Free Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage by Chris Hannon

his nightshirt. A cool draft engulfed his sweat-soaked
body. He shivered and coughed, flooding his throat with mucus.
    The cough. It was guttural and
clogged, just like Mrs Donnegan’s. Scared and panicked, he grabbed
the lantern and grew the flame. Perry tiptoed across the hallway
into the kitchen and riffled through the drawers, finding the
biggest knife he could. He grabbed a rag and rubbed the blade’s
surface. It was obvious; staring back at him in the strip of metal
was a different person, a goblin version of himself.
    The knife fell from his hand
and clattered to the floor. It was nearly a week since he’d left
Mrs Donnegan’s. How was this possible? He looked about him at the
rotting damp cold of the kitchen and despaired. Not here, not in
this house. This was no place to die.
    He didn’t want to expose Joel
any more than he already had; his friend had been kind to him.
Perry threw on his clothes, picked up his blanket and tucked it
under his arm. The window slid up easily. He swung a leg out.
    ‘ Sorry,’ he
whispered to the bundle of sleep that was Joel. Perry lowered
himself onto the coal shed and jumped down to the
ground.
    Rain lashed across his face and
hair, the cool air soothed his fiery cheeks. He slid down the muddy
alleyway, steadying himself on the houses either side. He was so
thirsty. In front of the Mission he paused at a puddle, spiked with
rain. He stooped and cupped his hands into the freezing water and
slowly brought them up to his lips.
    A black rat
scurried past; its dark sheen glistened in the slimy light. Perry
let the brown liquid seep between his fingers and back into the
puddle, he couldn’t drink that , no matter how desperate. He
tilted back his head and let the arrows of rain hit his raw throat
instead. It was scant relief and only made him
thirstier.
    He wiped his hands on his
trousers and tried the Mission door, wondering if it was ever open.
His eyes welled up and his head filled with regret. He suddenly
wanted to see his Pa again, to look upon Eva once more and to find
the boys. He wanted to see how the littleuns would turn out, and
whether Rodney became a master sweep. But all that was left for him
was what he was surrounded by; mud, rain and rats. He wiped his
nose on his sleeve.
    ‘ Argh!’ he
kicked the puddle in anger, the water splaying up on the Mission
steps, soaking his trousers. ‘What a pile of shit!’
    His yells scorched his throat.
He touched his Adam’s apple with his thumb and forefinger and tried
to massage the pain away - but it would not abate. This, he
realised, would not be a painless death. He had no control over
that. But he could decide where to confront it. At the very least,
he would have this final thing.
     
    The fence to Mrs Donnegan’s
back yard was blackened and damaged in places. Perry found a hole
and crawled through, the wet mud soaking through his trousers and
the tattered fence snagging at his clothes. It hardly mattered
now.
    The yard looked much the same,
only blacker. He rushed over to the water butt. It was full! Like a
cat he lapped at it at first, but it wasn’t quick enough, he
plunged his muddy hands into the cool water and scooped handfuls
into his mouth. He drank deep and long and kept drinking until he
could fit in no more. The rain, crawling through the mud and his
sloppy drinking had left him soaked to the bone. Drowned from
outside while this fire ate him up from within.
    Mrs D’s place looked like it
might collapse at any moment, but it was his place. The kitchen
door was barely an ashen frame and inside, the old place was naught
but soot-haunted walls and ashy rubble. The memories of the times
he’d played cards with the boys or helped Mrs D with the cooking
prep or celebrated Christmas in that kitchen hit him with a warm
glow. He was glad that this would be his resting place.
    The pantry was miraculously
untouched by fire and he gauged it was just long enough, so he
rolled out his blanket, stripped and wrung out his