‘Slave labour,’ is what Amelia would have said. She wasn’t there, but that’s what she would have said. ‘Slave labour is all they’re after,’ and she would have been pleased because she didn’t like children anyway so she would have nodded her approval.
As the Snap-dragon was shouting at someone for stealing a boy I thought about whether I wanted to be a boy or a girl – maybe I should have kept ma’s dress on so I wouldn’t be breaking my back doing hard labour, but then girls would be made to do cleaning and sewing and cooking and breaking their back that way. I’d decided being a boy was better because I’d probably get to go outside and there’d more likely be adventures outside and the sun and animals and even the rain but being stuck inside cleaning up after people would be like being trapped in a cage.
‘Come here, boy.’
I stood up and shuffled over to her. She squinted at me before lifting my arms, yanking at them like I was some rag doll.
‘Hey!’ I said, but she ignored me, squeezing my arms then turning me round and round until I got dizzy.
‘What’s in your bag?’
‘Clothes and books,’ I said shoving Monsta’s head and tentacles right to the bottom and showing her a sock and an H.G. Wells. She looked at the book and was about to say something when a man came over, dragging a boy, and said, ‘This one will do, Margaret.’
‘This one too, Tom,’ she said, and gripped my arm, pulling me over so he could see me. He nodded and she let go and patted me twice on the back.
‘C’mon then,’ she said, ‘get going.’
They ushered us off the platform. A girl stood ahead of us, face all a-storm.
‘Jesus!’ she said, ‘I can do just as good as any boy can.’
Tom and Margaret walked on as if they were going to ignore her but as they passed Tom took a swipe at her, hitting her across the face with the back of his hand. Her head hit the station wall with a crack.
‘Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain, lass,’ he said.
I stared back at her. She lay on the ground, dazed. I walked on, following the couple. I could hear the girl swearing again and I smiled.
‘That girl has no good sense in her,’ Queen Isabella would have said. ‘I hope you do.’
I nodded. I knew how to look after myself.
‘I’m Goblin,’ I said, and held out a dirty hand to the kid next to me.
‘I’m John,’ he said.
We shook hands and followed Tom and Margaret, our pretend parents.
When we got to the pretend house we were marched straight past it. Margaret disappeared inside and came out a moment later, throwing something at us. Tom barked at us to pick it up. We both scrambled for it. It was soap and it slid out of our hands, falling back into the mud. We kicked it along the path, back and forth, until Tom barked at us again. I took a hold of it and Tom shoved us into the river, throwing our bags on the bank.
‘Get clean, get dressed and get back to the house.’
We stripped in the water, scrubbing our clothes with the soap and throwing them onto rocks to dry. It was freezing but we warmed up as we pushed and splashed each other, fighting over the soap. When John almost fell over into the water he panicked and refused to get the soap when we dropped it. I ducked down, sweeping it off the river bed. I saw John’s willy all shrivelled up against the cold, bobbing in the current.
‘I can’t swim,’ he said, when I emerged.
‘I can’t swim either,’ I said, contemplating the water burbling past my belly.
‘I don’t want to drown,’ he said.
‘Do you think we’ll see the sea?’ I said. ‘Do you think we will? My brother was gonna take me to live by the sea and we were gonna fight with pirates and swim with mermaids.’
‘I can’t swim,’ he repeated. ‘Mermaids don’t exist.’
We scrubbed ourselves clean, washing away the journey, washing away London. John got out and got dressed. He waited on the bank, shifting from one foot to another.
‘You coming?’
‘In a minute,’ I said, not wanting him to find out I wasn’t a boy. ‘You go on up.’
He hesitated then turned and walked back up the path. I watched him disappear and pulled myself up onto the bank, shivering. I shook like a dog. Monsta crawled out of my bag as I dried myself.
‘You want a bath too?’
Monsta’s tentacle arm swayed. Kerlumpscratch, kerlumpscratch, down to the water’s edge. Monsta dipped in an arm and retreated instantly. Kerlumpscratch, sway, Monsta came back to me.
‘Ha! Monsta, we’re both shaking like dogs.’
But Monsta had an elegance. The black shrew eyes looked up at me as the water snaked down the worm-arm, disappearing into the grass.
‘Don’t worry, Monsta. Water won’t hurt you. We’ll go to the sea and we’ll learn to swim, eh?’
Monsta shuddered. I laughed and put on my shirt and shorts, propping the gas mask on my head. I dried Monsta off and we walked back up the path.
Luke was what they called me, because they were all religious and didn’t like ‘Goblin’ at all, not one little bit.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Margaret.
‘John,’ John said.
‘Goblin,’ I said.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What was that?’
‘Goblin.’
‘We’ll have no foolishness here,’ she said, all put out. ‘What’s your actual real God-given name?’
‘God didn’t give me a name,’ I said.
‘God gives everyone a name.’
‘I’ve always been Goblin. It’s what they called me from the beginning. Except most of the time it was the long version, Goblin-runt, but my friends just call me Goblin.’
I got a skelp across the head.
‘There’s no swearing in this house,’ she said, and I took a minute to think what she meant and thought maybe she thought ‘runt’ was a swearword, so I thought of putting her right, but thought of Isabella and David and their advice and just stayed quiet.
‘You must have a Christian name.’
I shook my head.
‘Then we’ll give you one. I’m not having any goblins in this house.’
That’s when they called me Luke, like in the Bible, and I just thought fine why not – a pretend name for pretend parents.
‘How old are you, Luke?’ asked Tom.
‘Nine, sir. I’ll be ten in March.’
He nodded.
‘And you?’
‘Ten,’ said John.
‘Ten what?’
John looked confused and said, ‘Years old.’
I nudged him in the ribs and whispered, ‘Sir!’
‘Ten years old, sir!’ he said and Tom nodded.
‘Right. Let’s get you to work.’
Every morning we were up at dawn. Eggs for breakfast then off to milk the cows and feed the pigs and the chickens. I soon learned that John was a real pain – he’d fiddle around, making it look like he was doing things but mostly he’d be letting me do all the work, and when I asked him for help he’d get all haughty and act like he was the one doing the most. He wasn’t worth the bother so I just got on with things and enjoyed being with the animals. I loved watching them. The chickens had shiny feathers and amazing feet. I’d stay with them long after feeding and stare at those feet, the way they curled in on themselves when they lifted them, the way they splayed out, claws scratching at the earth. Tom would yell over at me to stop dreaming and get on over to the pigs and off I’d trot and feed the pigs and muck them out and all morning I’d be sweating it out on the farm watching the animals eat and shit and play.