City of Lies - Lian Tanner [26]
It sounded like a boy. Goldie roughened her own voice. “I’m—ah—lookin’ for a place to sleep. Me name’s G-Growl.”
“Yeah, and I’m Bald Thoke’s grannie. Ya think I’m stupid? You’s a girl.”
Goldie heard the scrape of a tinderbox and the light flared up again. She was right; it was a boy. He wore a homemade half-mask covered in pigeon feathers, and his skinny arms were wrapped in a blanket. The lantern he carried held a thick, oily-looking candle.
“I told you before, Mouse,” the boy said crossly. “Ya don’t bring no one else down ’ere. It’s just you and me, just Mousie and Pounce. Always ’as been, always will be.”
Mouse’s hands danced in a strange version of fingertalk. Something stirred in the back of Goldie’s mind.
Missing something, whispered the little voice. Missing something.…
“Help ’er?” The second boy looked at Goldie in disgust.
“We got enough trouble ’elpin’ ourselves.” He pointed to the cat. “And where did ya dig up that creepy-lookin’ thing?”
Mouse shrugged.
“Spose yer gunna give ’er our bed too,” muttered Pounce as he stalked back up the tunnel.
Mouse pushed the rattling, bumping pram in Pounce’s wake, and Goldie followed. Before long, they came to a place where the tunnel joined another one. The right-hand side of the new tunnel was blocked a little way in by a rockfall, and a blanket had been strung across it to make a room. There was a circle of stone in one corner, with a fire burning in it. Beside the fire, quilts and blankets were piled in a nest.
It was surprisingly warm in the little room. Goldie held her hands over the fire and rubbed them together to get the life back into them. The cat bumped against her legs and then, to her surprise, settled down next to her, its scratchy purr rumbling in its throat.
Goldie watched hungrily as Pounce took a half-loaf of bread, a jar of jam and a carrot out of a big square tin. He cut two thick slices from the loaf and smeared them with jam. Then he handed one slice to Mouse and bit into the other himself, his eyes glaring at Goldie from behind his mask.
“I ain’t givin’ you none,” he said. Jam glinted on his teeth. “You didn’t work for it, not like me and Mousie did.”
The white-haired boy wrinkled his forehead. Then he smiled at Goldie and handed her his slice of bread.
“Mouse,” said Pounce. “Don’t be soft! How many times do I ’ave to tell ya?”
The younger boy smiled again and held out his hand for the carrot. Pounce sighed, and cut it into a dozen tiny pieces. Goldie didn’t hear a signal, but the white mice came pouring out of the pram and scurried up Mouse’s back and onto his shoulders. They took the pieces of carrot from his fingers and carried them back to the pram. The cat watched them calmly, like a queen smiling upon her subjects.
“And what does that leave you?” said Pounce. “Nothin’. You’d starve to death if it wasn’t for me.”
He hacked another chunk off the loaf and slapped some jam on it. “There,” he muttered, handing it to Mouse. “Don’t give that one away or I’ll kill ya.”
The bread wasn’t fresh, but neither was it stale. Goldie chewed slowly, to make it last. She could hear the mice rustling in the bottom of the pram.
“Where ya from?” said Pounce through a mouthful of bread.
“Jewel.”
The boy sneered. “Ya think I’m stupid? People in Jewel got faces like dogs, and all their snotties is mad. They gotta chain ’em up or else they bites people to death.”
Mouse was nodding seriously. Goldie swallowed a laugh. “I—um—I slipped my chains and ran away.”
Pounce stared at her for a long moment, as if he was trying to decide whether she was dangerous. Then he sniffed and leaned back on his elbow. “So. What’s a mad snotty from Jewel doin’ in Spoke?”
Goldie knew that she was going to need help to find her friends and get them away from Harrow and his men. But she hadn’t forgotten the bandmaster’s reaction, so she merely said, “I’ve got a job to do.”
“Don’t pay too well, if you ’ave to sleep in this grand ’otel.” Pounce waved his hand around the smoky den.