Mind the Gap

chapter Four

all the world

"Gather round, my pets. Time to have a chat with our little wandering note, our Jazz girl. Leave off

the dinner prep just now, Stevie, and come to circle."

The boy looked up from perusing the contents of the tribe's many refrigerators. He must have been

eighteen or so, tall but slender with muscles like whipcords. He wouldn't be very strong, but he'd be quick

as the devil. His black hair hung straight to his shoulders, and his eyes were a coppery brown. Jazz couldn't

help taking a second glance at him, and a third, and when he noticed, she turned her eyes away.

Now that she'd calmed down a bit and the panic of her urgent bladder had passed, Jazz took a closer

look at the nine runaway urchins who made up Harry's United Kingdom. Hattie and Faith seemed like

opposites: Hattie a bit odd and wild but happy enough, and Faith with grim blue-steel eyes and suspicion

deep as a knife wound.

The boys seemed to lack any real leader aside from Harry, unless the silent Stevie filled that role.

The youngest among them was twelve-year-old Gob, but Jazz couldn't be sure if the nickname came from

his lurking in the tunnels like some hobgoblin or from the fact that he never seemed to stop nattering, even

to breathe, unless Harry hushed him.

Cadge had a bit of the peacock in him. The prize pupil, he obviously fancied himself a miniature

Harry, even mim-icking the man's body language, that particular quality that bespoke an earlier life as a

gentleman. Just a few minutes watching him scramble about revealed that Cadge must be the procurer

among them, the most adept with his fingers. He seemed also to know where every item in the old shelter

had been stored.

"Come, come," Harry urged, gesturing for them to move in closer.

The United Kingdom formed a circle, seated on the cold ground. Somewhere a train rumbled past,



and Jazz remembered where they were, how deep, with the whole of modern London looming over their

heads and only the echoes of the past around them. She studied Harry's face, searching for guile or cruelty,

but saw only a gleaming pride in his tribe, a love for them that seemed simultaneously out of place and all

too natural there in the forgotten cellar of the city.

Harry settled down, leaving Jazz the only one standing. He gestured for her to take a place beside

him in the circle.

"Small comforts in our kingdom, love, and chairs not among them. Do join us, please."

For a moment, Jazz was struck by the upturned faces of Harry's followers. The word urchins

would not leave her head, though surely many of those nine children were far too old to bear the word

comfortably. Still, urchins they were. Lost and dirty children, far from whatever homes they might once

have had. They looked to her like schoolchild-ren waiting for the teacher to begin reading, eyes alight with

the eager anticipation of story time.

I'm Wendy Darling, she thought. But Jazz understood her foolishness instantly, and a tremor passed

through her. Neverland did not exist in the rotting belly of London, un-der the feet of the world, and these

were not the Lost Boys. Wendy Darling had run off on a girlish whim, heart aflutter with the allure of Peter

Pan, and when she'd gotten over her crush, her parents were waiting for her with open arms, ready to

whisper happily-ever-afters as they tucked her into bed.

There'd be no fairy-tale ending for her. Not with those words her mother had written in blood.

"Thank you," Jazz said, her voice quavering only a little.

She sat down beside Harry, and a collective sigh of relief seemed to sweep over the tribe of urchins

—the United Kingdom. Did that make Harry the king? she wondered.

"The circle is for sharing stories," Harry began a bit cer-emoniously, though his eyes were gentle.

"Whether it be the day's adventures, or the nightmares that wake us in the night, or the longings for times

gone by, what's spoken here is never judged, never questioned. We bring only truth to the circle."

The nine apostles nodded their assent and Jazz followed suit.

"A time for proper introductions, then," Harry said, turning to Jazz. "Harold Pilkington Fowler, at your

service."

