Jas. Hook, Captain

A Small World

His shoes, like ours no doubt, had holes in the sole. His woollen clothes threadbare, providing little warmth amidst ubiquitous English drizzle.

All in all, a pitiful and yet pitiable sight. A child so like the rest, the glorious Empire over. This poor runt deserved a kitten's death. But if he did, so did we all.

As if intuiting my inner remorse for the misbegotten, neglected brood of Her Majesty's kingdom, divining my meandering thoughts, Peter grabbed a discarded burlap sack from the gutter. He snuck up behind the paperboy without a sound.

Like any good sleight-of-hand trick, a ruse requires a little distraction.

"Hullo there," I called. "How much for the news?"

"Just a hae'penny," the boy replied, suspicious.

"A hae'penny, you say," I said, jovial, tossing him a glinting piece of scrap metal about the size of a coin. "Here you are then, and keep the change."

He took a step back and Peter dropped the sack down over his head right down to his elbows, pinning his arms. The boy writhed and cursed, making all manner of threats upon our lives and families and so on and so forth. I snatched a paper from his hands, rolled it up and clouted him once over the head.

"Avast, ya scurvy dog! Ye'll walk the plank for insubordinatin 'gainst No Beard!" I cried.

This evoked a further string of foul language not fit for the company of the fairer sex or the pious. Peter and I scarpered with our newly liberated newspaper, laughing as we rounded the corner. In addition, we absconded with an apple and some bread from a shopfront display, and a bottle of milk from a doorstep.

"Did you see the look on his face?!" I laughed. "All smiles with his fancy paper. Echo, eh? Well let's see what the word word word word is on these fair streets streets streets streets..."

We were nearly seized with laughter, but then heard shouts and a familiar brand of cursing nearabout and we pounded our feet along the roads all the way up Victoria Street to St. John's Garden.

We passed the food back-and-forth between one another. Neither one of us had spent much time in schools, having our ears boxed mostly. But poverty makes mathematicians of us all and our spoils were divided evenly. We couldn't solve an equation with both our heads together, but I knew with certainty how many bites and sips were mine.

"Well let's see what we have here then," Peter said, opening the paper. "Oh curse it, Jim. Look here."

We could read a little, and I knew enough to make out the gist of the article Peter had indicated. Two Privates of the 7th Hussars had been arrested for fighting with police over on Bute Street. You couldn't tell from the sketched likenesses, but we recognized the names instantly.

"Don't we descend from the most honorable stock?" Peter remarked.

"My father is a bit blurry, but I believe the artist has captured your father's good side, wouldn't you say?"

"To be sure," he muttered, momentarily dismayed. "Hey, let's play soldiers!" he said, finishing off the milk. "Rifles ready! Form a line!"

We marched shoulder to shoulder along the paths, making up silly songs about battle and the women of Spain. The morning chill was gone, giving way to the afternoon chill, so we crumpled up sheets of the newspaper and stuffed them in our sleeves to keep warm.

"I'll not go home," I swore. "When Papa gets out he'll be in a foul mood and looking to skin someone and I'd rather not provide the chance, thanks so much."

"My daddy too, I reckon," Peter said. "I'd just as soon spend the night rough like the Gypsies. We can make our camp here."

"Yeah, or like them wild Indians of America," I said.

"We could go there, you know," Peter remarked, wistful. "How many ships depart these docks every day, bound for America or Canada or some such?"

"Nah," I said. "Ye'd just find all the same troubles over there waiting for you. Poor folks of the world are poor wherever they travel and I'd just as soon stay and save myself the trip."

Peter smirked.

"Then we should leave the world behind! It's the only answer!" He laughed, and committed himself with eagerness to climbing the nearest tree. "C'mon then, Jim! It's our ladder to the stars!"

"I'll bet you I can beat you to the top!" I cried, and I leaped for the nearest branch.

"I'll take that bet," he jeered. "For I, the king of these lands, proclaim this tree to be the throne from which I rule! Now bow before me! Fools and jesters such as you are not worthy to sit with the King!"

We scrambled up and up, higher through the leaves as the branches became thinner, more sparse, less reliable even.

"If I'm a fool," I shouted, "I'm the only one in your kingdom, and that makes you the King of Fools!"

"You dare insult me!?" he cried with mock incredulity. "I'll have you in irons! I'll have your head!"

"Which is it then," I said, "In irons, or headless? Or perhaps both!"

As I said this last, a branch gave way beneath me and I fell. Only a short ways, mind you, but as I caught hold I found myself dangling in space with nothing below my feet.

"Peter," I cried. "Help!"

"King Peter!" I heard him snap back. I couldn't see him in the tree above, and my grip was loosening.

"Peter, please!"

"You've lost, boy," I heard him say as he landed on the branch, his feet by my hands. "You are a lost boy."

"Have it your way, just help me out."

Peter grabbed me by the wrists and hauled me up. He made it seem a mighty effort, but I knew myself to be somewhat lighter than he suggested despite his noisome complaints.

"Dare I say I've never met such a foozler in all the Queen's empire."

"And I stand amazed that such a jollocks as you could ever climb a tree," I spat back.

"O ho! A jollocks, am I?" he laughed. "Well if you weren't such a meater, you might've beaten me to the top."

We completed the remaining ascent with relative ease, and gazed out upon the industrious panorama with pity and awe. A modern-day businessman might well look upon such a landscape with pride, marveling at the accomplishments of humanity. But all we felt was disappointment, let down greatly by this economic spectacle, mourning for the loss of wild places, of miracles and wonder.

Seeking magic.

"When your father gets home, he'll be in a foul mood. My daddy too."

I could provide no counter argument. Peter knew all too well the price a family paid for a sot of a father. He and I had shared many a fanciful adventure but neither one of us needed to engage our powers of imagination to know with certainty what would happen when our fathers were released by the constabulary. Not another word had passed between us when we made up our minds collectively, not another word needed to.

"Sleeping rough tonight?" I suggested, though I knew it was rhetorical.

"Course. I dare not show my face at home, such as it is."