The Several Lives of Orphan Jack Read online

  The numbers piled up in Otherjack’s head like potato peelings in a slop pail.

  Fourteen plus twenty-three equals thirty-seven, carry the three. Otherjack carried the three. Gleeful three was overjoyed to jump over a column. Otherjack’s eyes were sliding shut. The scratching of pens was joined by the sound of a fly buzzing against the window.

  Two of the bookkeepers happened to meet and pause close to Otherjack’s desk.

  Words! He was hungry for words. He could not help eavesdropping.

  “ …adjust the partner’s account in the case of the dissolved partnership… examine the disputed account… report for the arbiter… ”

  Arbiter. Otherjack ran the word around in his mouth. What does an arbiter do? If a drinker drinks, then an arbiter must arbit.

  “Boy!”

  Mr. Ledger’s crow voice cawed right in Otherjack’s ear. Otherjack jumped and clutched the book in front of him. The book shifted and knocked over the ink pot. A river of black ran down the page of numbers, off the edge of the page, off the edge of the desk, as Otherjack watched, paralyzed.

  Mr. Ledger was very loud and then he was very quiet. When he was loud he told Otherjack that he was the most useless, bone-headed dullard that they had ever had the misfortune to employ as an apprentice. Then he was quiet and pulled a small black accounts book out of his pocket and did some fast arithmetic.

  “Eleven weeks’ wages,” said Mr. Ledger. “That is the sum of what you now owe us.”

  As Otherjack trudged back to school, his day’s work ended, a light rain began to fall. His hand was cramped, his eyes burned and his brain was numb. Mr. Ledger’s scornful voice rang in his ears. With every step he recited a day of the week, a month of the year, and then the years themselves. More numbers. Endless combinations of the same ten things.

  This was it? This was his Opportunity? A brain full of arithmetic and no room for a single dream?

  Sums, sameness and scorn, said Otherjack to himself. That’s the life of a Ledger lad.

  Chapter Six

  OTHERJACK lay on his narrow bed and stared at his inky fingers in the moonlight. Sleep was as far away as Zanzibar. He reached for the familiar comfort of his dictionary and began to flip through its pages. Then he slapped the book down on the blanket.

  What was the use of a dictionary without B’s? What was the use of a dictionary that didn’t warn you about bookkeeping?

  Seven years. That’s how long an apprenticeship lasted. By the time he left Ledger and Ledger he would be an old man of nineteen with a brain as tight as a sausage stuffed with sums and a spirit as small and hard as a dried pea.

  He lay listening to the breathing of the boys around him in the dormitory. Cold stale air moving from bed to bed, boy to boy. In and out of Edwin, in and out of Alfie, in and out of Michael, in and out of Marcus.

  It could be worse, he said to himself, thinking of Rupert. Rupert was apprenticed to a surgeon. His Opportunity was all bones and blood, and one of his jobs was to collect leeches.

  Or he could be Harold, who was apprenticed to a blacksmith. Once he got a bad burn that made him weep in the night and left an ugly, shiny, puckered patch on his arm.

  Otherjack could stay out of trouble. He could make the best of it.

  Suddenly a voice interrupted his thoughts. This voice was loud and bold and bossy. It came from somewhere near Otherjack’s stomach.

  YOU’RE TRAPPED!

  “What?”

  IT’S YOUR LIFE!

  “But… ”

  GO! JUST GO!

  “How could I… ?”

  RUN AWAY!

  “I can’t. Remember when Rupert tried? They’ll find me and fetch me back and flog me. Besides, where could I… ?”

  THE SEA, OF COURSE! THE SEA!

  The sea. Otherjack remembered Cook’s stories. The sea that lives where the sun comes up. Birds fishing and wild waves and the way the water breathes at the turn of the tide.

  “But when… ?”

  RUN AT DAWN!

  Otherjack’s feet hit the cold floor before he knew he had made a decision. He pulled his box from under his bed. He spared a kind thought for Lady Duff as he laid his second-best shirt out on the floor.

