Chapter Twenty Six

THE FIRST SECTION:
Lewis was sitting alone in front of the fish shop when Patrick came out to find him. He had work to do and the old man was not going to let him get away with sitting around and doing nothing. The boy solemnly stood up and walked inside the shop where he saw the mess that had been made from the day’s business. He never thought that he would get so personal with as many fish guts as he had become since his father had left town. And each day that his father did not return, Lewis felt he would begin to learn which guts belonged to which type of fish just by the smell. But he did not complain. In fact, he hardly spoke at all. In one full swoop, Lewis had managed to lose his father and his best friend.

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“You’d better clean up good today Lewis,” Patrick said. “The boys will be over tonight and we have some talking to do.”

“Yes sir,” Lewis replied without lifting his head. He got down on his hands and knees and began to push all of the fish parts into larger clumps so he could pick them all up more easily. Patrick was much more efficient at cleaning up and managed to scrape off three-quarters of the shop’s mess before he helped Lewis finish off the final quarter. After they were finished, and when George and Michele had arrived, Patrick told Lewis to go and find something to do for the evening.

“But don’t go too far,” he insisted. “I don’t want you getting into any trouble. Not with all that has gone on around here lately.”

There was not much for Lewis to do anyway, so he went back out front and sat down in the same spot where he and Willie used to sit during the afternoon traffic. Not only was he feeling lonely, but he was downright bored too. He had already tried to break in to his apartment just so that he could see what was still inside, but it was boarded too heavily for him to even catch a glimpse of the interior. The streets were significantly quieter than they had been just a few weeks before, and so people-watching was also a useless activity. One good thing about the quiet streets was the absence of the bullies and William’s sisters. Since the riot, Lewis had seen only a couple of them a handful of times. When he did see them, they hardly acknowledged that he was nearby. And so, as it was becoming the norm, he sat there doing nothing, except to toss the occasional pebble out into the empty street. At least the evenings are getting warmer, he thought.

But this evening provided something different; he began to hear a small voice from around the corner. “William,” it whispered at first before getting louder, but still remaining cautious. “William,” the voice continued. Lewis’ curiosity suddenly heightened when the voice shouted, “Where are you?” He then heard stones being tossed at the side of the house and the unusual sound of oomph echoing from the alleyway. Still timid from the threat of the bullies or one of Willie’s sisters deliberately trying to draw him around the corner, Lewis quietly tip-toed to the edge of the house and waited until a cloud could cover the moon, making the street darker. Unfortunately for him, it was a clear evening, and so he waited for what seemed like forever as the voice continued to shout and struggle to throw stones. Finally, the noise died down and Lewis felt that it was safe to look around the corner. He checked the sky one last time to see if there really were any clouds, which there were none, and then peeked into the alley. At first, he saw nothing but his head was barely wide enough from the corner of the building to see much. He held his breath and moved his head deeper into the alleyway, all the while keeping his body around the corner. This time he thought he saw a shadow and as a result he darted back behind the edge and froze. The sounds of footsteps against the dirt and rocks seemed to be fading away, as though they were getting farther away from him. So when they stopped moving altogether, he peeked around the corner again, but this time more bravely by stepping quickly all the way into the start of the alley. And no sooner than he did that, did a shriek of terror burst out at him from only a foot away. Lewis screamed back, and then the other person screamed again before Lewis screamed a second time. This time, each person remained screaming and standing perfectly still until they ran out of breath.

“Lewis?” the voice asked.

This scared Lewis even more than seeing and hearing the person in the alleyway and he tried to scream again. But the figure stepped out into the light and remarked, “Lewis!”

Lewis stepped back, afraid that he was about to get a beating for scaring one of Willie’s sisters. And then he got the beating he was expecting, “Lewis! Lewis! Lewis!” the voice shouted as the person slapped him on the arm repeatedly. “You should know better than that Lewis! To scare a girl like that!”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to. Honest. I'm sorry.”

But the beating continued until the little girl was too tired to continue. At last, she rested and asked, “Where did William go?”

Confused by the question, Lewis bravely moved his arm from away from his face and asked, “Don’t you know? You were there, with your parents.”

