This story began HERE
I've decided on a WiP Title and here's what I've been working on today:
Declan, third in line for leadership of the Turnstile Crew, watched from a high vantage point as the little kid worked. The kid had caught his eye because he was so perfectly indescribable that he blended into the background and went about his business unnoticed by the adults on the street.
The little kid leaned on a lamp post, half in shadow, and waited for the perfect mark to approach. A cluster of people walking in one direction created a bottle-neck just by the lamp post. The kid slunk closer to the wall, further out of sight of the mark and Declan only saw the kid’s hand snake out and grab something from the mark’s jacket because he was looking for something out of the ordinary. The man didn’t notice a thing and the kid dropped close to the ground, behind a couple of boxes, and further out of sight, just in case he turned around.
The kid looked up and saw Declan’s face peering over the balcony two floors above. His eyebrows flicked in surprise but he kept his cool and emerged from behind the lamp post to mingle with the crowds.
Declan lost sight of him for a moment, but experience of street-life gave him an educated guess as to where the kid would be after a few moments and Declan picked him out again as the kid ducked into an abandoned garden. Declan knew the garden and the house and he realised the kid was taking shelter there. He hopped over the balcony wall, dropped down onto a flat roof and scrambled down a drainpipe to land in a filthy alleyway. He came out of the alley, looked both ways and made his way toward the house where he last saw the kid.
He went past the garden where the kid had gone and continued along the road, looking around as though searching for something. Two houses down and he performed the same vanishing trick the kid had, and dropped out of sight below a wall. He scuttled along the wall until he came to a path leading between the houses, towards the back yards.
Declan ran along the back wall of the row of houses and turned up the alley where he estimated the kid was taking shelter. Half way up that alley, a back door into the house looked securely locked, but Declan knew better. He pushed the bottom of the door and it folded back into the house. He bent low and went inside.
If he had discovered the kid immediately, his search would have been over and he’d have taken the stuff the kid had stolen and left him to it, but the kid was nowhere to be found on the ground floor. The bottom steps had disintegrated and fallen into the cellar decades before, but Declan knew the house well. He placed one foot on the bottom of the banister, where it was attached to the floor and pushed himself up to grab for the banister further up the staircase. He swung himself up and scrambled onto the sixth step. The fifth step was a booby-trap and would have dropped him into the cellar.
He knew he’d made more noise than he should have and he heard sounds of panicked retreat from the floor above. Declan raced to the top of the steep stairs, into the bedroom where the noise had come from and he saw the kid scrambling out of the window.
“It’s OK, kid, I’m not the law,” he said. He didn’t pursue the kid because he wanted to reassure him that he was telling the truth.
The kid looked back, but leaped from the window and made his escape. Declan waited.
A few minutes passed and Declan was about to give up and make his own way out, when he heard someone coming in through the back door, the same way he’d come in. He kept quiet and waited. The stairs creaked slightly as the kid made his way up in a more elegant manner than Declan had.
A face peered over the top step of the stairs and Declan remained quiet and still. He didn’t smile but managed to keep the usual bad-tempered glare from his expression – the best he could manage at a silent welcome.
“Come on up, kid,” he said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Are you here to take the stuff I stole?”
“A word of advice, kid,” he said. “Never admit you stole anything. You found it and was trying to find the rightful owner, OK?”
After a moment of thought, the kid nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Where are you from?” Declan said.
“Nah, I’m not telling you that,” the kid said with a sideways glance and a sideways smile.
“Fair enough. Name?”
“Charlotte.”
Declan prided himself on never getting taken by surprise, but his eyebrows flicked in much the same way the kid’s had earlier when she saw him looking down from the balcony.
“Yeah, that won’t work,” Declan said.
“Yeah, I realise that,” she said. “How about a nickname?”
“You have one to hand?”
“No, not really. My dad used to call me Squib.”
“Squid?”
She laughed. “No, Squib, with a buh.”
“OK, whatever that means. How long have you been on the street?”
“These streets or any street?”
“Any.”
“My dad was killed a couple of months ago and my mum died a few weeks ago, but I’ve been taking care of myself since dad died.”
Declan nodded. “Yeah, it’s tough. You’ve not done too bad though, you’ve learned a lot. I saw you lift that wallet.”
“Yeah, Dad taught me everything I know. I’ve been putting it all into practice since he died.”
More tomorrow