Page 38 of Strangers in Time

A F RESH P LAN

T HREE NIGHTS LATER , C HARLIE peered straight up at the ceiling of his cupboard and wondered about things. It had rained on him coming home from a nighttime excursion where he had cleaned debris from a boat docked on the Thames for two shillings plus a quarter-loaf of bread and a wedge of cheddar to line his empty belly. He had dried off as best he could so Gran wouldn’t know he’d been out. He doubted he could use the lice excuse a second time.

He eyed the journal with the thought of transforming it into five quid. Would Miss Virginia Woodley of King he could hear it beating against the darkened panes of the window in the other room. It would be chilly and damp tomorrow, and he worried about Gran getting the cold in her chest. Most medicines were going to the soldiers, as was proper. He would have to watch her carefully. And maybe with some of his future wages he could buy her some cough syrup from the chemist down the street.

Then his thoughts turned to Molly and their meeting with Mr. Oliver. She had lied to him, Charlie believed. Her father wasn’t at the Ministry of Foods; he was gone, Charlie was convinced of that. So even with her very fine home and her nanny, and a Singer, she had no parents, really, while Charlie at least had Gran. Still, Charlie put a hand over his eyes and thought about how nice it would be to have parents. Maybe Molly was lying awake in her bed thinking the very same thing. It forged a definite bond between them, he suddenly realized, which was startling because they came from such different worlds.

And while he liked Ignatius Oliver very much, he was quite odd. And those packets of papers? He said it was a manuscript or some such. He thought about the place in the alleyway where Oliver had been given some other papers by the same bloke he’d seen the first night at The Book Keep.

Yeah, quite odd.

He got up and spent some time using his spit to rub the stains off his clothes like a cat did its fur, and making sure his cloth cap was in good shape. He would manage his hair in the morning and use the tap and the soap bar to scrub his face and hands pink.

The meager cleaning of his clothes finished, an exhausted Charlie got back into his box. The beats of the rain slowly grew so melodic that once Charlie closed his eyes he succumbed to a slumber that carried him past all possible waking points. When he finally opened his eyes it was still pouring outside. He sat up and stretched in his bed, sensing that it was later than usual.

Then it occurred to him: He had not heard the footsteps, or the shuffle to the lav, or the activity in the kitchen as Gran prepared to leave for work at half wages. And he had not felt the kiss on his forehead.

I must’a been sleeping hard!