He made a bow of his head and spoke the words with a courtly flourish of his hand. Jazz gnawed her

lower lip for a moment, glancing nervously about. Shouldn't she still be running? Or was there simply

nowhere left to run? She had no reason to trust this odd band, save that they seemed the utter opposite of

the Uncles and their BMW men. Harry Fowler's tribe was the opposite of everything, really. Oppo-site of

the world as she'd always known it.

A twitch of a smile touched her lips. Their oppositeness suddenly seemed more than enough reason

to trust them. Thieves, ruffians, and scoundrels they might be, but she sensed the nobility in them and a

sense of honor she'd rarely encountered among the tidier folk aboveground.

Jazz returned Harry's bow and offered her hand. "Jasmine Ellen Towne, Mr. Fowler. And she's

grateful for your hospitality."

Harry beamed. He shook her hand and then adjusted the lapels of his coat as though chairing a

meeting of the board of a brokerage or similarly snooty enterprise.

"Now then, my compatriots, my fine filchers, do like-wise please and make yourselves known to our

Jasmine —"

"Jazz," she interrupted. "Just Jazz, please."

Hattie sighed, rolling her eyes. "'Course it's just Jazz. I said as much, didn't I? We don't care much

for proper names down in the kingdom. No use for 'em."

She wore a pale peach bonnet with faux flowers on the brim and a smear of black grease along one

ragged side. Jazz wondered how many hats she had hidden about the shelter.

"Jazz it is, then, and a fitting name. Improvisation is vi-tal to our little enterprise, so I hope you shall

earn the appel-lation," Harry said. "But back to our introductions. Round the circle, if you please."

And they began. The boy to Jazz's left had small dark eyes set back in his face above a long thin

nose that had been broken more than once. She'd thought his name would be Rat, or some synonym, but he

went by Bill, an ordinary enough name. Bill did not introduce himself, however. That task fell to Leela, an

Indian girl who sat beside him. Leela's eyes seemed to have their own luminescence, but they dimmed a

little when she explained that Bill had no voice of his own. Whether the boy was actually mute or simply

chose never to speak, Leela did not reveal, and Jazz hadn't the heart to ask.

Cadge was next, and for a moment the confidence he had when imitating Harry faltered and he gave

Jazz a shy smile. The names came too quickly. She'd already marked Hattie, Faith, Gob, and Stevie.

Another of the boys was called Switch, and still another Marco —after the explorer Marco Polo, according



to Harry—but by the time they'd gone round the circle entirely, Jazz couldn't recall which was which.

"Good to meet you all," she told them, "and thanks for not running me off."

Some of them smiled in return, but others sniffed at her words and one or two eyed her with open

suspicion.

"Nonsense," Harry said with a flutter of his hand. "It's not our way, love. You're a stray. We've all

gone astray our-selves, but now we're lost together. Far better than being lost on your own. Now, then, let's

have your story. I see it's all still fresh, a bit of glaze in your eyes, but pain needs telling, Jazz girl. Pain

always needs telling. The only way to stanch the wound."

Jazz squeezed her eyes shut and a moment of vertigo washed over her. If she hadn't already been

seated, she'd have fallen. Was she really supposed to share her story with them all, like some tale told round

a campfire?

Nothing's for nothing, her mother had once said. Those that help mostly help themselves. Jazz

could hear the echoes of that voice whispering in her head, and she wanted to claw into her brain to stop it.

It felt now as though her mum had been preparing her for this all her life. But Jazz wasn't ready to be

alone. How could she survive down here in the dark by herself?

She opened her eyes again and saw those faces, all watching her curiously. Her mother's whispers

became more insistent, but Jazz shut them out. After all, her warn-ings had been about people up in the

world, people like the Uncles, not about the discarded, like Fowler and his United Kingdom. Even if she told

them, how could they hurt her with the truth? They lived down here. Who would they tell?

"My mum's dead," she said. "Murdered, just today." Jazz frowned and looked upward, as though she

could see through hundreds of feet of earth and stone and pavement. "Or yesterday. I'm not sure what time

it is. I was walking home from school and a queer feeling came over me, and then I saw the cars."

