She moved to tell him good-bye and continue her search for something to eat. It wasn’t as though he could help her, and she couldn’t help him. She could take care of herself, and that was it. If she started getting all soft-hearted and trying to save every street rat, she’d be buried under a pile of needy kids in two minutes.
“What about you? Are you an orphan?”
Jenny didn’t move. No one had ever asked about her before. No one had ever cared.
“No,” she said, even though she rarely talked about her family. “I can only wish I were an orphan.” Her parents clung stubbornly to life, despite having every disadvantage.
“That bad, eh?” He scratched his head. Jenny imagined he probably had fleas or worse. “Perhaps we could be friends.”
Jenny would have laughed, except he looked serious. She sat straight. She’d never had a friend before. The idea was intriguing. “Alright then. Wot do I get out of it?”
He gave her a puzzled look. “You’d rather our relationship be transactional? A business partnership?”
“Wot ye just said. Business. I do my part, and ye do yer part.” Jenny didn’t know why she was even suggesting such a thing. She knew enough of people to know that you couldn’t trust them. Someone promised to give you half the loaf of bread they pinched, but then they disappeared with the whole thing. She’d been no older than four when she realized she had to hide any money she earned begging. Her parents would steal it while she slept if she wasn’t careful. At first, she’d hid her half pennies under her pillow, but as she got older and wiser, she found a hiding place outside the dingy room where the two of them—sometimes three if her father remembered to come home—lived. A few years before her father had reached under her pillow while she was asleep, thinking she might still keep her coin there. She’d pulled a knife on him and threatened to slit his throat.
The next day, when she’d been making her way through Spitalfields, he’d ambushed her and beat her bloody.
Jenny no longer slept at home if her father was there.
The boy held out his hand, and Jenny looked at it. There wasn’t any coin in his palm. “You shake it,” he reminded her. “That seals the deal.”
“Wot deal?” Jenny asked.
“We look out for each other. I share what I have, and you share what you have.”
She squinted at him. “Ye don’t ‘ave nothing.”
He tapped his temple. “I have an education.”
“Book learning.” She spat.
“I can teach you to read.”
Jenny looked up at him.
“If you could read, you’d know what all the pamphlets nailed to the posts say. Then you’d know where to go to pick pockets.”
“I’m not a pickpocket.” She looked about to make sure no one was listening. “I’m a ‘ouse breaker.”
“Then you’ll know if what you steal from houses has any real value.”
“ ‘Ow does reading ‘elp with that?”
He gave her a surprised look. “Books are everything. They have all the information in the world. Let’s say you steal an old coin. How do you know if it’s a hundred years old or five hundred years old? You look it up in a book.”
She looked him up and down. “All yer book learning ‘asn’t kept ye from being beaten and ‘aving yer shoes pinched.”
“Then I can learn from you and you from me.” He offered his hand again. “What do you say?”
She put her hand in his, surprised at how warm his flesh was. He moved her hand up and down and smiled. “So,” he said, releasing her hand. “What do we do first?”
“First, we steal something to eat.” She rose and took his hand, pulling him up. As they started for the market and the food stalls, it occurred to her that having a partner might have benefits. When they neared the market, she pulled him aside and pointed to the stalls. “Wot do ye fancy?”
“Bread and soup would be lovely.”
She elbowed him then pulled out her pockets. She always wore trousers. Dresses made it too hard to run fast and climb when a quick escape was necessary. “No blunt for bread and soup. We ‘ave to steal wot we want, and I can’t run off with a bowl of soup.”
The boy, Aidan, nodded thoughtfully. “Why don’t we try and earn our coin?”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Ye think I ‘aven’t tried that?” She pointed to his black eye and then to herself. “Who would ‘ire us?”
“Fine. Do we just grab an apple and run?” he asked.
“Only if we want to be chased. I usually wait for a distraction or try to cause one. Then while everyone is looking, I causally pocket a loaf of bread or a couple of onions.”
“I can cause a distraction.”
Jenny gave him a skeptical look. “If ye make a muck of this, we’ll both be ‘ungry tonight.”
“I won’t.”
“If ye do, then ye can forget about our deal.”
His eyes widened with shock. “You would go back on a handshake?”
She wanted to grab his shoulders, shake them, and scream, Look around ye! No one cares about a ‘andshake! But the look of surprise on his face only made her feel more protective of him. “Just make sure ye distract them,” she said.
He gave her a nod, squared those skinny shoulders again, and marched back toward the stalls. Instead of going to the costermongers, he made his way to a pedestal with a statue of some man she didn’t know. He climbed up beside the statue and cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. A few people glanced at him, but most paid him no heed. Mentally, she prepared herself for another long night with a protesting belly.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Aidan said, this time his voice carrying. He raised a hand and turned to the side dramatically. Jenny would have laughed at this posture if her meal hadn’t depended on it.
“To be, or not to be, that is the question,” he said. A few more heads turned toward him. That seemed to be the encouragement he needed because he continued in a deeper voice. “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—”
Jenny slid out of her spot and walked casually toward the costermonger selling fruit. He was watching with some interest, and she’d been eyeing those plums all afternoon.
“Or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die!” His voice rose with emotion as Jenny neared the wheelbarrow the man had lowered to watch.
“To sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache.” He clenched his chest dramatically and Jenny reached out, grasped the fruit, and sidled away. She could still hear him as she continued on her way. She thought about walking on. She thought about leaving him behind and feasting on the two plums herself. But she thought about that shocked look on his face, and how he’d seemed to believe that a handshake meant something. And so when he finally finished his flowery words and bowed to a smattering of applause, she was waiting when he joined her.
“Did you get something?” he asked, holding out a hand.
“Not ‘ere,” she hissed. She motioned for him to follow and led him to a dusty yard behind a tavern. Horses had once been stabled here, but the stable was gone, and no one came out this way except to toss out rubbish. They found a place and sat with their backs up against the back of the tavern. The sound of laughter washed over them as she handed him a plum. He nodded at her as though expecting more. She produced the second plum. “That’s it.”