Oh yes, why not wait and see if Danny could survive the tender care of Mrs. Jiggs? Why not see if he could survive one or two blows from Hawker’s gentle hand? Finally, why not wait and see if Robin himself could survive that same hand, or a factory, and stay alive long enough to protect his little brother, as he had promised he would do?
No! No! No! He really would be mad, raging mad, to go back into that building. How could he and Danny end up anything but dead, and have to suffer torture into the bargain? Better if they died on the streets, quickly—and together.
But Robin was not ready to die. Not just yet. Not now, when he had taken the daring first step in rescuing Danny and himself from Hawker Doak. But the second step would be far more difficult, and more perilous, as he now realized. For, though packing himself and Danny up to leave was perilous enough, what with Hawker asleep in the very next room, it had been done in a place Robin had known from the time he was a small boy. Now what he must do did not include a candle shedding its friendly little light on a familiar kitchen. This second step was to be more like stepping off a cliff into total darkness, not knowing where he and Danny would land or, if they survived the fall, what they would do when they landed. But it was a risk he was now determined to take.
The wind seemed to bite right through Robin’s jacket. Goosebumps rose on his arms. He was cold. He was tired. And now he wished he had finished his supper of stale bread, or at least packed the tag end of the loaf into his pocket. He had been so intent on preparing Danny for the flight that he had managed to forget all about himself. Danny, however, well-wrapped in his warm blanket, was still happily fast asleep.
Robin knew he could not stand there forever, trying to stay protected from the wind. What if the unthinkable happened and Hawker awoke to discover them gone? He might actually be glad to be rid of them, yet more than likely he would be enraged at being made a fool of. That would be quite enough to send him after them.
But there was something else—that pin and the object on a chain now residing in Robin’s jacket pocket. Why, Robin asked himself, had he taken those things? And what kind of harebrained idea was it anyway to go right into Hawker’s room where he lay snoring? Robin decided he must truly have been in a trance, and it was only his mama and papa looking down from heaven that had protected him. Further, the things he had taken were of absolutely no use to him, for it was money he would need, and not a pin and a—a—what was that other—a locket? Robin’s heart skipped a beat.
Mama had breathed a word that sounded like “locket” to him in the faintest whisper just before she died. But she had been too weak and too close to leaving this world to say more. Was this the locket she meant? Did it contain pictures of Mama and Papa? Thinking it was probably hidden from Hawker, Robin had searched desperately for it during the week he had been allowed to “snivel” over his mama. But he had found nothing.
Was it possible the locket he had accidentally pulled from Hawker’s forbidden drawer was the one? Could Hawker have found it himself and tossed it in along with all his other stolen jewelry? No, it was probably too much to hope. Taking the pin and locket had simply turned Robin into a thief, and would so infuriate Hawker if he found out about it, he would do all in his power to find and punish the culprit. So no, indeed, Robin could not remain standing where he was if he valued his and Danny’s lives.
The side street outside the building was deserted, silent but for an empty tin can caught by sudden gusts of wind that sent it clanking off down the sidewalk. The wind sent scraps of dirty paper fruitlessly chasing after it. As the moon was hidden behind scudding clouds, the only light now came from a solitary streetlamp flickering half a block away. Accompanied by the lonely, forlorn sound of the empty tin can, and only the blinking light ahead, Robin set out with his baby brother.
But Robin’s bold spirits soon gave way to terror. For though the tenement streets were bad enough earlier—with their shoddy storefronts, their street booths and peddlers’ carts and wagons selling rags and rotten fruits and vegetables, their street brawls and loud, noisy voices—at night they produced different kinds of horrors.
From countless establishments akin to The Whole Hog there poured streams of brutish men and frowzy women whose coarse laughter could turn to frightening shouts and curses at a moment’s notice. Dark entries to alleys became darker and more sinister. Stairwells were gaping black holes where who knew what kind of tramps and thieves roosted, sharing night quarters with rats that came up from the sewers. Even the boarded-up windows of crumbling buildings were ominous, for who knew what terrible secrets they hid that might be unleashed on the unwary passerby. About the only horrors not present were the gangs of street boys. It was too late at night even for them, and they must have been already holed up in their dens under a pier by the river, in the back of a wagon parked for the night, or in a large, abandoned iron pipe.