"Cars?" Harry asked.

Jazz nodded. "The Uncles were there, but there'd never been so many visiting at once and I knew

something was wrong. Mum brought me up paranoid, made sure if things took a turn I'd suspect it right off,

and I did. I went up the al-ley that runs behind the house..."

She left out any mention of ghosts or whispers, fearful that they'd think her mad or doubt every word

if she started up talking about phantoms. By the time she finished re-counting the hours leading up to their

discovery of her, like Goldilocks in Baby Bear's bed, Jazz felt exhaustion begin-ning to claim her again. Her

tears flowed freely while she spoke, and several times she had to pause simply to catch her breath. The

sympathy on Harry Fowler's face and the empa-thy shining in the eyes of the urchins were the greatest

gifts she had ever received.

Jazz never would have imagined herself crying so openly in front of anyone, let alone a roomful of

strangers. But she could still smell her mother's blood. Her life had new rules, now and forevermore.

When she fell silent, no one spoke for a moment. Harry reached out as though to lay a comforting

hand on her shoul-der but hesitated. Then he cupped the back of her head and looked into her eyes. Had

anyone else done such a thing, Jazz would have slapped the hand away.

"You're well hid, Jazz girl. Well hid. So you've done as your dear mother asked," he said, his gaze

intense. After a moment, he withdrew his hand but continued to stare at her.

"You can keep running if you like," Harry went on. "No one will try to stop you. We'll give you a bit

of food, let you keep a torch, even an extra set of batteries. But know that you're not alone down here, and

I'm not talking about us. There are old empty stations all through the Underground, and shelters like this one

as well, and other places besides.

The whole city's got a warren under it, and a wonder it doesn't collapse right down into the earth.

Sometimes I think the old tunnels are growing, spreading like the roots of some invisible tree.

"Point is, others have retreated down here over the years. Some come and go. Mostly they're hiding,

like you, or don't trust anyone up above, like me. They aren't all as hospitable as the United Kingdom, I'm

sorry to say. There are lots that are homeless as well, not hiding so much as fallen through the cracks.

You'll see them in your rambles underground. And there may be other things down here, wild dogs and the

like. Pets lost to the tunnels.

"So I say this: go if you like, and Godspeed. Stay if you like, and welcome. But if you stay, you've got

to contribute, just like the rest."

Jazz glanced at the hard ground at the center of the cir-cle. "By contribute, you mean steal."

Harry laughed at that, the sound a harsh, barking cough. "Steal from them topside? Surviving isn't

thieving, Jazz girl. We're scavengers, so we are, living off the corpse of a decaying society. If we pick a

pocket or snatch a purse, or forage for food or supplies, they don't miss it. Not really. We're invisible down

here, girl, just as we like it. It's a world of monsters up there.



"There are the rich and the poor, and the poor must stick together. If we don't, the rich will pick our

bones."

Even without the encouragement on the faces around the circle, Jazz felt the truth of Harry's words.

The world above had taken her mother, or at least turned a blind eye while killers spilled her blood. Rich

men who followed the rules. The world had shaken her off like a dog shakes off fleas.

Her mother had told her to hide, but Jazz understood the deeper meaning of the word, communicated

over the course of years. Mum had wanted her to survive, above all else.

"I might not stay forever, or even for very long," she warned.

Harry only smiled. He clapped his hands and stood up.

"I'm famished. Let's have a nibble, eh? Then we'll see if Jazz girl's got the knack."



****

Half the cast was crowded into the green room while a quar-tet of volunteer mothers applied the

final touches of the stage makeup. Mrs. Snelling darted her head back and studied Jazz, then put down the

brush —done with blush, apparently. Unsatisfied, she picked up the coal pencil and darkened the lines

around her eyes. At last she smiled, sat back, and nodded.

"Gorgeous, love. You're ready for your close-up."

