You begin to move towards him, but the next time he turns away, you duck behind a stall selling yards of cloth.
You take a deep breath, and then run like the wind. Your new leather shoes pinch at your feet. You don’t dare look behind you for Earl; you only pray you had enough of a head start and that he’s lost you.
You make for the edge of the marketplace, ducking around baskets and squeezing between people like a mouse in a kitchen. You feel as though you might just make it … not far now!
You squeal as someone catches your arm in a vice-like grip. Fingernails dig into you, and you look up to see Miriam’s face, tight-lipped with fury, her eyes gleaming in triumph.
‘I thought you might try something like this,’ she hisses. A couple of people turn to stare. ‘Darling!’ she exclaims abruptly, in a voice as sweet as toffee. ‘Mummy was so worried! Come along now!’
She yanks you out of the marketplace, despite your best efforts to kick her in the shins.
Back at the thieves’ den, Earl wheedles: ‘What say I go to the poorhouse this time, Miriam? I can pick them better! You always bring back feisty ones who run off.’
‘Shut up,’ snarls Miriam. She yanks the rope she’s tied around your wrists even tighter.
‘I’ll be good!’ you squeal. ‘I won’t run away again! Give me another chance!’
‘If chances were pennies, lass, then you’d be dead broke,’ chuckles Earl. ‘Though as it is … I guess you’ll just be dead.’
Earl pulls a hessian sack over your head. You fight to breathe.
The last thing you hear is his voice: ‘Oh well, there are always more girls wanting to go to Madam Miriam’s Maid School.’
Then Miriam knocks you over the head with a frying pan, and everything goes black.
To return to your last choice and try again, go to scene 4.
The sky is grey and the wind is biting. Your hands are cuffed in front of you with heavy chains. The constable prods you roughly in your back with his truncheon every few paces, making you stumble as you approach Newgate Prison on shaking legs.
You turn a corner and see the front wall of the gaol, a towering edifice of bluestone. There is an enormous wooden platform erected outside the front gate – the gallows. An empty noose swings from its frame. A knot of nausea tightens in your stomach, and you keep your face turned away from the gallows as you pass. When you first came to London, you and Ma heard cheering and, thinking it was a carnival and hoping to see travelling performers, you followed the noise to the front of the gaol – just as a condemned man dropped to his death. You both looked away in horror, but too late. You can’t ever forget that sight. Is that what will happen to me too? you wonder. You try to shove the thought out of your mind.
Though the light from the wintry sky is weak, you shiver as you come under the shadow cast by the forbidding bulk of Newgate Prison. The bluestone walls seem designed to block out any glimmer of light, or hope of escape. You shudder as the gates creak open. You don’t know how long you will be locked in here before you are sentenced and learn your fate: it could be months, or years. All you know is that inside the gaol is the stuff of nightmares: rats that nibble your ears and fingertips off while you sleep; sicknesses that can strike a hundred prisoners dead in a week; lice that infest your hair, clothes and skin. Newgate Prison is a deep, black pit, seething with violent criminals. No candle to light your way. No parents to protect you.
Standing in the iron gateway, you baulk like a nervy horse. Your legs have stopped working: you know you have to take the next step inside the gaol, but you can’t do it. Goodbye, sky. Goodbye, fresh air. Goodbye to being able to run, or climb a tree, or jump a stream. Your knees are knocking.
The constable has seen this before: he swings his truncheon hard against the tendons at the back of your knees, making your legs buckle forward, and you stumble inside the gaol. As the gates clang closed behind you, your heart begins to pound so violently that you feel you might be sick.
Tears leak from your eyes, but you clench your teeth fiercely. You manage to raise your chained hands to your face to wipe the tears away. To be seen crying in front of the other prisoners would mark you out as a weakling. You will have to be tougher than old boots to get by in here – and fierce and vigilant to stop the precious bracelet in your hem being discovered, and stolen from you. You’re certain there will be people in here, both prisoners and wardens, who’d happily murder you for half as much.
A warden unlocks your handcuffs and hustles you forward down a corridor, deeper inside the gaol. The stench that fills this place – a putrid odour of sewage and rotting filth – is so vile that it feels like a living thing, forcing itself into your nostrils and down your throat. You breathe carefully through your mouth, trying not to gag or pass out.
The cell you are thrown into is dank and subterranean, about the size of a barn but with a low ceiling. It’s crowded with about fifty ragged women and a few children. Mercifully, it has an opening in one of its slimy, black stone walls – a window lined with iron bars, at head height. The window lets in a little light and air, and through it
