Once again he started down the steps, and this time went all the way to the bottom of the stairwell. There he discovered it was colder than it had been at the top. No longer warmed by walking, he felt the cold digging all the way through his jacket into his bones. He began to shiver uncontrollably. And what of Danny? He was now snug and warm in his blanket cocoon, but would that cocoon be warm enough down in that stone well during the next few hours, the coldest time of the night?
Why, oh why, could they not be on the other side of that splintered old door? In a sudden burst of despair, Robin grabbed the door handle and began to rattle it, somehow pressing down on the latch as he did. And the door swung open.
Whether someone had forgotten to lock the door, or whether it always remained unlocked, made no difference to Robin. Whichever it was, it was some kind of miracle. He stepped through the doorway, and he and Danny were instantly wrapped in a blanket of warm air. A furnace was clearly at work someplace in the cellar. Yes, this was definitely a place where the two of them could spend the night. Robin closed the door behind him.
With the closing of the door, the pale light from the nearby street lamp was shut out, and the two were now plunged into total darkness. But Robin had seen doors when they came in, doors to rooms. A room was the safest place to be. If they remained in the hallway, they might be discovered in the morning. But how to find a room without first lighting a candle? To do that meant laying Danny down on the floor and risk waking him. Robin did not want to use one of his two precious bottles of milk to put Danny back to sleep, for they might be needed in the morning. Well, why not feel his way around the wall? Was that not what he had done that very morning when he was collecting rents? He was getting to be an old hand at it.
Feeling along the wall with one hand, he started down the hallway. He found a door almost immediately, but it was locked. So was the second. And third. So he went on. But the very next doorway was not only not locked, it was actually open. He walked through it and immediately came to a dead stop. He had heard curious scrambling, scratching sounds. Rats? What else could it be? And then he heard whispered voices that most assuredly did not come from rats.
“Why didn’ you close th’ door behind yerself, jackass?” whispered one voice.
“And who was it fergot to lock the other door behind their-selves, double jackass?” whispered a second.
“Well, what was you doin’ anyways, wakin’ us all up?” came the first voice again.
“Had ter go ter the terlit, if you got ter know,” was the reply.
“Aw, shut up, both o’ you,” whispered a third voice, which then added warily, “Who’s there? Who is it who jist come in?”
Robin stood paralyzed. He could not even have said his name for his life.
“Whoever it is ain’t speakin’ ter us,” came yet another voice. “Whyn’t you jist light yer candle up again, Piggy, an’ let’s us have a look.”
A match was struck, and a candle flared up. And Robin found himself looking into some of the meanest faces and sharpest eyes he had ever been that close to in his life, lodged in the bodies of four assorted boys. If ever he had looked at ragged street boys, he was surely looking at them now. A whole nest of them!
Chapter VII
St. Somethin’
For several moments the boys did nothing but stand and stare, although the fear in their faces instantly vanished as soon as they saw the nature of the unknown threat in the dark.
Then the boy with the candle, the smallest of the lot, who had a twisted leg that made him list heavily to one side, turned a pale, skinny face to the boy next to him. “Whyn’t you arsk him agin, Duck?”
The boy addressed as Duck blew off his forehead a spike of dirty yellow hair, one of several decorating the top of his head, and narrowed his heavy-lidded pale blue eyes at Robin. “All right, you, we’re arskin’ you perlitely this time. We ain’t goin’ ter arsk so perlitely next. Wot’s yer name, an wot’re you doin’ here?”
“I … I … I came in by accident,” quavered Robin, close to collapsing.
The weedy, redheaded boy with a map of freckles on his face, and ears that stuck out from his head like flapjacks, hitched up his pants with his elbows, all swagger and boldness now that they knew what they were dealing with. “Well, you can’t stay. Right, Duck?” he said.
“Right, Spider,” Duck replied through clenched teeth.
“I … I only wanted to stay the night where it’s warm,” said Robin faintly.
“An’ hidin’ wot you got in that bundle yer carryin’, an’ that bag.” The fourth boy swiped the drizzle from his stubby nose with the back of his arm, and then looked at the others with raised eyebrows. “An’ maybe leadin’ somebody chasin’ ‘im right here ter us. Ain’t that so?”
“Sounds so ter me, Mouse. You got a pernt.” Duck glared at Robin. “Wot you got in that there bundle?”
“It’s … it’s my baby brother,” Robin said. “And … and what’s in the bag are his milk, and …”
“He’s lyin’,” Spider interrupted.
“Lyin’,” agreed Mouse and Piggy.
“Show us wot you got,” Duck said. He took a menacing step toward Robin. “C’mon, show us.”
“Show us,” the boys echoed, following Duck.
It was at that moment, just as they were advancing on Robin, that
