The Several Lives of Orphan Jack

by Sarah Ellis

  Text copyright © 2003 by Sarah Ellis

  Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Bruno St-Aubin

  Published in Canada and the USA in 2012 by Groundwood Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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  This edition published in 2012 by

  Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press Inc.

  110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801

  Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4

  Tel. 416-363-4343

  Fax 416-363-1017

  or c/o Publishers Group West

  1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710

  www.groundwoodbooks.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Ellis, Sarah

  The several lives of Orphan Jack / by Sarah Ellis; pictures by Bruno St-Aubin.

  eISBN 978-1-55498-269-1

  I. St-Aubin, Bruno II. Title.

  PS8559.L57S49 2003 jC813’.54 C2003-901284-0

  PZ7

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF).

  For Mike and Chris

  Be tramps.

  — THE MOUSE AND HIS CHILD

  Chapter One

  “GENTLEMEN!”

  Schoolmaster Bane slapped his pointer down on his desk and barked out a question. “What is the purpose of snow?”

  The question floated out into the dead air of the classroom and over the bowed heads of the boys. Then it gave up hope and began to sink toward the floor.

  “Edwin!”

  Edwin heaved himself out of his desk and stood in the aisle. An answer surfaced in his head, and he gave it with a sure sense of defeat. Edwin had answers, but they were never the right answers.

  “Snowballs, sir?”

  Slap! The desk took another lashing from the pointer.

  “No, you scurvy lump of a semiwitted ne’er-do-well. Sit! Hugo!”

  A bullet of chalk whizzed down the aisle and connected with the ear of the dozing Hugo.

  “Ow! Zanzibar, sir?” Once, long ago, Hugo had been right with the answer “Zanzibar,” and he lived in hope of repeating his victory.

  “No, you booby-brained mutton-head. Otherjack!”

  Otherjack stood up. Two roads lay before him and both led to trouble. Give the wrong answer and Mr. Bane might reach the end of his rope and get out the strap. Mr. Bane had a very short rope. Answer the question correctly and Edwin, the late-night basher, would get him after dark.

  Ah, well, Otherjack said to himself. Better the trouble that lies around the corner than the trouble staring you in the face.

  “The purpose of snow is to keep plants warm in winter and to brighten our gloomy evenings, sir.”

  “Correct.” Mr. Bane sounded disappointed. He turned his pale blue eyes to the book in his hand, Little Truths for the Instruction of Boys.

  “What is the purpose of… ”

  A timid knock at the door saved the boys from further little truths.

  “Enter!”

  A small warty boy put his head around the door. “Otherjack to Dr. Keen, sir.”

  Otherjack stood up looking calm as a pudding.

  Breathing stopped all over the room. A summons to the headmaster could cause many a stomach to come loose from its moorings.

  Otherjack’s friend Marcus, sitting in the desk behind him, gave him a sympathetic punch between the shoulder blades. Edwin abandoned his plans for a bashing.

  But Otherjack stood up looking calm as a pudding.

  Otherjack was the king of staying out of trouble. In all his twelve years, in all the twelve years he had lived at the Opportunities School for Orphans and Foundlings, he had never once been flogged. Otherjack had skipped over trouble, danced around trouble, slid under trouble, melted away from trouble, talked his way out of trouble and slipped between two close troubles like a cat through a picket fence.

  He did not mean to break his record now.

  He walked down the hall toward the headmaster’s study, running his finger along the mustard-colored wall and breathing deeply to keep his stomach in place. The ghost smells of years of boiled turnip dinners kept pace with him.

  He sifted through his list of useful words.

  Trepidation, that was it. Like fear, but less so.

  He came to the headmaster’s door, so smooth and shiny and dark brown that he wanted to lick it. He knocked.

  Turnips, trouble and trepidation, he said to himself. That’s the life of an Opportunities Boy.

  Chapter Two

  “COME!”

  Otherjack turned the crystal doorknob and pushed open the heavy door.

  Dr. Keen’s office was as solemn as church. The headmaster leaned forward across his big desk. His long pale fingers were arranged like a tent in front of his chin. Otherjack stared at Dr. Keen’s fingernails and thought of baby Myrtle, the latest foundling left on the school steps. Only babies and Dr. Keen had fingernails that clean.

  “Well, young man, this is your moment of Opportunity.”

  Otherjack’s heart did a leapfrog. He hadn’t wanted to let himself hope. The “opportunity” at the Opportunities School for Orphans and Foundlings was that at age twelve each student was sent out to learn a trade. At twelve he could leave behind Mr. Bane and Mr. Hector and Mr. Wormwood. At twelve he could leave behind grammar and deportment and the purpose of snow. At twelve he could go out into the world in a new set of clothes and be Somebody.

  “We have found you an apprenticeship with a firm of bookkeepers. Fine old firm. You are a very fortunate boy indeed.”

  Bookkeepers! Otherjack felt a bubble of excitement begin to bounce around inside him. Bookkeepers must be the people who keep books safe.

  He looked beyond Dr. Keen to a glass-fronted bookcase behind him. Thick leather spines — brown, red and green.

