“Nobody’s goin’ ter pick ’im up,” said Mouse. “It don’t even work when you take babies and leave ’em right on the doorstep o’ rich people’s houses. Me ma had thoughts o’ it til she found out wot happens ter them babies wot gits left on doorsteps.”
“Rich people got their own babies,” Duck broke in. “They don’t want none wot come from the tenements. Nex’ mornin’ after the baby gits left, he gits took ter the police station. It spends a cozy night there, then gits took ter a infants’ hospital off on an islan’ someplace. Don’t last long there neither. Not ’cause it gits took someplace else, but ’cause it dies, makin’ room fer the nex’ one. So wot you goin’ ter do next?”
What Robin was going to do next was throw his hands to his face to hide the tears that had flooded his eyes. Crying in front of street boys! Sure death! But his life was no longer worth much anyway. His only hope for saving Danny had just been snatched away from him. Running away had indeed been madness. There was nothing left for him but to return to Hawker Doak. Let these street boys tease and taunt him. What difference did it make now?
And then he felt a grimy, torn rag poked into his hands.
“Did yer ma send you ter do it?” Duck asked. His voice was perfectly flat, no hint of teasing or taunting in it.
Robin shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the rag. “She’s dead,” he mumbled into it.
“Wot ’bout yer pa?” asked Spider.
Robin looked up from the rag. “He died a year ago.”
“So you been livin’ by yerself with yer brother?” asked Piggy.
“No,” replied Robin. “We were with my stepfather.”
“Were he the one wot sent you ter leave yer brother on the church steps?” asked Duck. Robin shook his head again. “It … it was my idea.”
Piggy frowned. “An’ he never done nothin’ ’bout stoppin’ you?”
“He never knew I was going to do it,” said Robin. “He doesn’t even know I’ve gone. I … I … I’m running away from him.”
The boys all looked at one another. “Were he hittin’ you?” Mouse asked.
Robin nodded. “But that wasn’t why I was running away. It was because I saw he was going to hit my baby brother. I snatched him away, but what if I wasn’t there next time? Next time he might be killed.”
“An’ he ain’t got no ma ter pertect ’im neither,” said Spider.
“So wot you goin’ ter do?” Mouse asked.
Robin shrugged. “Go back to him, I guess. He’s sending me to the factories. I’m eleven, but he’s making me lie and say I’m fourteen. My brother gets put in a baby farm. I expect he’ll die there if my stepfather doesn’t kill him. It’s … it’s murder either way.”
“You said as how yer step-pa hits you?” Duck asked. “Did he hit you hard?”
Robin nodded.
“If you got bruises ter prove it, why not you show us?” said Duck.
“Why’d you want ’im ter do that, Duck?” Spider asked.
“Prove he’s not lyin’,” said Duck.
“Wot do we care?” Mouse said. “He’s only stayin’ the night.”
“I’d jist like ter know,” Duck said. He gave Robin a narrow-eyed look. “C’mon, show us!”
Robin agreed with Mouse. What difference did it make if he had bruises or not? But Duck appeared to be the ringleader of this batch of street boys, and could send Robin back out into the chilling night with Danny, to make his way back to Hawker Doak. Robin threw off his jacket and dropped it on the floor. Then he started to peel off his shirt.
“All right!” Duck said quickly. “You don’t got ter go no further. If yer willin’ ter show ’em, then you must got ’em. But now I’m arskin’ you ter take yerself out inter the hallway and close the door behin’ you. I got ter have a meetin’ with me friends here.”
“The friends” looked as puzzled as Robin felt as he trailed into the hallway and closed the door. But he was ready to do anything asked of him as long as he could stay the rest of the night, and Danny was not in danger. And who knew but what in the morning with his mind clearer, he might have some new idea as to where he and Danny could go that was not back to Hawker.
But the longer Robin stood outside the door in the dark hall, the more he began to think about a new worry. Street boys were pickpockets and thieves, were they not? And there was his jacket lying on the floor in that room without its owner inside it. The two dollars and fifty cents could disappear. The pin and locked could disappear, so if he had to go back to Hawker, they could not be secretly returned to the drawer. And the treasured nickel watch that belonged to his papa could also disappear. It seemed an eternity before the door opened and he was invited back into the candlelit room.
Piggy, Mouse, and Spider were staring at him with curious half grins on their faces. Duck, on the other hand, looked deadly serious.
“Seen yer eyes flippin’ over ter yer jacket,” he said. “But you don’t got ter worry none. Wotever you got in it ain’t been touched. We don’t steal no more, an’ we especial don’t steal from someone wot’s one o’ us. An’ we believes now as how yer that. We never knowed fer certain. You talk better’n us, an’ you ain’t near so raggy lookin’. It’s why I had to arsk you ’bout them bruises. Wanted ter prove you wasn’t lyin’ ’bout nothin’. An’ we all b’lieves as you wasn’t. So, at our meetin’ I arsked everyone ter put up a hand if they wanted ter arsk you ter join up with us, an’ everyone put up their hand. So now I’m arskin’ you.”
Robin’s knees felt weak. Most
