When You Were Young

"All right," the fat woman says.

Wendell slips the schilling into his pocket and then takes his end of the trunk. The weight of it strains his arm muscles until he thinks they'll burst. "Try to be careful," the fat woman's husband says. "There are precious artifacts in here. I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to them."

Wendell is straining too hard to say anything. He walks up a ramp with the fat woman's husband, onto the deck of a ship called the Primrose. Once on the deck, he runs into a man with steel-gray hair tying a rope. "Watch it," the man snaps.

"Sorry," Wendell says through his teeth. All this trouble for a schilling, he thinks. Still, that schilling will allow him to eat tonight. A feast arises in his imagination: a plump chicken, crispy potatoes, warm bread, spiced pudding, and a mug of sweet ale. Enough to silence his stomach for a week.

So busy planning this imaginary feast, he trips on the stairs going down into the hold. The trunk slips from his grasp. Remembering what the fat woman's husband said-and not wanting to lose the precious schilling-he tries to catch the trunk before it falls.

He hears a snap in his right arm and screams as the trunk bangs against the deck. The fat woman's husband takes hold of his arm, touching it to make him scream again. "This is unfortunate. Stay right here. I'll fetch Dr. Morris."

Wendell sits down on the trunk, cradling his arm. Through eyes stained with tears he looks around the ship. His highly-trained nose detects the smell of food coming from below, easing the pain in his arm. He creeps down the stairs to find barrels of salted meat and biscuits. There's enough food here to keep him alive for years.

He looks back up the stairs. After the doctor gets here they'll force him off the ship, back to the streets and his animal-like existence. Wherever the Primrose is heading, it can't be worse. "Where'd you go, lad?" the fat woman's husband calls out. Wendell dives behind the barrels, all pain forgotten for the moment as he thinks of a new life awaiting him.

He let the paper drop to the beach and looked out to sea at the remains of the Primrose. Rocks had gashed the ship from the bow midway to the stern. It's never going to sail again, he thought. We're stranded. But still, it must be better than where he had come from. He climbed up the rise to the encampment, pausing to look down at the three men still talking. Their plans didn't matter at the moment; he hurried along to quell the rumbling in his stomach at last.