How to Catch a Bogle

by Catherine Jinks

  “Please, Mr. Bunce,” begged the barmaid. “I’d not ask if I weren’t going mad with the strain of it. A bogle downstairs—why, it don’t bear thinking on! How am I to work in such a place?”

  Alfred sighed. He had retrieved his match and struck it against a wall; now he was drawing on his pipe as he lit it. Puff-puff-puff. For a moment his face was obscured by a cloud of smoke.

  Finally he rose and flicked his burnt match into the fireplace.

  “Aye, very well,” he rasped. “You’ll want me there now, I daresay?”

  “As soon as ever you can,” the barmaid replied happily. And Jem took advantage of her mood, edging up to her with his hand outstretched.

  “Tuppence, miss?” he softly reminded her.

  She flashed him a narrow, sideways look but paid up without protest. Alfred, meanwhile, was on his knees, fishing around under the bed. He soon produced an old brown sack, which Jem recognized with an inward shudder.

  The sight of it brought back horrible memories.

  “You’ll do exactly as I say, lad. Exactly,” Alfred insisted, turning his head to fix Jem with a grim look. “Is that clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Don’t you take yer eyes off me. Not for one instant. And when I move, you move. Or you’ll pay the price, make no mistake.”

  Jem nodded. He had always favored the idea of being a bogler’s boy, because bogling was such a flash occupation, like smuggling or highway robbery. People respected boglers. Unlike a grocer’s boy or a crossing sweeper, a bogler’s apprentice could walk down the street with a swagger in his step—not to mention a steady wage in his pocket.

  Of course, a pickpocket could attract just as many admiring stares, if he was walking down the right street, in the right part of town. Jem knew how that felt. But he also knew he’d been fooled into thinking that all those respectful glances were a tribute to his own skills—when in fact Sarah Pickles, his employer, had been the important one.

  “What’s me own cut o’ the fee, Mr. Bunce?” Jem asked, smothering a sudden pang of rage at the thought of Sarah Pickles. “How much did Birdie get for a job?”

  “She got what she deserved,” Alfred said shortly. “As you will.”

  Then he started to lay out his equipment, unwrapping his spear and testing the hinges on his dark lantern. Watching him, Jem felt slightly unnerved. Bogling could be dangerous. Jem understood that. He’d almost been eaten by a bogle once. And just because Alfred had saved him the last time didn’t mean it would happen again.

  For all he knew, he could be making the biggest mistake of his life . . .

  About the Author

  CATHERINE JINKS was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1963. She grew up in Papua New Guinea and later spent four years studying medieval history at the University of Sydney. After working for several years in a bank, she married a Canadian journalist and lived for a short time in Nova Scotia, Canada. She is now a full-time writer, residing in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales with her husband Peter and their daughter Hannah. Catherine is a three-time winner of the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year award, and has also won a Victorian Premier’s Literature Award, the Ena Noel Award for Children’s Literature, and an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction. In 2001 she was presented with a Centenary Medal for her contribution to Australian Children’s Literature. www.catherinejinks.com