Freaks by Kieran Larwood Read Free Book Online Page B

and pieces for me over the years. All sorts indeed.”
    Sheba wanted to ask more, but a deep voice boomed out from the kitchen.
    â€œWhen you disgusting bunch of aberrations have finished stuffing your fat faces, there’s work to be done! Get off your lazy backsides, and get this place ready for a show!”

Early morning on Bermondsey waterfront, and the tanneries were already pumping streams of thick red fluid into the Thames. A mixture of chemicals, acid, and waste, it let out fumes that could take your eyebrows off at fifty paces. At the tannery doors, a steady stream of pure-pickers had begun to gather. The leather works needed excrement for tanning the hides and each carried a bucket of fresh dog droppings that they had collected from the streets the day before. Boats had begun to row, sail, and steam up the river. And waiting for the tide to ebb were packs of tattered children. Mudlarks, just like Till.
    Sheba tugged her hood over her head, hiding her face in its shadows. Her delicate nose was completely swamped by the disgusting aromas. It stank, it was freezing, and she was bored beyond measure. They had been out here since dawn, although it seemed like months of her life had passed by, standing on these muck-spattered cobbles.
    When they had first made their way through the morning crowd, she had marveled at the huge amount of people. More than the audiences at Plumpscuttle’s shows. More than the people milling outside her window on Brick Lane. She had kept close to Gigantus, one little furry hand clutching his sleeve, as he steamed through the throngs like an icebreaker.
Then
it had seemed marvelous and exhilarating to be out and about in the big city at last, but the novelty had soon worn off.
    They had been asking questions of folk on the waterfront for hours. Or rather, Gigantus had been asking questions while the others lurked in the background. Their peculiarities didn’t exactly encourage people to speak to them. They were usually too busy staring to even hear the question.
    Gigantus, on the other hand, used his huge size to great effect. When he stepped in front of someone it was like being confronted by a small mountain. People stood trembling while he asked about the missing mudlark, then told him every scrap of information they thought could be of any possible value, and very often more besides. He was currently towering over a shivering bargeman who was babbling about some spoons that were hidden under his bedroom floorboards.
    Sheba felt useless. She had thought she might be able to sniff something out with her nose, a hint of Till’s scent perhaps, but all she could smell were the tanneries and the stinking river. She had also imagined that a missing girl would be big news amongst the people of the riverside. It was becoming obvious that none of them gave a monkey’s.
    Beneath all the boats and steamers, beneath the oozing brown water and the floating lumps of
stuff
that swirled in it, was the mud that Till had spent her life combing for dubious treasure. In her cape pocket, Sheba ran her fingers over the cracked green marble.
Is she down there now?
she wondered.
Did she get sucked under the cold, clammy mud? Or did someone take her from the river to a different place entirely?
    They were upsetting thoughts, but Sheba couldn’t help them. Monkeyboy was right: In a city teeming with so many people, what were the chances of finding one insignificant little girl?
    Thinking like that won’t help
. She decided to concentrate on something else entirely. From deep within her hood, she focused on the river traffic. A splendid three-masted clipper was gliding its way down to the Pool of London, making the tiny skiffs and wherries around it look like ants. Something about its majestic lines and jutting prow stirred a feeling in Sheba, but it was so vague and distant she didn’t know what it was, or what it meant. An early memory, perhaps, but fluttering just beyond her