  Two shirts. One to wear and one to bundle. On the shirt he arranged his dictionary, now forgiven, his pre-Opportunity trousers and his Benevolent socks.

  LUNCH!

  Oh, yes. He hadn’t eaten his lunchtime buns and cheese, because he had spent his break scrubbing ink off his desk. He added them to the small pile.

  Carefully he folded and tied the shirt, turning the sleeves into a handle. Then he dressed and sat on the floor, leaning back against the bed, clutching his bundle and waiting for the first hint of dawn through the high dormitory window.

  Boldness and bundles, he said to himself. That’s the life of an ex-bookkeeper.

  Two shirts. One to wear and one to bundle.

  Chapter Seven

  EVERYTHING was too loud. The creak of the third stair. The comments of the kitchen cat. The screech of the door latch. The beating of Otherjack’s heart.

  Outside he huddled close to the corner of the brick wall and stared down the drive — the long straight drive. No curve or bush to hide an escaping boy.

  The sky lightened from pewter to silver.

  Otherjack’s staying-out-of-trouble voice had a quiet comment.

  “Usually we stays where we’re put.”

  Somewhere a window slid open.

  We DON’T STAY! WE RUN!

  Otherjack’s stomach issued the command and together they leapt five giant crunching steps over the gravel drive and onto the grass. Running, Otherjack felt eyes drilling into his back, and with every gasping step he expected to hear the voice of Keen or Bane, the voice of discovery. Half slipping on the dewy lawn, he sprinted toward the front gate. Minutes that felt like hours later he slid between its iron railings, unnoticed. Turning, he took one deep breath and one last look at the staring windows of the school as they turned pink in the dawn.

  “The sea is where the sun comes up.” The road to the left was patched with light and shadow.

  Come along here, it said. I know you. I have trees. I will hide you.

  But the road straight ahead, wide and open, ended in the rising sun. So, feeling like the only upright thing in a flat world, Otherjack set off.

  Conspicuous, he said to himself. Like sticking out, but more so.

  Holding his bundle over his shoulder, he began to trot. He was the only thing moving. He glanced over his shoulder. The school seemed as big and near as ever. A gull screamed overhead, and Otherjack’s stomach tried to jump out his throat.

  FASTER!

  Otherjack obeyed, pausing only to take off his jacket and tie it around his waist. At every step he expected to feel a heavy hand clamping onto his shoulder.

  Field after bare field, their crops harvested.

  Finally he saw the beginning of low scrubby green. A wood. Safety. A final sprint took him deep into shade and cover.

  Shade, cover, one deep breath and…

  WHERE’S BREAKFAST?

  Otherjack was just swinging his bundle over his shoulder to look into the possibility of breakfast when he heard it. The sound of hoofbeats. He glanced back into the bright sun and saw a small shape on the road. Small but getting bigger.

  He imagined early morning at the school. An unmade bed, an empty place at breakfast.

  He was discovered.

  HIDE!

  Otherjack threw himself headfirst into the bushes at the side of the path. Ow! Not bushes but brambles. They tore at his clothes, his bundle. The hoofbeats were louder. He pushed his way into the snarly, grabbing thicket and fell through on the other side. He took half a breath of relief before he felt
an unusual airiness around his ears.

  His cap.

  He peered back through the leaves. There it was, bright orange and blue, beyond reach. It might as well have been a sign saying, “Opportunities Boy This Way.” And the hoofbeats were getting louder.

  The hedge was taller than Otherjack, and there was a narrow dirt track along its inside edge.

  RUN!

  No point, said Otherjack. A horse is faster than a boy and a man on a horse is taller than a hedge.

  Just then Otherjack heard the hollow plonk-plonk of many bells, and around the corner of the path appeared a herd of sheep — a white river of wool and feet. Following them was a shepherd, smiling and smoking a pipe.

  “Otherjack!” a voice bellowed from beyond the hedge.

  DIVE!

