risk it. So he kept it in.
It was just as well, too, because at that moment, a shrill voice sounded from somewhere in the room behind Jane. "…dead of night, no sound, and where's she gone? Out the window, if you please!" The curtains were disturbed, and a squat woman, looking terribly flushed, took hold of Jane's shoulder and firmly pulled her to her feet. "Jane, how many times? Do you mean to make me ill? I'm sure I've never heard of such foolishness—"
"But I only wanted to see the cherry blossoms, Katie Nana—"
"Now, don't start, young lady, you're in enough trouble as it is." The woman righted the bow in Jane's hair. Or she tried to—but it didn't take, and slipped loose again a moment later, openly defying Katie Nana's cross, quick hands. If hands could be like scissors, Jack thought pityingly that Katie Nana's would be the sharpest. She probably didn't know it, but surely if she did, she would want to fix it.
Just then, Katie Nana's eyes struck Jack. It occurred to him that he had been standing on the top rung of his ladder for an awfully long time, and that the flame and the heat from his wick were working against him. His hair was sweaty beneath his cap, and hadn't there been dirt on his cheek the last time he'd checked? Why hadn't he cleaned up a bit? The poor nanny was obviously put off by Jane's untidy bow—she didn't need more troublesome stains and streaks to get beneath her skin.
"I see," she said through tight lips. Looking down her nose at Jack, she added crisply, "From what I might observe, Cherry Tree Lane is no longer in need of your services, my boy. You would do well to move along to the next street."
Jane's blueberry eyes darted frantically around, despairing. "Oh, but Katie Nana, we—"
"Straight to bed with you, Miss Banks. There shall be no more chatting with strangers tonight, and that is my last word on the subject."
Little Miss Banks looked on the verge of a good pout then. She didn't whine or kick out at her nanny; she was too gentle-souled for that, anyone could see. But she did turn back around to Jack as she reached the curtains, though Katie Nana beckoned for her to hurry back in. Those young irises sought first the lamp and then Jack's silhouette beneath it, watching him strap his ladder to the bicycle and sling his pole clumsily against a shoulder.
Seeing her so close to the folds of her nursery, where she might disappear for weeks now, where she might prove to actually be a fantasy of his making in the dark, Jack moved so that his back pressed against the lamp. From here, he could see into the window as she stepped back inside. He did not want her to leave now; the inhabitants of Number Seventeen were so elusive. If she went away tonight, would she be there in the morning? Even when the Admiral's cannons went off, the most he ever saw or heard were flicks and echoes of human life behind those walls. He had seen Mr. Banks on his way out to work early at dawn, being a leerie, but that was all.
And now that he knew there was a Jane inside that house, flicks and echoes and Mr. Banks simply were not good enough, not even all at once.
Relieved to see that his new friend meant to say goodnight before bed, Jack made sure he was directly beneath the lamp's glow before he acted.
The boy's smile was still fixed on, large and warm, like he was wearing a chocolate bar itself beneath his eyes. He lifted a tentative hand to her.
Jane grinned and waved back enthusiastically. Beyond her, just past her shoulder according to his steep angle, was the sky. Before, it had looked lifeless, like it was made of sludge, like it was sad. But somehow, Jack was liking the gray. It was deep and mysterious, and he might have been putting too much into it, but it swirled, too. Like milk in a teacup. And Jane, standing up there on her balcony, almost appeared part of it from his position in the street. Lovely London sky.
She was watching him in much the same way he watched her; like he might vanish in an instant. Like he was magic, as magic as the lamps, as magic as Mary Poppins.
When she was gone, Jack stayed there for a little bit. He straddled his bicycle and settled his gaze on the flicker of gold above him, thinking of the girl he'd met and how tingly it felt to have made that particular acquaintance. He met new people every day. But he liked Jane, with her sunshine hair, and the way she'd talked to him like he was Jack, not a Street Urchin or a Poor Little Soul.
Soon, Bert's whistle came, but it came so suddenly that Jack wondered if he'd been far away at all. In fact, it almost sounded as if Bert had been quite nearby, perhaps for much longer than he behaved.
"Bit slow tonight, Master Jack?" he checked. Bert leaned against the lamppost, wrinkling his nose in a playful way. "I think you mighta found that favorite lamp o' yours after all, what do you reckon?"
Jack didn't hesitate to nod. Though his grin remained, his eyes bounced again, betraying just a single rose of embarrassment somewhere in his chest. He wasn't sure why. That was all right—it was sort of ticklish, like the Admiral's hour call.
Bert didn't say anything more. They headed out to the next street, Jack kicking off with some difficulty and getting a head start. He would be back to Number Seventeen at dawn, to turn off the lamp. And perhaps he would find Jane there waiting.