The Precarious Child Read online



  A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: Tale from the Archives

  A Precarious Child

  By Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris

  Copyright Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris 2012

  Hanging by her fingertips from a balcony, was not the situation Verity Fitzroy’s father would have hoped his daughter to be in. She knew that and was a little sorry, knowing that he would have been disappointed.

  He’d taught Verity about the importance of three points of contact when climbing walls, the proper way of dispatching vipers, and the most efficient method of riding at speed. In fact, she’d learned such etiquette long before most girls were taught how to curl their hair.

  With tiny gasp between clenched teeth, she locked her eyes shut hard, and tried not to imagine the stonework giving way fractionally and dropping her to the cobbles four storeys beneath. Also there was the lingering temptation that if she let go, they would finally be together; she missed her parents every day.

  The reality was, hanging three storeys above the pavement such surrender would anger Father even more. He would have been proud of her earning a living on the streets of London that didn’t involve taking her clothes off. He would have been proud of her surviving a very tough fifteen years in this world.

  “Papa,” she muttered, “I made a promise, I know, but I miss you.” She screwed her eyes even tighter, fighting back tears that formed there. “And I’m scared.”

  Her surrender, however, would not stand. Not even in the afterlife.

  Then her eyes flicked open. Right then, she thought, I’ve had my tears. Now, time to get myself out of this sticky wicket.

  Mustering all the strength in her arms, Verity swung her lower body until it collided with the main part of the house. Her boots scrambled against the brickwork, and she finally had some luck. The brick of this particular three-storey apartment building was rather rotten and both toes found that third point of contact. She felt relief wash over her as the strain on her shoulders lessened.

  Still, Verity felt rather like an insect, with her body hanging wedged between the overhang of the balcony and the wall itself.

  The itsey bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout…

  She had sung that to the twins this morning. Jeremy and Jonathan were peas in a pod, wise beyond their years, and still they allowed her to mother them just a little. It was sweet of them. Sweet if she didn’t know they carried tiny daggers on their person and swore like sailors.

  As she clung there, Verity listened for sounds that would signal the intruders into the room she’d been robbing were moving on. It was going to be a close call if her arms and legs could hold out. Clouds overhead were gathering…

  Down came the rain and washed the spider out…

  “Not bloody likely,” she hissed, tightening her handhold on the building as best she could.

  She’d come broken into the room at the boarding house with the intention of pillaging it, only to be disturbed by someone else intent on doing the very same thing. The occupant was a very popular man it seemed. He always had been she remembered.

  These newcomers were in there now, talking rather intently, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. For now, Verity remained suspended in a summer night of Londontown, hearing her own heartbeat in her ears and contemplating just what had got her into this predicament.

  It was simple really…it was Harrison Thorne’s fault.

  It all traced back to earlier that morning in Kensington.

  The problem with Agent Thorne was that he could ask anything of Verity. Hopefully he didn’t know that and couldn’t read it on her face. Verity sat at one end of the table, staring at the rather blurry photograph of their mark. At the other end was a silent Henry. They often acted like the gang’s mother and father, simply because of their age—she fifteen, he nearly seventeen. Verity was however the only one that made any effort with their home.

  She attempted to make their little square of Kensington their own: a glass of violets in a cup by the window, a few brightly coloured images on the walls, and a repaired sideboard stacked with clean and tidy but mismatched dishes. As she glanced out of the corner of her eye she hoped Agent Thorne noticed.

  He was smiling slightly, standing by the door, and letting his eyes rest on the children sitting very still at the table. Verity shifted a bit and glanced at Henry. Unlike the charming agent, Henry could be really so disagreeable. In fact he was in the process of being so right now. His frown was as thick as a winter storm—but then the appearance of the handsome government agent had this effect.

  Verity cleared her throat in embarrassment. “I am sorry, Mr. Thorne, but Henry is always cantankerous before he’s eaten.”

