Free The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Chris Moriarty Page B

a third-floor front apartment, with two windows opening onto Hester Street and a fire escape big enough to sleep the whole family on stifling summer nights. But seeing the building now, with Wolf and Lily beside him, Sacha realized it was desperately shabby. Maybe even worse than shabby.
    For the first time in his life, he was glad there were no lights in the stairwell. It was so dark that his own mother could have tripped over him without recognizing him. As long as he kept his mouth shut and the neighbors kept their doors closed, he was safe. All he needed now was for his luck to hold until they made it past the third floor.
    Meanwhile, Lily was peering around the windowless entryway. "Does anyone see a light switch?"
    "I ... uh ... don't think there
are
any—"
    "Nonsense!" Lily interrupted. "I know for a fact that Commissioner Roosevelt passed a law requiring landlords to install lights at least two years ago!"
    "Well, bully for him!" Sacha muttered.
    "You needn't laugh," Lily huffed. "Some of us actually
care
about poor people!"
    By the time they made it to the top floor, Wolf had knocked over two ash bins and narrowly missed stepping in a full chamber pot, while Lily had "rescued" a "lost" baby she found playing on the stairs and returned it to its parents—only to be told to mind her own business in language not suitable for a young lady's ears. Finally, they gathered at the top of the stairs. Someone had propped open the door to the roof, so there was a dingy trickle of daylight. While Wolf took off his glasses and wiped his face on his sleeve, Sacha glanced at Lily to see how she was taking her first encounter with the tenements.
    There was a large, sooty smear down the front of her white dress, and she was still catching her breath. But she seemed pretty calm, he thought.
    Until she opened her mouth.
    "How can people
live
like this?" she gasped. "They're no better than animals! And those
poor
children! It's enough to make you think the missionaries are right and they'd be better off in an orphanage!"
    Sacha bit his tongue and turned away, thankful that the corridor was too dim for her to see the angry flush spreading across his face. "Let's get this over with and get out of here," he said. "Where are the stupid Wobblies anyway?"
    "If you can't figure that out," Wolf drawled, "you might want to consider another line of work."
    And indeed, there was a huge banner strung over the last door on the left. The banner had been designed to be carried down the broad avenues of New York by a phalanx of demonstrating workers, not hung in a hallway barely wide enough for two people to squeeze past each other sideways. Bold purple letters marched across its face, spelling out one of Uncle Mordechai's favorite rallying cries:
WITCHES OF THE
WORLD UNITE!
YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE
BUT YOUR CHAINS!
    On the bright side, Sacha told himself as he trailed down the hallway after Wolf and Lily, things couldn't possibly get any more ridiculous than this.
    But of course things can always get more ridiculous—and usually do.
    The boy who answered Wolf's knock had carrot-colored hair that corkscrewed from his head like rusty springs popping out of a broken mattress. His bony wrists stuck out of his sleeves halfway up to the elbow, and his neck was so skinny that his tie looked like a hangman's noose.
    But worst of all was the expression on his face. It was eager, sweet, pathetically earnest. You knew as soon as you laid eyes on him that he was the kind of fellow who could be counted on to finish last every time, like the nice guy he was. Basically, he was the walking definition of a
shlimazel.
Or a
shnook
or a
shmendrick
or ... well ... there were a thousand pitying words in Yiddish to describe this kind of boy. And Sacha's family could happily have spent a thousand years arguing over which word fit him best. But all Sacha cared about right now was getting out of here before this ridiculous boy or any of his crazy Wobbly friends