POPCORN

by Victor Gischler

  Now, look at that door...

  BOOM!

  Picture that door come flying in! Smashed from its hinges and splintering frame! Like a tombstone toppled, down it comes - DOOM! - a scrag underneath it yelping, crushed! And there in the doorway - buggering shite! - it's stickmen, me scruffs, the Waiftaker's men, a mob of the brutes, all bowlers and billy clubs, piling in.

  Run! Run! the shout goes up.

  The scrags they scatter! The scamps they scarper - this way and that, dodging clubs, ducking legs. But outside the room, it ain't no better - Stickmen! Everywhere! Save yer skins!

  But battering rams crash through boarded windows. Ain't nowheres to run. Nowheres.

  So it's Fight! now, Fight! and Scruffians, STAMP! Why, the scallywags and scofflaws, they's already at it, sharp as that door went, diving and rolling to chains and coshes, coming up on one knee with a knife in this hand or a spikestick in that, to spring, to pounce on the first stickmen in.

  They're smashing teeth with iron links, and slashing throats with cold steel, skewering guts and gullets, goolies too.

  But the stickmen keeps coming, keeps pouring in, their clubs cracking skulls, smacking scallywags down, bashing scofflaw brains into the dust! No mercy, no quarter, it's bloody murder.

  They fight, them Scruffians. Still they fight. Knock one nipper down, another scrabbles to her feet again, crunching broke bones straight again, wiping blood from wounds already healed, springing back to how's she's Fixed.

  Leaping back into the fray. Being Fixed makes for a handy slave - resilient - but once they's free...

  Still, the billy clubs swing, and brains splatter walls. And if even a smashed conk mends relatively sharpish, well, yer ain't got the wits to do sod all in the meantime. So one by one, them fiesty Scruffians is beaten down until's there's only one, alone against the mob.

  3

  That last scruff standing weren't even no scofflaw like Joey, nor even a scallywag, just a scrag no bigger than Puckerscruff there. And how come's I knows it? Cause it were our Puckerscruff.

  Yeah! Puckerscruff, he'd be kinda the princess in this fabble, see - kinda a princess in real life too, if yer catches me drift - oh, don't huff, Puck, yer knows it's true. Anyways, it were our very own urchin, armed with just his spikes - and only half of what he has now from all's his Stamp-tweaking - Puckerscruff, dukes up, back to the wall!

  “Come ahead”, says he.

  Fiesty little fucker, for all his flounce. Little hole of freedom in his Stamp - show em, Puck - where's he snuck his lucky penny in, botched the Fixing. Rough trading even afore he was Scruffian too, thruppence for a thump for any as paid.

  So Puckerscruff, he's holding em off with just the gleam of his knuckles.

  But oh, from the doorway then comes a ripple in that mob. They parts from the back like the Red Sea, and striding through comes a fiend, a beady-eyed, beak-nosed blackguard, white hair slicked back like a skullcap... the Waiftaker General himself.

  Frockcoat and cane, a fancy dan fucker, he fixes our scrag in his icy gaze.

  “You have my property in your possession, scruff”, he spits.

  “What's that? says Puckerscruff. Me liberty? Me life?”

  And he gives a growl at the man as makes him flinch. The Waiftaker General gathers himself though.

  “You know whereof I speak”, says he.

  “No idea, says the scrag, though he knowed fine well, for he'd the most precious prize”

  Flashjack! Fucking... yeah, it's the plans, but they ain't s'posed to know that yet! Shhh!

  For he'd a precious prize... a prize as might change everything.

  So, SLAM! Puckerscruff, he kicks his foot into the floor, and the floorboard goes down beneath his foot, flying up at the other end, smack in the Waiftaker General's knackers - or knacker, if the rumours was true - bending him double, so's that saucy little scrag can leapfrog right over him.

  The stickmen's still parted, see, from letting His Nibs through, a clear path to the door, which Puckerscruff darts now, befores they can even move to grab him. Oh, but what an uproar as he slides under the grasp of the brutes at the doorway, out into the hall.

  4

  Out in the hallway, there ain't no escape though, stickmen at the front door, coming out of rooms to left and right, hauling scamps and scrags by poles with nooses on the end, dragging scallywags with skulls like dropped watermelons by their feet, leaving streaks of blood and brain on floorboards, dumping the twitchy wrecks in a pile at the front door, for collection.