  The eldest of their gang, Henry sometimes took his role a little too seriously. His dark eyes fixed on hers for a moment, glaring out from under a thatch of disarrayed black hair. “I’m just saying, Verity, that it sounds like Mr. Thorne’s problem here could be handled some other way by some other folk.”

  The other children glanced between them—not nervously, but more with the keen interest of spectators at a tennis match at Wimbledon. Verity bit the inside of her cheek, least she snap back. They were the eldest and it wouldn’t do to get into a fight with him—that was the thing Henry liked to do most of all: fight.

  “It is a small matter,” she said evenly, “and even we lowly servants of the Empire have to look out for its welfare.”

  Mr. Thorne tilted his head. “Modesty does not become you, Miss Fitzroy. While I am a man of the world, I can not find one quarter of the things you are able to in the streets of London. When Clayton was at his hotel in the West End, I was on more-than-familiar territory. But now?” He shook his head. He was embarrassed. “I lost the red-headed cad in the fog and shadows of London. I need your eyes.” Thorne motioned to Verity, Henry, and the rest of the children. “All of them.”

  Colin snatched a piece of bread, and stuffed it into his mouth. “It’s no bother, Henry,” he chimed in, in a slightly muffled fashion. “We can easily find out where this geezer is hiding—especially with only one leg! That’s a dead giveaway!”

  “He may seem harmless, but don’t let that fool you,” Mr. Thorne said, motioning to the photograph underneath her fingertips. “Arthur Clayton is working for some dangerous men. You must take great care not to be seen.”

  The children nodded solemnly but underneath the table nudged each other. Despite everything they did love a good chase. Also, being paid by Mr. Thorne kept them warm, dry, and out of the workhouse. The less thievery they had to do, the less chance they had of being arrested. Verity very much liked not being arrested.

  Another fact she kept to herself was that the Ministry had resources—resources that she could use in her own personal mission. The further they got in good with them the better.

  Thinking about the whole dreadful mess of her childhood made her head hurt. No, it wasn’t the thinking that was doing it. Something else entirely.

  The girl shook her head, but—like all the other times before—the clicking wouldn’t stop. Her eyes darted to the strange signet ring the agent wore on his right index finger. Something about it clattered about in the back of her brain. If she concentrated a little harder she’d be able to deduce what it was and what…

  “Verity?” Harrison Thorne was looking at her very strangely, and she would hate him to discern her little secret. Even her fellow urchins didn’t know the strange workings of her mind.

  “Yes,” she said softly, shooting a glance at Henry to cut off any further protests, “I think we can help you with whatever you need.”

  “We are a democracy,” Henry interjected, as rose to his feet and looked around at there fellows. “The majority rules. So,
who says we should take on this job?”

  Every child’s hand shot up—except the oldest of them. Instead Henry rolled his eyes. Democracy was apparently not entirely all he wished it were.

  “Remember,” Verity reminded him, “that Mr. Thorne helped us find this place, and keeps us safe.”

  Even Henry couldn’t argue with that. The streets of London were dangerous for everyone—but most especially children. Thanks to Harrison Thorne, they had the safety of their bolthole. An old mansion owned by the Ministry, but only rarely used as a safe house, Mr. Thorne had shown them a number of secret passages that lead to concealed rooms. For the last two years it had been home, and not a nicer or safer place for orphaned children could be found in any part of Kensington. All of them took great pains that the only adult to ever know they lived here was Mr. Thorne.

  “I don’t like how he calls us the Ministry’s eyes of London,” Henry muttered under his breath. “I think it’s a rubbish name. We’re not in a blimmin’ Penny Dreadful and we don’t belong to no Ministry.”

  “It’s alright to belong to something,” Verity commented, feeling her own slow burning anger rise to the surface. “Besides we can use the coin.”

  “I can see you are in a bad mood today Henry.” Mr. Thorne’s deep blue eyes gleamed as he interrupted. “But I suggest you listen to Miss