“My parents?” the girl asked again. “I think you have me mixed up Lewis.”

Lewis moved his arm further away from his face and when he could see clearly, he saw a girl’s face smiling at his from about six inches away. “Elizabeth!” Lewis exclaimed. “Boy, am I happy to see you. Where have you been lately? Haven’t you heard about William? They took him away. I thought you were his…”

“Quiet!” Elizabeth shouted. “Be quiet for just one moment will you? What happed to William? Tell me that first and then we can talk.”

Lewis leaned against the wall and slid down on his back until he was seated on the ground. He shifted over a few inches so that Elizabeth could sit next to him, which she did. “I don’t know what happened really,” he started to say. “I think it all began when that girl died. And then all of a sudden everyone is out in the street fighting. I didn’t see much of it. I was hiding over there, under the stairs.” Lewis pointed across the street to the now abandoned dwelling where he hid. “And then they came and took Willie. They put him and his mum and his pop in a carriage and took him away.”

“Where did they take him?” Elizabeth asked. “Why? What did he do?”

“I don’t know,” Lewis shrugged, “but I haven’t seen him since then.”

“Did they take his sisters?” she asked further.

“I don’t think so,” he answered. “I’ve seen them around. I think they got scared and ran away.”
“Do you think William is in trouble?” Elizabeth asked. “I hope not. He didn’t do anything at all.”

Lewis and Elizabeth sat silently for about twenty minutes before Lewis asked where she had been the past few days. She told him that she had been at home the entire time. The riots did not come all the way down to her part of town, but her parents refused to let her or her sisters out of the house. She mentioned that being stuck for that long in the same room with her sisters was getting too much for her so she snuck out not long before she ran into Lewis. She told him that she was looking for both William and Lewis but could not seem to get anyone’s attention from William’s flat. Now she knew why.

“Hey,” she suggested to Lewis, “why don’t we try and go see William?”

“Go see him?” Lewis asked. “He’s in jail. How are we going to do that?”

Elizabeth shrugged, “I don’t know. You boys are the ones who always had the games to play. Don’t you have one for sneaking into a jailhouse?”

Lewis looked at Elizabeth as if she was crazy. He only snuck into the rich folks’ yards every now and again. And when he did, he was always afraid of being caught. Now she wanted to sneak into a jail? “You’re crazy,” he said. “We’ll definitely get caught, and I don’t want to get caught.”

Elizabeth sighed and muttered, “Oh yeah. You’re right.” Again, silence fell between them. But it was not long before she brought the subject up again. “I know, we can bring him a gift and I can just run in and throw it to him in his cell.”

“I still think you’re crazy,” Lewis said. “How do you even know where his cell is? I'm sure that it’s guarded anyway. They wouldn’t let him out of their sight, not after that girl died.”

Just then, an odd thing happened that neither was expecting. A group of young boys were walking down one side of the street talking quietly to themselves when they were stopped by a couple of the constable’s men. There was nothing dramatic with the search itself as the boys were let go a few seconds after they were stopped. But the police officers crossed the street so that they were walking on the same side of the road as the children. They barely paid attention to the kids, who were sitting quietly in the shadows and carried on their conversation as they walked by.

“Kids are awful peaceful down here now,” one of the men said. “Not like it was before we put them in their place.”

“Especially now that we got that kid who killed the mayor’s daughter,” the other replied. “He seems to have been the main trouble maker all the while.”

“Is that the one they have in the front cell, by the door?” the first asked.

“Yep,” the second confirmed. “That’s the one. Scared little kid now that he’s behind bars. Not much to them when you lock them up like that.”

Elizabeth and Lewis stared at each other as the men and their conversation faded down the street. It was a stroke of luck that neither had anticipated nor desired a few moments before. But now, all of a sudden, they began planning a way to get into the jail house to give Willie a gift. The plan they hatched was that Elizabeth would knock on the door and pretend to be lost when the constable opened to see who had knocked. When he did open, Lewis would sneak in behind Elizabeth and slide the gift into the cell.

“That’s a perfect plan,” Lewis said. “They’ll never see me behind you, especially if I am in the shadows. And Willie can get his gift later when he finds it. He doesn’t need to see us to get it.”