  For Scrubbing. That's how it were back then. No mercy for Scruffians as has slipped their chains, run offsky from their master. Just coshes and nooses, and a bloody scouring of yer Stamp, of yer everything.

  It's a horror of a sight, it is, but it's a sight seen in an instant, for the Waiftaker General's already bellowing: Get him! and the stickmen are already turning, clocking the scrag.

  They're behind him, ahead of him, every which way. Every way but the chance he snatches, up onto a table, leaping for a banister, scrambling up and over to the stairs of the big house what this gang's took for a crib.

  Up those stairs he legs it, fast as his pins can carry him, stickmen at his heels, taking two steps for his one, hands clamping -

  CRASH! CRACKARACKACRASH BOOM FUCKING WALLOP!

  Why, Puckerscruff's near dragged down himself by the meaty paw on his shoulder, but the stickman's grip slips as them rotten stairs give out beneath him and down he goes, down they all goes, all but Puckerscruff, nimble as a monkey, whirling to catch a handhold and swing and scrabble to safety.

  Phew! But he don't even have time to relish the shrieks of stickmen spiked on broken wood or with bones sticking from their tin flutes.

  There's the Waiftaker General below, spitting orders, snarling rage, so it's up and offsky. Shift it, Puckerscruff! Move!

  But where to? he thinks as he hits the landing. There's corridors, rooms, but he don't know the escapes. Ain't his crib, see? Just a safe house for tonight on his way through the city, on his mission.

  And oh, but he curses hisself for what he's brung down on them as took him in. He's Scrubbed em all, he has.

  He runs down a hallway dark as his thoughts, hears stickmen on the other stairs though. Bollocks! Into a room... of boarded windows! Bollocks! And ain't nuffink else but a wardrobe...

  In he dives, pulling the door shut after.

  5

  He pants. He puffs.

  He catches his breath.

  So there's he is in the darkness, Puckerscruff, hunkered down to a ball, peering out through the crack where the door's ajar. Only... slowly he gets this queer niggly feeling as he ain't alone.

  To be specifical, he gets the feeling of hot air on his neck, of panting as ain't his. And the stink of bad breath what goes with it.

  So, slowly he turns to see, there in the dark, the white of a dog's teeth, and the whites of a Scruffian's eyes behind it - Whelp and Yapper, by crikey.

  Only ever been one Scruffian dog, and that's Whelp. Only ever been one scamp could handle him, and that's Yapper. Both of them's hid in there already, and Whelp... ain't happy to have company.

  He's set to snarl, is Whelp, smelling the Waiftaker General on Puckerscruff's hands. Whelp and that fucker got history, see, that madman being the fiend as Fixed a poor pup, that mutt being the beast as turned the bastard's hair white - but that's another fabble.

  Point is, Whelp's lips curl, and he give a growl - only cuts it off as Yapper quiets him sharpish.

  Puckerscruff... thinks.

  Now. Ain't a word passes between em, they can't make a peep, so all's Yapper can do is cock his head curious like Whelp's as Puckerscruff undoes the collar round his neck - yeah, even back then, scamp - buckles it round the dog's. Queer, thinks Yapper.

  If that ain't flummox enough, then the scrag lifts his hands up like Whelp's pointy ears, then dances em like horse's hooves going clip-clop, does it over, all's while mouthing... well, summat.

  That's right, mat
e: Foxtrot. Yer sharp for a stray. Pity Yapper weren't, for he just gawps like this poor bugger's gone bonkers.

  So Yapper he ain't got a clue what's what. All's he knows is Puckerscruff's a molly urchin what rapped on the crib door whiles the gaslighter were doing his evening rounds, begging hospitality - as any Scruffian would be an arsewipe to refuse.

  And there was murmerings with the boss, summat about an Order of Chaeronea - which one scallywag told him's a not-so-secret society of molly punters. So, Yapper's busy trying to make sense of it all, when Puckerscruff puts the cherry on top.

  A finger to his lips, he tips a wink, and slips out of the wardrobe.

  6

  Yapper don't know what to do then, so he just waits, huddled down behind Whelp, keeping him schtum with there, there and easy oasy, boy, but in Dog, natch, which Yapper speaks fluent... well, I says speak, but there, there and easy oasy, boy is atcherly silent in Dog, says Yapper, which is where's most humans bollocks it up. Anyways, they waits through the kerfuffle and cries.

