This story contains spoilers for Family Promise
Yet another empty bin met his search, and he barely resisted the urge to grumble. Just when he thought London could not get any worse, the city proved him wrong yet again. Cruel adults tried to hurt him instead of help him. Cabs attempted to run him over anywhere he went. Expensive food meant he had not eaten in weeks, and the locals did not even throw useful things away. Did every child in this horrible city clean their plates?
Apparently so. He abandoned that alley to look in another. How he wished they had never left home, never come to this forsaken, dirty city. Why had his mum thought a strange city would help them more than the people they had known all his life?
"Your Aunt Rosalie lives there, Leonard, and your father's death means we no longer have a source of income. She and her husband will not turn us away."
Huffed annoyance escaped as he chose a new alley. Yes, because that had worked so well. Aunt Rosalie's house had been just as empty as that rubbish bin. He and his mum had ended up in a decrepit shack while she tried to find work, but just as they got going, his baby sister had destroyed his mother's health.
"We'll be alright, Leonard. The bookshop will keep me on light work until the baby is born, and the owner has already promised to keep my job until I can return…"
No. He wiped his eyes and pushed the memory away. He did not need to play various conversations from the last nine months on an irritating loop. They would do nothing but tighten his chest around his mother's loss. He could ill afford dehydration from crying again.
Dehydration. Water. There was an idea, and when he once more found nothing to eat, he detoured to the nearest pump. Maybe filling his stomach with water would ease the hunger. Even a few minutes would let him search without the growling distraction.
Except a small crowd gathered around the pump to make him hesitate against a nearby building. Too many adults meant more danger, and the others would complain about him taking so long, anyway. He waited for the crowd to thin before darting forward to shove his mouth under the spicket.
He should have thought of this earlier. A long minute's drink quickly filled his hollow middle to uncomfortable levels, and a sigh of relief escaped on his way back to the alleys. The water did nothing for the lack of food, but it did stop the grumbling for the first time in weeks. Perhaps he would find something solid to eat before the effect wore off.
"Hey, kid!"
But not here. The metal lid clattered against the bin as he hurried away from the voice. Adults never meant anything good. Left turn. Right. Duck through the narrow gap between buildings, then dodge across a busy street. Did they follow?
No, thank Heaven. He breathed a sigh and resumed searching. Weeks on the streets had brought nothing but hunger, fear, and pain. Two of those he could do nothing about, of course, but he should be able to find something to eat.
Right?
Unlikely. This neighborhood boasted only the occasional apple core and animal bones picked completely clean. While he much preferred one over the other, neither so much as touched the aching hunger he had known since his mum died. He needed to find an area with more money, a place where the inhabitants could afford to waste food. He wished he could go back home, go back to Terracina where his neighbors had cared about him and his parents. Someone there would have let him earn something to eat, but London did not notice one more starving child except to cause more pain. Too many shop clerks had refused to even let him clean, and he could not bring himself to steal. He would not dishonor his parents' memory like that.
"I think he ran this way, Mother. He looked hungry."
The voice came from his right, so he darted left without looking back. He could not go home any more than he could buy a piece of bread, but he also knew better than to let anyone approach. More than one adult had tried to "help" him right into those factory orphanages his mum had disparaged—or to a "Haven," whatever that was. They did not offer true aid any more than that leering man on Montague Street had. Better to drift away.
Though he could not drift very quickly. The first burst of urgency lasted only a few seconds, and when the adult showed no signs of catching up, he dropped to a slow walk down the cobblestones. The weakness shaking his legs and the headache pounding behind his eyes would not let him move south with any haste, but slow was better than stopped. His mum had mentioned more than once that the government neighborhoods—mostly one named Whitehall—had "far too much money and too little sense." Whitehall was near the river, if he remembered correctly. Maybe they would be wasteful enough to give him a meal. Even the disgusting "ochra" that foreign restaurant had peddled sounded better than another hollow night. He would not be able to keep going for much longer.
Not that he cared. Not anymore, when he had not eaten in days or had a real meal in weeks. He rather looked forward to joining his parents and baby sister. Maybe his mum would be able to tell him what about Father's death had actually made them move to a strange city in search of people who no longer lived here. She had refused to tell him the truth in life, but he would have expected her to contact her sister before coming all the way from Italy. Could Aunt Rosalie have died?
He would never know this side of eternity, and he put the question from his mind. Anything that did not bring food did not warrant attention.
Right turn. Dodge a speeding cab. Let the flow of Londoners carry him to the next alley. An uncomfortably long walk finally brought him to nicer buildings, with newer fronts and cleaner sidewalks. This looked promising.
Except the first bin was empty, as well as the next. That looked rotten. Empty metal peered back from the last one. Promising did not mean successful. He moved into the next alley.
Rotten. Empty. Inedible. Barely edible, though only a few bites. He apparently needed a richer street.
Like the next one south. International flags lined a sidewalk filled with more suits and ties than workman's overalls, and the first bin in the first alley revealed half a chicken breast. Finally. Perhaps this would let him kill the pervasive hunger.
Or not. Footsteps not ten feet behind him sharply pulled his attention out of the trash bin, and he looked up only long enough to register a large man before he bolted the other direction.
"I will not harm you."
The calm promise carried from the alley's mouth, though the heavy footsteps did not follow, thankfully. Fear lent a burst of energy that shot him out the back of that alley and to a hidden section of the next. Only when a glance confirmed himself alone did he let himself sag against the wall to catch his breath and stop the walls' spinning. A few precious bites did not make up for weeks of nothing. He would not be able to sprint like that again.
He could walk, however. Slow steps retraced a cautious path back to those full bins. That alley held more food than he had seen all week. He would not abandon a meal so easily.
Nor would he have to. The man had disappeared, and the constant flow of pedestrians never noticed the child in the shadows. He resumed digging.
Chicken—two bites. A smear of potato. Several turnips. A mostly eaten turkey leg. He wandered up one side of the alley and down the other, grazing on anything he could find. By the time he reached the last bin, a small portion of the gnawing in his stomach had finally eased. Whatever "full" used to be, this was not it, but it would suffice for the moment.
Now what?
Sleep, he decided, because sleeping while hungry was all but impossible, and a nap might kill the headache as well. He had gotten almost as much real sleep over the last weeks as he had food.
He would never be safe sleeping so close to a main street, though—daylight or not. Almost normal strides carried him further to a secluded alcove. He would come back to this alley in a few hours.
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And Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!