Free Wild Boy by Rob Lloyd Jones Page B

let it hang. He looked back to Professor Wollstonecraft’s corpse. “Then it is true,” he said.
    “What’s true?” Wild Boy said. “Only thing that’s true is I’m about to get hung. I told you what I know, so get me out of here.”
    The man tucked his notebook away and brought out a slim leather pouch that was folded shut like an envelope. “It is imperative,” he said, “that I identify this hooded man.”
    “I told you everything I know.”
    “No. You told me everything you
think
you know.”
    The man opened the pouch. Something glinted inside. A syringe.
    “What’s that?” Wild Boy said. “What the hell’s that for?”
    “You are afraid,” the man said. “You are not thinking clearly. I suspect you saw more than you remember.”
    The syringe’s bronze tip reflected in his golden eye, and pale liquid dripped from the needle point. “This drug will
make
you remember.”
    If Wild Boy hadn’t been so scared he might have laughed. There was no way he was letting anyone stick him with a needle. He scrambled back, kicking again at the bars. “Get back! Don’t you touch me with that thing!”
    “It will be less painful if it enters your arm,” the man said. “But it does not have to.”
    Another thump shook the stable doors. “Give us the boy!” one of the porters yelled. “Showman’s Law for him!”
    Wild Boy turned in the cage, searching desperately for the floorboard nail he’d dropped. He saw it on the straw outside the cage, but it was too far to reach. Only one other plan came to mind.
    Shifting around, he slid his coat down to offer the man a hairy, trembling shoulder. “All right,” he said. “Use your needle. But stick it in my arm like you said.”
    The golden-eyed man hesitated, suspicious. But he wasn’t missing his chance. Holding the syringe steady, he leaned closer. “I am afraid,” he said, “that this will hurt.”
    Wild Boy braced, waiting. He had to time this just right. . . .
    Now!
    He slammed his palm into the loose end of the floorboard. The other end shot up through the bars and caught the man hard on the chin. The man’s golden eyeball fell from his face as he toppled back and collapsed to the floor.
    Again the porters banged the doors. The rafters shook. The horses stamped and reared in their stalls.
    Wild Boy lay flat in the cage and reached for the nail. If he could grab it, maybe he could pick the lock to the cage. His fingers were tantalizingly close, but it was just beyond his grasp. “Come on,” he begged. “Please . . .”
    And then —
thump
— two feet landed on the straw beside the nail.
    Clarissa!
    Beneath a long, dark coat, the red and gold sequins of her circus costume shimmered in the lamplight. She looked at Wild Boy, and her tongue flicked nervously across her broken tooth. “I heard what you said about the hooded man,” she said. “You didn’t snitch on me to my mother. You could’ve, but you didn’t.”
    Wild Boy gripped the bars, his heart surging with fresh hope. “Yeah, so now you’re gonna get me out of here.”
    Clarissa looked at the stable door, heard her mother order the porters to smash it down. She touched the bruise on her face, scared, unsure.
    “Clarissa, I swear I won’t tell your mother. She won’t beat you or —”
    “Shut your head about my mother! She ain’t never beaten me!”
    Wild Boy knew she was lying. He had to convince her that this was bigger than the fight between her and her mother. He knew that, as well as being an acrobat, Clarissa’s father had performed escape-artist tricks in the circus show. Perhaps he’d taught her some of his skills.
    “Clarissa, see that rope? Your mother is gonna hang me from it. She’s gonna
hang me,
Clarissa. Please use that nail. Try to open the lock.”
    “It won’t work,” Clarissa said.
    “What?”
    “That lock’s a Smithson. Can’t pick a Smithson with a nail.”
    Wild Boy swore, kicked the bars. “Try, will you? Please!”
    “Won’t work with a