  Dr. Keen’s voice floated away, and Otherjack began to imagine. A room full of books, floor to ceiling. Colors like jewels, and gold words inviting you in. And the keeper, sitting at the door in a tidy uniform, keeping the books safe, dry and warm.

  And reading! Of course there would be reading. All those ideas sitting sideways on shelves just waiting for him. Stories and adventures and books with pictures of elephants and Zanzibar and the wonders of the world and a whole dictionary and…

  Dr. Keen’s voice invaded his daydream.

  “ …inclined to inattention but good with sums. And we expect, of course, that you will always keep the good name of the Opportunities School for Orphans and Foundlings uppermost in your mind. Any questions?”

  Otherjack had nothing but questions. Would scholars come to use the books and did the bookkeeper help them find things? Did a bookkeeper mend the books if they were damaged? What would happen if some scoundrel tried to steal the books?

  But Otherjack knew, from his years of keeping out of trouble, that when Dr. Keen said, “Any questions?” the only good answer was “No, sir.”

 
“No, sir.”

  “Fine. Then your apprenticeship begins tomorrow. Young Gus will take over your house job in the scullery. Lady Duff from the Benevolents will meet you in your dormitory after tea.”

  Otherjack felt like turning a cartwheel right there in Dr. Keen’s office. What was the word?

  Euphoria. Like happy, but more so.

  Bookkeeping! Bookkeeping was going to be glorious! Otherjack had a vision of himself racing down the road, blowing on a policeman’s whistle, in pursuit of some villain who had stolen a book.

  Scholars and scoundrels. Volumes and villains. That will be my life, said Otherjack to himself. That will be the life of a bookkeeper’s apprentice.

  Chapter Three

  LADY DUFF placed her bony beringed fingers on her large front and gazed at Otherjack.

  “Well I remember the day you arrived, a poor wee orphan. All you had was a name. And didn’t the school already have a poor wee orphan called Jack? So they named you Otherjack. Dr. Keen is so clever.” Lady Duff gave a merry laugh. “And here you are, about to be apprenticed. What a lucky lad. I’m sure you know how lucky you are. Do you?”

  Otherjack nodded.

  “Of course you do. To be apprenticed to Ledger and Ledger. A fine old firm. It is all Dr. Keen’s doing, Dr. Keen’s connections. I’m sure you’re very grateful. Are you very grateful?”

  Otherjack nodded.

  “Of course you are. My dear father, of blessed memory, long since passed over, had some business with Ledger and Ledger.”

  As Lady Duff talked, she pulled clothes out of a box and held them against Otherjack.

  “Just try on this coat.”

  Otherjack slid his arms into a hairy brown jacket. It was made out of some stuff you could use to scour pots. His wrists hung out of the sleeves like spare parts.

  Lady Duff pulled the sleeves down firmly. “This will do very nicely. Lots of wear left in this coat. Can’t have you disgracing us at Ledger and Ledger, can we? Now, what about trousers?”

  She knelt down to measure a pair of trousers against Otherjack’s legs.

  His first long pants. Oh, magnificent day! Magnificent. Like good, but more so.

  Otherjack stared down at Lady Duff’s hat. It was decorated with a pheasant feather. The ladies of the Benevolent Ladies Auxiliary to the Opportunities School for Orphans and Foundlings were known as the Benevolents, and they all wore hats. When he was a little boy, Otherjack thought that benevolent meant something to do with hats. But then he found out it meant knitting and collecting things that were too worn, broken, old or stained for regular children, but would do for orphans and foundlings.

  Most of the boys mocked the Benevolents. A favorite trick was to stuff a pillow down the front of your shirt and pretend to be Lady Duff and then make rude noises. But Otherjack had a reason to think well of the auxiliary.

  At Christmas each student at the Opportunities School was given a pair of socks and a present. The Christmas Otherjack was ten, the Benevolents had given him a dictionary. It was grubby and missing the first part so that it didn’t have any A or B words, but from C to Z it had given Otherjack some of his happiest moments. The words were always there, ready to be taken out and used or just examined. A sunrise was better when you knew the word sublime. Oatmeal for dinner was somehow not so sad when you knew the word mingy. A bashing from Edwin was not so horrible when you could secretly call him a vandal.

  Best of all, the other boys could not steal or spoil Otherjack’s words. They were his secret hoard.

  Lady Duff snapped a pair of trousers in the air and folded them smartly. “Do you have your cap, then?”

  Otherjack nodded and pulled his orange- and blue-striped Opportunities cap out of his pocket.

  “Excellent. I’m sure you will be a credit to the school. Are you determined to be a credit to the school?”

  Otherjack nodded.

  Lady Duff took Otherjack by the shoulders and held him in front of her. “Of course you are. Just remember this. With diligence, fortitude and the will to succeed, any boy can rise above his… er… unfortunate beginnings. Are you that boy?”

  Otherjack tried to arrange his face into a combination of lucky, grateful, a credit to the school, formerly unfortunate and someone about to rise. It took a lot of arranging, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his eyebrows.