  They waits through the nab him's and grab him's. They waits through the thumps and thuds, the mumbles and rumbles. They waits till the whole house falls silent. Then they waits some more.

  Finally, Yapper creaks the wardrobe door open for a peek. Nuffink. He points Whelp to pad out, soft 'cept for claws scratching floorboards, and out he tiptoes afters.

  A whistle holding Whelp at his heel, he peeps from the room. Still nuffink. So down he goes, into the horror of an happy crib stripped bare but for splatters and smears.

  He wanders that room what we started in, gives a little whine as makes Whelp nuzzle his hand. At last, he swallers a sob, and it's offsky, to the sneakhole of a cellar window - safe way out, he reckons.

  Wrongly.

  He wrangles Whelp up the crates afore him, shoves the dog's wriggly arse out the window, squiggling himself afters, through the broken bars. Even as he thrashes from the bushes though - what's this? Whelp growling ahead.

  And out of the shrubbery he scrambles to see an eyepatched brigand in tatty overcoat and battered topper - a scrufftrader! vulturing the raid for scraps such as this. His pistol points at a snarling, slouch-sprung Whelp.

  “Good doggy”, he sneers, and BANG!

  Yowl, howl, scream - oh, the racket as Yapper made then. He were pouncing himself even as the pistol swung, and...

  BANG!

  It's all a jumble then, as Yapper fabbles it, what with a bullet in his brain whiles the Stamp's slowly bouncing him back to how's he were Fixed.

  He fancies he were in a rattly cart when the slug popped from his noggin, but in truth, the next he remembers clear is being brung out into blinding light, dumped on grass.

  “Yer scruff”, says the scrufftrader.

  A lad's face peers down at Yapper then - but white as Death, eyebrows painted on black, black teardrops on his cheeks.

  “Uncle...” he says. It... ain't right.

  And that's how Yapper met Joey Picaroni.

  7

  Now showfolk is good folks, let's be clear, but clowns... Yer see them horror flicks about evil clowns? Evil clowns? Why, if that ain't as breathwasting as arrogant toffs. You ask Joey there how jolly his uncle were, how his belt beat Joey into Pierrot's tears since he were a nipper.

  Cause oh, how the groanhuffs chortled to see this pititful pint-size slapsticked to sobbing!

  But Joey were growed to lanky now, see, so his red-nosed, blood-grinned wicked uncle needs a new moppet for the show. And think of the pratfalls as a Scruffian can suffer!

  Whassat? No, Joey weren't a Scruffian then, weren't really Joey Picaroni. But that's the name he took, so that's the only name as we'll call him, savvy?

  Anyways, next Yapper knows he's heaved up by Joey, carted off through caravans and cages, to a tent, where's the boss clown has Joey lash Yapper hand and foot, pound tent pegs in the soil.

  Gives Joey a backhand slap for backchat too - why, for a tick Yapper fancies the lad might take that mallet to his uncle. But, no. It's a sad Pierrot as leaves Yapper staked, all alone now, all alone.

  They says it's darker afore the dawn. Well, this were dawn and the darkest Yapper ever knowed.

  His every crib-mate snatched for Scrubbing, sold to the circus hisself, even his best chum Whelp left in brain-splattered shrubbery, left to rouse alone and rowowowl for a lost pack... it's near too much to bear for Yapper, even when's that Pierrot sneaks him a crust of bread, round noon.

  “I knows scruffs don't need it, mumbles the lad. But still...”

  Afternoon, evening, there ain't a hope left in Yapper, he's disconsolatrated, when - wait! Through his sniffles he hears...

  A snuffle!

  And then it's Whelp! Wriggling in under the tent flap, lolloping to him, to slobber his face, clamber over him wagtailed, and oh, how it soars his spirits, and how he oughta have knowed Whelp'd sniff him out.

  In a trice then, he's got Whelp gnawing at his ropes... he's loose! Now, time to be offsky, toot sweet, eh? So outs they sneak -

  - into a circus funfair in full oompah, Yapper and Whelp back behind the sideshows and stalls, true, but a hustle here too of acrobat, liontamer, strongman, juggler... clown!