“But what are we going to get him for a gift?” Elizabeth asked. The two thought for a few moments before Elizabeth had an idea. “What if we gave him one of Mister Keenan’s knives so that he could fight or dig his way out?”

“Or how about a black cat so that the guards run away and he can walk out on his own,” Lewis suggested.

“I know,” Elizabeth said, “why not something from his house? From upstairs?”

Lewis thought for a moment. He had not tried to go into Willie’s apartment. This was partly because there were still people in the building above him. They would surely be seen or caught, not to mention the chances of stumbling on the bullies or Willie’s sisters. But it was also partly because Lewis had not even thought of going there because he knew Willie was not there anymore.

“If we can sneak into a jail house,” Lewis said, “then we can sneak into Willie’s house.”

And so the two carefully worked their way up to Willie’s apartment without being seen. The journey did not come without any narrow escapes, as there were people in the stairwell who either were trying to find a corner to sleep in or were busy cleaning clothes or other household items. But each time it looked like they would be caught, they managed to hide in the shadows and patiently wait for their next available moment to move forward. Once inside, they saw that the apartment had been nearly destroyed. The sofa that was by the window was upside-down and torn, the table, chairs and benches where the Calloway’s ate dinner were all chopped at the legs and in a heap and the carpet was barely worth walking on from blood and dirt stains. There was really very little that they could take to him that was not destroyed by the constable’s men. But Lewis thought that maybe they could rip a corner off the carpet and bring that to him instead of bringing a knife. That way he could hide it and keep and it was something from his home that he would remember. It did not take long for them to tear off a piece as the carpet was pretty well gone anyway. And when they did tear off a piece, they ran as fast as they could to the Crossing before slowly moving among the shadows to the front of the jailhouse.

“Remember,” Elizabeth said, “I knock and you slip the rug into the cell behind me.”

“They will never even see me,” Lewis said.

Elizabeth walked up to the door and Lewis hid around the side of the jailhouse and waited for the door to open. She knocked, but no one answered at first. She knocked again, but still there was no answer. She looked at Lewis and shrugged her shoulders as if to say she did not know what to do. Lewis did not speak; instead he motioned for her to knock harder, as hard as she could. A mean face came over Elizabeth’s eyes, nose and mouth and she threw all of her might into the knock. Unfortunately for her, it made for only a slight increase in volume over her other knocks. The two waited and still there was no answer at the door. Lewis came out of his crouch and came into the light to whisper in Elizabeth’s ear. He was going to tell her to let him knock instead, and then he could hide quickly after he did. But just as he poked his head out, the door opened. It was another stroke of luck that the guard who opened the door did not look down first. That allowed Lewis to hide again just in time as the guard looked down to see Elizabeth standing there.

“Oh,” the guard said, “look at what we have here. What are you doing little girl?”

Elizabeth smiled at the man and looked up at him with her eyes as wide as she could make them. She stepped up on to the top step before she realized that she did not know what to say. For a brief moment she froze, but then she ran back outside, surprising Lewis who was again about to peek around the corner, grabbed two small flowers growing from the cracks of the road and ran back up the steps. She handed the flower to the guard who thanked her graciously.

“I’m going to go and put them in that cup of water of there little lady,” the guard said. When he turned around, Lewis’ luck with peering around corners paid off and he was able to toss the carpet piece to Willie, who was curled up in the far corner of the cell. Lewis then darted back around the corner and hid until the guard thanked Elizabeth again and sent her back home where she belonged. When the door closed, they smiled at each other and ran back home. And when they arrived there, Patrick was outside looking for Lewis.

“Where have you been young lad?” he asked the boy. “You had better come inside now. It is getting late. They boys are still down there, so you had better stay up here and get to sleep. And who is this?”

“I'm Elizabeth,” she said as she curtseyed to Patrick.

“You had better get along now too little girl,” he said as he motioned for Lewis to go inside. “These streets aren’t nice for you kids to be out here anymore.”

Elizabeth waved goodbye to Lewis and skipped back home on her own. Lewis was told to stay upstairs and to not go down to the basement under any circumstances. “It is best if you try and get some sleep Lewis. It will be dawn before you know it.”