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

  Lady Duff left in a wave of floral perfume and benevolence. Otherjack laid his clothes out on the bed.

  Pants and possibilities, he said to himself. That’s the life of a Somebody.

  Chapter Four

  OTHERJACK stood with his hands in the sink. Floating islands of grease formed and reformed on the surface of the cold dishwater. A roasting pan, blackened and crusty, poked out of the few remaining soap suds like a freighter run aground.

  Otherjack was not concentrating on the dishes. Neither was Gus, the small freckled boy who stood at the other end of the shallow stone sink. Gus was holding a grubby, sopping tea towel and hanging onto Otherjack’s every word like a limpet.

  “Here’s what you need to know about being a scullery boy,” said Otherjack. “When Cook’s been drinking, he goes angry or he goes sad.”

  Gus nodded. “When he goes angry he beats the scullery boy, don’t he, Otherjack? I heard.”

  “That’s it. Wooden spoon, soup ladle, frying pan. Whatever comes to hand.”

  Gus pulled the tea towel over his head and groaned. “Why was I chosen as the new scullery boy? I could have done washing. I could have done fires. I could have done chamber pots. Anything!”

  Otherjack uncovered Gus’s head. “Don’t get yourself in a swivet. You’ll be fine because I’m going to tell you the secret. Are you paying attention?”

  Gus gave a sniffy nod.

  “The secret is to make Cook go sad.”

  “What’s he do then?” said Gus.

  “He cries. Huge big tears, and his nose runs something terrible. Sometimes it drips into the soup. Then he sits in his chair and goes to sleep. Come over here. You can hear him snoring now.”

  The boys went to the door that led from the scullery into the kitchen and opened it a crack. The sound of a bear growling was followed by the sound of a steam whistle.

  Otherjack pulled Gus back to the sink.

  “So if he cries there’s no beating?” said Gus.

  “Neither smack nor whack nor clip nor clout.”

  Gus took a deep breath. “What makes Cook sad, then?”

  “Talking about the sea,” said Otherjack. “Cook was born by the sea. He makes it sound lovely. He says that the water is never the same color twice. He says that storms leave treasures behind. He told me he once saw a mermaid. Sometimes he sings. Always the same song about the call of the tide and his sea-wracked heart.”

  “How do you get him started?”

  Otherjack pulled out the roasting pan and held it up dripping. “You just need to ask him a question. You can say, ‘Cook, were you ever in a terrible storm?’ or ‘How do you fix a leaky boat?’ or ‘By the way, what’s the biggest sea creature you ever saw?’”

  “Storm. Boat. Creature.” Gus was frowning. “I think I can remember. Who told you the secret, Otherjack?”

  “Nobody. It was my own idea.”

  “You must be clever,” said Gus. “I’m not clever. Storm. Boat. Creature. Does it always work?”

  Otherjack sighed and turned back to the sink. “No. Nothing always works. Some days Cook cannot be turned away from his anger. But one knock a week is better than a beating a day. Just remember, slops and slaps is the life of a scullery boy, but so is stories.”

  Gus nodded and flapped his tea towel in the air. “Slops and slaps and stories. I’ll remember. Thank you, Otherjack.”

  C
hapter Five

  “HANDS!”

  Mr. Ledger, of Ledger and Ledger, bent his head over Otherjack’s outstretched hands.

  Crow, thought Otherjack, looking at Mr. Ledger’s sleek, black, shiny hair. Not a feather out of place.

  “Disgraceful! Wash, boy! And don’t dawdle. Time is money here at Ledger and Ledger and we do not dawdle!” Mr. Ledger spoke in little explosions.

  Otherjack went into the gentlemen’s cloakroom and washed his hands with unusual energy. The water grew dirtier but his hands stayed about the same color. How could time be money? Money was heavy and made a clinking sound, and you kept it in your pocket or in a treasure chest. Time was light and quiet, and you couldn’t keep it at all.

  “Boy!” Mr. Ledger led Otherjack to a high desk. On the desk sat a large book, a pen and a bottle of ink.

  Finally, thought Otherjack. It’s time to read.

  But when the book was flipped open, it contained no words at all. Only numbers.

  Mr. Ledger ran his pale waxy fingers up and down.

  “Columns,” he said. He ran his finger back and forth.

  “Rows,” he said.

  “Add,” he said.

  Otherjack liked numbers. He liked eight because eight is like snowman. He liked four because four is like a mean little girl with blond pigtails and pointed elbows. He liked the tumbling twins, six and nine. And he had figured out arithmetic for the same reason he learned everything at the Opportunities School — to avoid getting into trouble.

  But when Otherjack began to add, these numbers would not behave themselves at all. The rows and columns just would not add up to the same total. They wouldn’t even be wrong in the same way twice.

  Minute after minute, hour after hour. The ink crept up Otherjack’s fingers. The tidy page grew muckier and muckier. Every time he looked up, he was being glared at by Mr. Ledger. The only sound was the scratching of pens. The numbers piled up in Otherjack’s head like potato peelings in a slop pail. They crowded out words. They crowded out plans and ideas. They crowded out thinking altogether.