THE ALLEYWAY

I had thought that the shed was the worst place we would ever stay. I was wrong.

We slept in loads of different places after we left the shed and none of them were good. The night before we found the mill we were in one of our spots. It was in a quiet alleyway that ran between two streets. There was a doorway where we could hide in the shadows and not be seen as long as we slept close together, which was fine cos by then it was the middle of winter and it was real cold.

We had hardly eaten all day and Ma totally forgot to go find food for me. But Ma couldn’t remember anything that day. That day, she could hardly speak. She was just waiting till she had enough coins so she could buy what she needed and then we went back to the doorway in the alley.

Our sleeping bags had got wet a few nights before and they hadn’t dried, and I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for a sausage roll that I’d seen someone chuck in the bin that morning, which was hours and hours ago.

I told Ma I was hungry but she didn’t listen to me. Instead she fell back into that doorway, and I turned away cos I didn’t want to watch her eyes go all empty and I didn’t want her to see me cry. That night she wouldn’t have cared anyway and that would have made it even worse.

After a while, she went all limp like she always did. But my stomach hurt. I knew I wasn’t supposed to leave her, especially at night cos anyone could grab me at night, not just the Authorities who were always looking for me, but anyone at all, a total stranger, and if they took me, Ma wouldn’t have a notion where to find me. I knew that.

But I was so cold and so hungry. So I went out to the street to see if anyone else had thrown their food into a bin, just cos they didn’t like it.

There was no one on the street. It was too cold. I reckoned everyone was probably inside watching TV and eating eggs and chips, cos that’s what I’d be doing if I wasn’t me. I remember my breath made clouds in the air and my fingers stung real bad. And I pretended my breath-clouds made an invisible cloak around me that kept me safe.

I walked away from the alley and down the street to the walls of the university. I kept close to the wall and I had to run between the patches on the path where the street lights stole away my invisibility. I walked slower through the dark patches.

I stopped when I could see the big gates to the university. There was a massive stone arch there, with doorways and sheltered parts. It was a place where you’d always find people sleeping with their cardboard boxes beneath them and their sleeping bags around them and their bags under their heads so no one could take them. I even recognized one man. He was tall and looked like, even if you fed him for a year, he’d still be all bones and shadows.

There were two people with him that were wearing gloves and hats and heavy jackets. One was carrying this big box with a strap that went over his shoulder while the other, who I think was a woman, scooped out soup in a cup and handed it to the bony man. I could see the steam rising from the cup even from where I was standing and that was worse than having no food at all.

I wanted to go up and ask for a cup real bad, but I knew I couldn’t.

So I didn’t move, I just stood there and watched and listened to my stomach rumble. I saw a copper come up and talk to the Do-gooders and look all around him and then walk off, and I knew Ma was right – that the Do-gooders were spies for the police and nowhere was safe, especially at night, and I wanted to cry. All I wanted was some soup.

‘You all right?’ someone said, and I nearly jumped out of my skin with fright. I hadn’t even noticed a man and woman walk up right beside me, and I was about to run till I saw her face. She was real tall, much taller than him, and she was dressed in high shoes. I could see her legs, which meant she must have been wearing a dress, but I couldn’t see it cos she had a long red jacket on. But she wasn’t looking at me. She was watching the Do-gooders and she seemed bored, and I knew that the man wasn’t going to hurt me, cos he was with the woman and she just wanted to get to wherever they were going. So I didn’t run.

‘Freezing, isn’t it? Must be twenty degrees. Or even less,’ he said in this weird accent, and he looked at the Do-gooders for a while. ‘You on your own?’ he asked.

I answered, ‘No,’ real quick.

But then he said, ‘Hungry?’ And I couldn’t say anything.

He lifted a paper bag and opened it up and pulled out a burger. It wasn’t even open, it was still in the paper box. He held it out. ‘Bought it for my friend,’ he said. ‘But he’s gone off somewhere. Have it, if you want. I’m stuffed.’

And I did want it real bad, so I took it and he said, ‘Okay, see you later,’ and they went off down the road. When I took it out, it was big and round, and it was one of those ones with two burgers between the buns, and it was still warm and everything so I ate it right up, the whole thing, standing there by the wall. And I only thought about keeping some for Ma when it was all gone, and then I felt real bad so I ran back.

I went straight to the doorway and pulled my sleeping bag around me and I didn’t say anything to Ma. I just rolled myself up as tight as I could and went to sleep.

But I woke up cos it got real cold. So cold that I went all numb and I couldn’t feel anything. I rolled over to try to get close to Ma, and that’s when I realized. She wasn’t there.

I was sure she’d been there when I got back, but she wasn’t there now.

And I got real scared cos what if she’d been taken away and locked up and I hadn’t even noticed she was gone and that was hours and hours ago? What if whoever took her came back for me and took me away into Care and she never found me again? But I couldn’t think of anything to do. So I lay there and waited.

I remember I was shaking cos I was real scared and real cold. But it got colder and colder, and the night went on for so long that I thought that maybe I’d just imagined the burger.

Then, from far off, I heard a siren wailing. It got closer. And closer.

Blue lights were bouncing off the walls of the alleyway. Yellow Jackets were jumping out of a van. Coming for me.

I sprang up. Slipped out. Sprinted real quiet down the alleyway.

I hid in the next doorway.

I peeped around the corner and saw them stop by our stuff and crouch down. I thought the burger man must have told them about me and when they saw I wasn’t there they would start looking for me, so I stood as straight as I could and tried to become invisible.

It must have worked. Cos they never found me.

But I remember them lifting something up onto this tray that was so big, it took two men to carry it between them. There was a blanket on the tray. But it wasn’t a blanket, not like Caretaker’s. It was a black rubber sheet.

There were Yellow Jackets everywhere. Too many. I couldn’t escape.

But then Ma was there.

Through the blue and the yellow she came. She took me by the hand. And we walked away. Away from the Authorities.