The Demon Boy

Day Sixteen - Afternoon

     Casper trudges down the backroad from Smith's, leaving in a considerably worse mood than when he arrived. Another three weeks his arse, that's what he said last time!

     "I said three weeks at the very earliest," Smith puffed on his cigar. High quality stuff too by the smell of it. "And," Smith continued, "it's hardly been a week since you been here last, so don't you go harping on me now boy."

     And that was the end of that. Showed Casper straight to the door without letting him get so much as a word in edgeways. Casper will be back, there's no doubt about it. He'll be counting the days, mark his words and the tally he keeps carved by his bed. He'll be there... (what's three by seven again...?) nineteen days later on the dot.

     But today, kicked to the curb as he is, he's got a whole lot of nothing going for him. At least there's the pub fare to look forward to.

     After some deadbeating around town, Casper finds something to do in the form of a few of the youngest Glenholm boys. It's not so odd to see them about, this is their home after all, but normally they're the tag-alongs for the rest of the group. The little guys have been left to wander about the streets, nobody else around. Kinda like him.

     Casper sighs. Might as well go up to them and say hi, how you doing, where the hell is Davis and the rest? Misery loves company and whatnot.

     So... Yeah. Here goes.

     "Hey." He's said it. Now what? "Don't suppose I've seen yous around?"

     The young'uns make a great show of freezing on the spot, looking here, there, and anywhere else but Casper.

     "What's the matter with yous? No one ever tell you how to introduce yourselves nice and proper?"

     They look at each other, then, one by one, they shake their little heads.

     "Come off it then," Casper sits against a wall next to them. "I don't bite." Until you give him a reason to.

     "We- we aren't supposed to go talkin' to strange folk," a pipsqueak with mop full of curls says.

     "Is that a fact?" That could mean about a hundred different things, ranging from the fact that he isn't from around here to someone else catching on there's something not quite right with his situation. (Half a shilling says Lard-ass spilled the beans, the damn snitch.) "How you figure? I'm the same as the rest of yous, ain't I?" He throws the idea out there to test the waters.

     The little ones look at one another, then Casper for comparison. They shrug. "But auntie Martha said- she said we're not supposed to go talkin' to folk we dunno by us-selfs." What dutiful, little parrots. They're singing true to every song and tune they hear.

     "Who says you dunno me?" Posture open, he's friendly and smiling and you wouldn't think there was a single bad bone in his body going by the looks of him. "You seen me around, right?" The way they're looking at him more than elsewhere tells him they're almost convinced, but just in case, "I'm Casper by the way."

     "We know that," the middling youngster sniffs, "we was there as you was talkin' to Davis."

     "I didn't know," the last one says before Middling elbows him.

     "Izzat right?" Casper drawls. "An' what're you chaps called?"

     "Paulie," says the Middling.

     "Charlie," says Curly.

     "An' I'm- an' I'm Harry," says the last.

     "Well I'd say we know each other now, so how 'bout we be friends from now on." No strangers here, no sir. The young'uns are certainly more comfortable now that they've gotten that issue sorted out. "So... Where's Davis an' the gang?"