  With one startled glance at the shepherd, Otherjack dropped his bundle and launched himself in among the sheep. He crouched down, and their soft strong bodies closed over the top of him. Waddling like a duck, he moved along with them.

  “Here! You!” It was the familiar voice of Bane. “Seen a lad pass this way?”

  There was the bubbling sound of a pipe being sucked. “Lad?”

  “Yes, lad.”

  “What sort of lad?”

  “The plain sort, you loblolly. Stripling, tow-headed. Have you seen him?”

  There was a pause. Otherjack’s knees began to burn, and he abandoned his duck walk and fell to crawling. He grabbed onto the sheep in front of him and knee-walked along, narrowing his eyes against the puffing dust and trying to ignore the smell of back end of sheep.

  “Can’t say I’ve seen such a one come this way,” said the shepherd.

  “Pah! What good are you then? Good day to you.” Otherjack heard the horse whinny.

  He abandoned his duck walk and fell to crawling.

  “Did see such a one elsewhere, though,” said the shepherd thoughtfully.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so at once? Where, you numble-gut?”

  Otherjack and his sheep escort party moved out of earshot.

  Some minutes later the sheep-river halted.

  “Come on out then, you bleatincheat,” said a laughing voice.

  Otherjack stood up and drank in a deep breath of lovely air. Then he made his way to the bank of the sheep-river.

  “What was that you called me?”

  “Bleatincheat. Sheep, by another name. I’m Gabriel. Are you the Otherjack that yon bacon-face was bothered about?”

  “Yes.” Otherjack paused.

  Was he Otherjack? He had made his great escape. He had been clever and quick. He wasn’t Other anything.

  “But I’m really just Jack. Thank you for hiding me.”

  “Well, my fine black-faced ladies did the hiding. All I did was spin a tale.” Gabriel sucked on his pipe, peered into its depths and then put it in his pocket. “Bacon-face is on his way north, by the way. You’d best stay clear of those parts. On a flit, are you?”

  “Yes. I’ve run away from school and I’m off to the sea. But they are trying to fetch me back.”

  “Happy to help, then. I’ve been on a flit my own self once upon a time. And in this old world I’m more for the flitters than the fetchers.” Gabriel gave Jack a mighty pat on the back. “Good luck to you, Jack. Cheerio.” The plonk of bells began again as the river started to move.

  Jack slapped the dust from his clothes, gave a big sneeze and went back to collect his bundle. He pushed his way back through the hedge and picked up his cap. He stuck it in his pocket. No point traveling the roads as a marked man.

  For the rest of the day Jack walked. Brown field, green field, flowered wood and rocky hill. It was the most ordinary and the most extraordinary thing he had done in his whole trouble-slipping life. He stuck a stick through the sleeves of his shirt bundle and balanced it over his shoulder. It bounced with every step.

  With every step he left a little bit of Otherjack behind in the dust. No bells, no rules, no masters. His shadow followed him and then he followed his shadow as he made his way toward the sea. He skipped and danced and strolled and knew without a glimmer of a doubt that he could do it. He could walk anywhere. To the sea. To Zanzibar. To the rest of his life.

  Flitters and fetchers and friends, said Jack to himself. That’s the life of a wandering boy.

  Chapter Eight

  AT DUSK Jack came to a patch of blackberries. The berries were as fat and sweet as jam. He picked and ate, picked and ate. Dessert is before dinner in the dictionary, he said to himself, so why not in life? Dinner was a bun and cheese and then he had dessert all over again until he was purple and yawning with contentment.

  SLEEP!

  Jack looked around. The blackberry patch made a very good kitchen but a very poor bedroom. He thought of his bed at school — a hard straw mattress, a thin scratchy blanket that smelled of dust. It wasn’t a good bed but at least you could count on it being there every night.

  Haystack? Hollow stump? Abandoned hut? Jack walked on into the growing darkness, but he saw none of these.

  Finally, in the last glimmer of daylight, he spied a large chestnut tree in the middle of a field. It looked thick and safe.

