Chapter Four

A City - Hundreds of Years Ago

A City - Hundreds of Years Ago

Daisy watched the line. Shuffling feet and pale, drawn faces. She couldn’t steal from them. There was only so much bread to go around meaning whatever she managed to get would leave somebody hungry, but she couldn’t take it straight from one of these doleful, grey men. And they were men, almost to a one. She saw perhaps three women in the whole line. Daisy might have passed as a young mother in the right clothes, but it was too risky. If someone in the line objected to her being there, a policeman would be sent for and she’d end up back in that place. Getting caught thieving from the store meant a beating from one of Mr Romulus’s men, but she’d take one if she had to. The orphanage was worse. Worse than fists.

It had taken her a few goes to find the right distraction. She’d tried flinging pebbles at the line hoping to start a fight, but she’d felt ashamed when the first man she’d hit had flinched but done no more, accepting his fate, not wanting trouble. She’d tried jumping on the running boards of one of Mr Romulus’s cars and that had caused the right kind of ruckus, but by the time she’d managed to lose the thug who’d chased her, the opportunity was gone. The pigeon had worked best, but this would be the third time she’d used this trick. Soon enough she’d need something new, but for now it was the pigeon. The one she’d trapped was small and slender, almost but not quite an adult, nestled quite still inside her coat. 

When the street car approached, Daisy left her spot in the shadow of the alley and walked alongside the heavy, rumbling trolley for a moment before running past it, over the tracks and down another alley behind the store. She climbed to the higher window to release the pigeon, then dropped down to the alley floor and slowly counted to five before leaning her whole body through the lower window and grabbing two of the day-old loaves. She couldn’t risk looking around to check that she hadn’t been seen, but from the sound of it the bird was having the desired effect. She slid out of the window and went to leave the way she had come, but blocking the alley entrance was one of Mr Romulus’s thugs, slowly shaking his massive head, a grin across his pudgy, pockmarked face. If he’d had the sense to grab her as she came out of the window, then she would have been done for; thinking he had her trapped in the alley was a mistake.