  Yapper ducks beneath a caravan.

  The clown feet pass.

  8

  Now, it's a curious thing as Yapper finds when he crawls toward the back of the caravan, aiming for the camp's edge and away, for Whelp he sits on his arse, won't budge.

  Come on, says Yapper, and Whatcha doing? and other such things, but Dog ain't good for explifications, so he starts crawling back; and that's when Whelp shifts... in the wrong direction altogether.

  Why, they could be escaping, but no, Whelp's offsky for the carnival, and what's Yapper to do? He yips, Come back! and yaps it bossier, but he's no choice but follow... to the midway itself.

  Freak show, geek show, wrestlers, boxers, hook-a-duck and horsie carousel, it were a wondrous whirlymajig... for all's but Yapper, whose only wonder is the mad mutt leading him by bally cloths and barkers, plonking his arse down now before, of all things...

  “Kaarlo Cjaselneski! booms this walrus-moustached magician on a stage. Greatest escapologeest of ze 'ole vorld! All ze vay frum Greater Ünkel, Wülgaria! Zeese show ees... ees...”

  All flustery to heave Whelp away by his new collar, it takes Yapper a second to see how the magician's gawping at him, glancing sidewise, shifty.

  “Cancelled!” booms Kaarlo.

  And Kaarlo's into the crowd, quick as a flash, and first it's Yapper's own hand on Whelp's collar dragging him with the dog, then it's the magician's hand on Yapper's, hauling him through the air, on stage, the scamp squirming bitey, flailing all the way through the curtains and even as he's planted on a seat in the waggon, snarling fierce as Whelp learned him, until the very instant Kaarlo rips the moustache from his mug and...

  - Jake! says Yapper.

  For Kaarlo Cjaselneski were none other than Rake Jake Scallion, rakiest Rake as ever was, and friend to every Scruffian.

  But Jake, he ain't fussed with Yapper, no, he's down at Whelp's collar, unbuckling it, babbling Glory be! A miracle! And he's rattling his forger's eyeglass and tools from a drawer, and afore yer know it, half the collar's studs are off, and...

  “Gotcha!” says he.

  For there in his tweezers is the teeniest scrap, yellowy this side, dark the other, Puckerscruff's prize, a microphotograph what he'd got from the Order of Chaeronea - from Oscar Wilde hisself, they says - who got it from beds and blackmail: plans of the Institute itself; of the very vault where's the Stamp were kept.

  9

  Yeah, honest! Oscar Wilde! So they says, anyways. I hears we offered him the Stamp for it, afore he were sent down. He were tempted. Says he didn't want to be no Dorian though. More's the pity. He'd have made a right good Rake, Oscar -

  A Rake? Them's the few and far between folks as were Fixed as adults. Like Jake Scallion, savvy? Ain't many, as it weren't thought wise, harder to smack down.

&nb
sp; Nah, some of them nobs might have fancied immortality, but they reckoned the soul writ in yer Stamp weren't real. That yer weren't human no more.

  Anyways, so Yapper learns what Jake's heard, about Puckerscruff's mission, how he were to fetch the plans back to the nearest thing as Scruffians have to a boss of bosses, Foxtrot.

  “Oooooh”, says Yapper finally twigging what Puckerscruff were miming in the wardrobe.

  It's up to them now, Jake tells him. They gotta be offsky, get them plans to where they belong.

  “And you better do it quick”, says a voice.

  And there stands Joey Picaroni, at that curtain where's the waggon's side is dropped as stage.

  “One scrufftrader and a dozen stickmen”, says he. And they're looking for you.

  The stickmen are here! Now all's a flurry! Jake rummages through this trunk and that, through guises all labeled to his fancy, with the letters of his name guddled up: a Polish intellectual, Aaron Laski-Lekjce; a Swedish matchgirl, Rosalie-Jean Klack; a German watchmaker, Alaric Jake Sonkel; a Scottish industrialist, Josiah Leacklanker -

  “There's an extra aitch in that”, says Joey.

  “All the aitches dropped round here”, says Jake, can't let them all go to waste.

  At last he settles on Eleasar Jinkalock, a miserly muckamuck, English as tuppence, with rusty chains for Yapper and Whelp to finish the look.

  Then Joey gives em directions for sneaking out, and where's he'll meet em.