Jazz thanked her and hurried out of the room. In full costume, she had to reach down and gather up

the bustle of her dress to squeeze through the crowded space. Making a point, Tom Rolston gestured

broadly and clipped the edge of her bonnet. Had Jazz not flinched away from him, he might have dislodged

the hat, pins and all.

"Oi! Watch it, y'lummox!" she said.

Rolston laughed and rolled his eyes. "Sounds more like Eliza than Mrs. Higgins."

Jazz explored her hair and bonnet to make sure all was still in place, then shot him a dark look.

"Lucky boy. I won't have to kill you today, apparently."

"What a glorious death it would be, though," he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Smiling, Jazz exited the green room. Though her role in My Fair Lady was that of a lady, the entire

cast had taken to imitating the rough, cockney speech of Eliza Doolittle back-stage. Sometimes a

well-placed guv'nor could reduce the whole stage to fits and giggles.

She rushed down the half dozen stairs to the door lead-ing out into the auditorium. The hinges

squeaked when she opened it, and she made a mental note to remind the direc-tor —the English teacher,

Mr. Morris—to have someone take care of it before the first performance tomorrow night.

Today was the dress rehearsal. They were all in full cos-tume and makeup for the first time. Though

Jazz was a slender girl, her costume cinched her waist so tightly that she felt it might rip at any moment.

The girl who'd been handling costumes promised to let it out tonight, and Jazz hoped she remembered, or

there was the real possibility she'd pass out onstage.

The door squeaked shut behind her and Jazz glanced up onto the stage, where the hands were

moving sets around with only a modicum of thunder. Then she glanced out over the auditorium. Most of the

five hundred or so seats were empty. The director and the school's principal sat with half a dozen teachers,

patiently waiting for the dress rehearsal to begin. Twenty or thirty parents had come as well, along with a

handful of kids who were the younger siblings of members of the cast.

Jazz felt a moment of crashing disappointment when she did not see her mum. Then her gaze

flickered to the back of the auditorium and the figure standing just inside the doors, and her smile returned.

She hurried up the central aisle and presented herself to her mother, spinning once to show off her

dress and then curtsying like a lady.

"What do you think?"

Her mother smiled nervously. "You look lovely, Jazz. I could do without all that makeup —"

"It's stage makeup, Mum. You've got to wear it or the audience won't be able to see the expression

on your face."

"Well, you do look lovely. Hardly a girl at all anymore. A young lady."

Jazz basked a moment in the compliment, but then she saw that her mother's attention had wandered,

gaze darting around to take in the auditorium, the doors at either side of the stage, and the nearer corners of

the room.

"What is it?" Jazz asked, seeing her mother's brows knit.

Her mum nodded toward the stage. "And you'll be up there, will you? The entire time?"

"Hardly," Jazz replied. "My part's not very big. It's not as if I'm playing Eliza."

"Yes, but when you are on, you won't be out in the audi-ence at all?"

"Of course not."



"That'll have to do, I suppose. Can't be too careful, sweetheart."

Jazz stared. Her mother had always been paranoid, and she suspected it had to do with the

suddenness of her father's death. Jazz tried to assuage her fears whenever possible, but sometimes she

couldn't bite her tongue.

"Honestly, Mum. What's going to happen? It isn't as if someone in the audience is going to try to hurt

or rob me in the middle of the show."

Her mother's thin smile seemed to pain her. She gave a shake of her head. "No, of course not, love.

Still, you can never be too careful. Never know what's out there looking to do us harm, do we? Just look

after yourself."

But the following evening, and at all three performances that weekend, whenever Jazz spotted her in

the audience, her mum was standing at the rear of the auditorium, not watching the show but instead

studying the audience and the shadowy corners of the room, always on guard.

But that was her mother. Always on guard. She never seemed to know precisely what or who might

pose a threat, so she mistrusted everything and everyone.

Jazz never participated in another play after that. She could find no joy in it.