The Magician's Sons

Chapter 24

"I've found the most, I know I 'ave!" Porgy cheered boastfully. His voice rang loudly down the sewer's corridor.

"'Ave not!" Mose argued. "You should feel 'ow heavy me bag is!"

"It can't be half as heavy as mine!" Copper put in, shining a challenging grin over at his friends.

Just ahead of them, Gibbs came to a sudden halt. "Dark the lights!" he whispered quickly. "There's a grate up ahead, an' I 'ear footsteps!"

The boys' bickering came to an abrupt end, and they all rushed to put the shutters over their lanterns. The light which they had been walking in suddenly turned into pitch blackness. Keeping as still as possible, the boys could hear no sound in the sewers except the constant squeaking and ominous scratching noises which came from the rats.

Copper looked upward and saw the faintest glow of moonlight falling through the holes in the patterned manhole cover above them. Footsteps came, and a shadow passed for one instant overhead. Then the boys heaved a sigh.

"Move quietly lads," their commander said. They felt their way forward through the darkness until the grate was far behind them. Then, at last, they let their lanterns shine again.

"Close call!" Mose laughed. "Wouldn't it be funny to 'ave a proper chase wiv the cops right 'ere in the sewers?"

"No, it wouldn't," Gibbs growled, too serious to laugh at the idea. "I ain't spendin' a fortnight in jail if I can 'elp it."

Copernicus tended to agree with him. He swung his bag of treasures over his other shoulder and carried on with his work. The weight of the scrap iron inside of that bag kept making his arms and back ache, but that made him rejoice rather than complain.

Time had changed almost everything about Copernicus's feelings. Slowly, he had grown accustomed to the darkness, the mustiness, the filth of his job. He hardly gave it a second thought before plunging his legs into the putrid channel of water each night, and he hardly thought about how dirty he was when he reached home anymore. In the beginning, he had felt utterly defiled. But, why should he care? All of the other boys were just as dirty as he was, and Mordechai didn't mind. In fact, the whole vile business was turning into an odd game for the children. They tramped back home and immediately the lads started boasting about how filthy they were. Surely, the boy with the dirtiest sleeves was the one who had worked the hardest; the one who had worked the hardest had surely found more tosh than the others; and the one who brought home the most treasure was champion of the day. That lucky boy got to sit right next to their father in a big, wonderful throne at the table, and Mordechai usually rewarded him by granting him one wish. This drove each of the lad's on to be the dirtiest, most diligent tosher of all.

Copernicus found himself competing almost harder than anyone for his father's favor. It had been a couple of weeks since he and Porgy had both realized that they were no longer the pampered new pets of their guardian. There was no favoritism once the boys had been firmly grounded into the family. Now it was a lively fight to be seen and heard in the big crowd. But somehow, they all felt equally cherished even so.

Copper always tried his hardest to bring home the most wealth. He didn't do it just to get a gift like the other boys did; he did it because he wanted to make his father happy, and he wanted the special right to sit at the man's side. But, try as he might, he never over expected. Gibbs worked harder than anyone, and he won their game almost every night.

"I can always count on you to help me make ends meet, Gibbs," Mordechai often said, patting his eldest boy on the head. Then he would marvel over the weight of the lad's sack and laugh in jovial awe. He never tried to guess just how much money the boys' findings would bring in. He took all of those things up to his room, and after Bob had cleaned them all thoroughly, Mordechai sold them around town.