  The tree turned out to be made for climbing, with sturdy branches like a ladder. Jack tied his bundle around his waist and climbed until he reached a pair of broad branches arranged like an armchair. He pulled off his boots. The bundle became a pillow, and the last thing Jack saw before he dropped into sleep was a single star winking through the green hands of leaves above him.

  * * *

  He woke up in thin daylight with the wisps of a dream and no idea where he was. Dripping ink, sheep singing sea shanties. He pulled his scattered thoughts together.

  For the first morning of his life he had woken up, not to the loud clanging of the dormitory bell and the rebreathed air of twenty boys, but to sunshine, new air and his own plan.

  He tossed his boots and bundle to the base of the tree, then slid off his branch until he was hanging by two hands. He swung back and forth — a monkey or a pendulum or an acrobat. Then, with a whoop, he dropped to the ground.

  A second later he was gasping with pain. His feet were burning. He peeled off his socks to investigate. A day of tramping in Opportunities boots had left his feet a sorry mess, with raw bleeding patches and shiny pink blisters.

  How could he walk? Unlacing his boots until they were gaping wide, he tried to slide his feet into them. But every crack in the boots, every rough place, every sticking-up nail made his feet burn with pain.

  Water would help. Jack remembered the stone bridge he had crossed the night before, not too far away. He tied his boots together and put them around his neck and set off barefoot. The soft cool dust of the road eased his slow limp to the stream.

  He slid down the grassy bank and dunked his feet into the cool water.

  Aaaaah.

  BREAKFAST!

  Jack slurped up a big drink of water and then took out the last of his food. One bun, rather stale. One apple. He ate them slowly, making the most of each chew. He peered into the lazy stream. Those feet, bloody and blistered, were not going to take him anywhere soon.

  Water. Blackberries. How would he find anything else to eat? A small worm of fear began to wriggle inside him.

  He picked up his dictionary and began to flip.

  Vicissitude. A change in fortune.

  He flopped back onto the grass and let his eyes fall shut.

  “Traveling?”

  Opening his eyes, Jack saw a face peering over the edge of the bridge — a wrinkled, brown, bearded face with the halo of a grubby leather hat brim.

  “Why, yes,” said Jack. “I am.”

  “Where?” said the face.

  “The sea,” said Jack.

 
“Fair?” said the face.

  Jack was mystified. Was what fair? It seemed easiest to just say yes.

  “Come,” said the face and disappeared.

  Jack scooped up his things and scrambled up the bank to see a rickety cart full of pumpkins. Hitched to the cart was a horse wearing a straw hat. The face of few words was holding the reins. He gave Jack a glance, clicked his tongue to the horse and gestured with his thumb over his shoulder.

  Jack pulled himself up over the back and tumbled into the pumpkins.

  As the cart began to roll away, Jack pulled himself up over the back and tumbled into the pumpkins. He wriggled his way around the lumps and found a spot where he could lie down. He stared at the deep blue sky with its smear of thin white cloud, even now being polished away by the sun. The wheels squeaked, the harness creaked, the horse whinnied, and Jack gave himself up to the pleasure of being still and moving at the same time.

  As the day woke up, the road came to life. Walkers appeared with baskets and barrows. A woman with a big white bundle on her head, a skinny girl herding a skinny goat, a man pushing a mysterious stone wheel, a boy with a set of bagpipes on his back.

  They all seemed to know the pumpkin man.

  “Good morning, Abe.”

  “Off to Aberbog, are you?”

  “Grand weather for it.”

  “’day,” said Abe, raising his hand just once.

  Larger carts and wagons with lively horses edged by as they creaked down the dusty road. A caravan in bright rainbow colors turned in from a crossroad and lumbered ahead of Abe’s cart. A green parrot screeched in a cage that swung from a hook above its back door.

  At first Jack tried to hide, in case there were searchers on the road. But there was too much to notice in the stream of people that eddied around them. Besides, he reasoned, a young man in search of his fortune does not cower in the bottom of a cart, listening to his stomach rumbling and pretending to be a pumpkin. He looks around boldly to see what the world has to offer.