Somewhere to Belong

What is it like, I wonder, to belong?

These were the thoughts of Denny Clemline, the grimy, hungry ten-year-old. He was a boy of the streets, a grabber of money, and a snatcher of food. 

Denny had taken to wrapping his hand in a rag, at least then people couldn’t see the scars and puckered tissue; the missing fingers. He had been attacked by an animal when he was small, only escaping without more injuries because his mother was right there when it happened. After that he was regarded as useless, a broken toy to be discarded, and they did just that, abandoning him one night in the city; creeping away while his back was turned. That was four years ago. 

    He was a homeless beggar on the streets, and no one wanted anything to do with him. He didn’t even belong among the other tramps. They, too, growled and spat at him if he came too close or tried talking them. Cripps in the city were considered bad luck. Very bad luck.

    No, the only place he belonged was inside his heart, the only place where he found comfort.

As it happened, today he would be pickpocketing the richest man in Harstone, Jock Larsey. 

And he would do it with only one hand.

He wouldn’t be stealing from Larsey himself, for that was near impossible. No, he would filch from his attendants who would be carrying what he wanted.

Denny wanted a City Pass that only Larsey could sell, a Pass that he would never be able to get otherwise.

Why did he need a Pass?

So he could escape the place of his nightmares, the city of his doom. Another place wouldn’t prosecute him for his imperfection. They wouldn’t shun him for a malformity that he couldn’t help. He knew.

In his mind it was simple, really. Get in amongst the roaring crowd, brush past the selling stand, get out. At least, that’s what it would look like to any bylookers. What he would really be doing as he “innocently” brushed past the stand was discreetly snatching a Pass right under the noses of the attendants.

    Quite simple, Denny assured himself as he sat patiently waiting for the Market gates to open. 

“Get out of my way, filth. You have no business in the Market by the looks a ya clothes!”

Denny shrunk back from the man obediently. He didn’t want attention to himself, and he already knew what happened when he backtalked men such as this stranger. He still bore that scar.

The grisly man pulled a cart of pathetic potatoes that probably hadn’t been come by honestly. Denny watched with a glare at the man’s back as he approached the gates when they ground inwards. The guards on the other side halted the man and searched him, nodding a quick assent when they found no weapons on him.

Rising casually, Denny slipped in behind a group of women with baskets, without a single look from a guard. They had seen Denny almost everyday go to the Market, so they didn’t bother to search him, an advantage aided by the fact that he was only ten years of age.

Now he had but to wait for Jock Larsey.

“Get away from my stand, boy. I don’t trust you a tick not to steal my vegetables. You an’ your folk are never honest about yer ways of gettin’ nourishment. Git!” The man made a shooing gesture.

Denny murmured an apology and scuttled out of the farmer’s vincity. It didn’t matter anyhow. Larsey was there. It was time to put his five years on the streets to good use. He snickered at the thought. More like “bad” use, and he was pretty good at it.

~~~

Denny’s good hand twitched. He was so close. Barely five steps away from his freedom. 

His hand slipped effortlessly behind him as he passed the stand, slipping a Pass off the stand so smoothly he could have been practising it his whole life. 

The next ten seconds were a flurry of thought and action. Denny focused so solely on slithering out of the crowd without drawing attention that he didn’t see the elegantly dressed man approaching from behind.

A cry of alarm and hopelessness caught in his throat as he felt a hand close around his wrist.

It was over.

Done.

He would be thrown in jail without any hope of ever fulfilling his dream.

“Listen, lad, if you wanted a Pass you could have asked. I ought to put you in jail, but I’m not inclined to do what you and everyone else expect of me.”

Denny forced his tears of hopelessness away and looked reluctantly at his captor, who looked at him in return with a mixture of sterness and amusement on his average, richest-man-in-the-city face. 

For indeed, he was none other than Jock Larsey himself, coming to rain doom on thieving, desperate cripps.

Instead of staring at his impending doom, Denny found himself marched towards Larsey’s carriage.... with over two hundred people watching him in disbelief.

Denny was half lifted into the carriage. He watched with apprehension as Larsey spoke to his attendants, gesturing to him, then at the Passes. He must be telling of Denny’s theft. His failed theft.

~~~

Larsey found Denny quite amusing. Denny, overwhelmed with surprise and joy, was grinning ear to ear and weeping at the same time. He was to be a street boy no more. Larsey had informed him that he was taking Denny in to be his page, a role emptied of its former occupant.

    It was not a minor thing.

    Larsey could have chosen any boy. He should have chosen a lad from a good family, not a crippled tramp.

    It was fate.

    It was kindness.

    Denny had somewhere to belong. He didn’t belong on the streets after all, he belonged with the richest, kindest man in the city. The man who didn’t believe in bad luck, or any luck at all.