Read Online Brightling by Rebecca Lisle - Free Book Online

short and led to a stile they had to climb over, then into a narrow, cobbled square. Sparrow was soon confused. Stollenback was a wild maze of houses and streets, she would never remember her way about. She kept her eyes peeled for Sampson’s. She even thought about asking Glori where it was, but didn’t, because she didn’t want anyone to know about that – at least not yet.
    The roads grew narrower and narrower and more and more dirty. Piles of rubbish were heaped up beside the doorways, and lines of washing were strung between the windows above their heads. Dirty, ragged children watched them from their dens and dark corners.
    â€˜Nearly there,’ Glori said as they turned down yet another lane, a grim, narrow place with dangerous-looking dogs who barked at them. Scaramouch hissed at the dogs, his fur up in a fluff. Sparrow squeezed him comfortingly.
    â€˜Here we go.’ Glori turned down an almost invisible gap into a tiny, cobbled alley; so narrow that only one person could shuffle down it. ‘Old walkway,’ Glori told her. ‘The city’s full of them.
Ginnels
, we call ’em.’ Tall, bleak old buildings around it blocked out the light, making the narrow space gloomy and damp. ‘I was found in a ginnel when I was a kid. Can’t remember how I got there. Think I had a dad once, a dad with big wide hands and a grizzly chin. Maybe he left me there.’
    â€˜Oh Glori, that’s so cruel!’ Sparrow said.
    â€˜Least I weren’t tossed into the river like some unwanted offspring are, eh?’ she chuckled. ‘Else I’d be proper dead.’
    Sparrow felt her heart beginning to thump harder and harder as they squeezed their way along the ginnel. No one could live down here, she thought. It was a trap!
    She got ready to run.
    Glori turned round and grinned a toothy grin at her. ‘What’s your problem? Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad, I promise.’ They went a little way further along the passageway and then Glori stopped suddenly beside a door and whistled. Planks of wood had been roughly nailed over the door and it was daubed with paint and old posters advertising long-ago circuses and fairs; it didn’t look as if it had been used in a long, long time. Glori followed her whistle with three loud knocks on the door.
    A window was hauled open way above them and a girl looked down at them.
    â€˜It’s Glori!’ the girl shouted. ‘And she’s got someone with her.’
    A mighty key on a length of pink ribbon sailed down towards them. Glori caught it deftly and fitted it into the lock.
    â€˜Welcome to our home,’ she said, unlocking the door.

9
Plans
    Miss Knip rarely left the Knip and Pynch Home for Waifs and Strays. It wasn’t the dangerous, swampy krackodyles that lurked in the south, or the trolls in the north that kept her at the Home; she just liked to stay put. She enjoyed her job. She thrived on seeing children quake as she walked past them, and any time spent away from the Knip and Pynch Home meant less time causing misery. But now she had to go on a short journey. The prospect of getting her hands on a fortune – a
fortune!
– was too good to miss.
    She set out the next morning. She had Barton take her in the horse and cart; her seat high up behind the gatekeeper was safe even from the largest, bravest krackodyle, he assured her.
    Her journey didn’t take long. Miss Knip arrived at her destination a little dusty and a little tired. She wiped down her black dress and adjusted her bonnet around her mean, narrow face before knocking on the cottage door. ‘You wait there, Barton,’ she commanded. ‘I shan’t be long.’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am.’
    She turned back, hearing the door open.
    â€˜Miss Knip!’ cried the woman. ‘What a surprise!’
    â€˜I should imagine it is, Betty Nash,’ Miss Knip said, going towards her. ‘You can be sure it’s