A Scruffian Primer

By Hal Duncan

Meet the Scruffians, workhouse tykes & street arabs scrobbled by the Waiftaker General, dragged to the Institute & put to the Stamp, Fixed ageless, imperishable... the perfect child labour. Meet the scruffs escaped to live free & fight back: Flashjack & Puckerscruff; Squirlet Nicely & Vermintrude Toerag; Yapper, the Scruffian what speaks Dog; Whelp, the dog Fixed as a scruff; and Rake Jake Scallion, not a scruff, but the finest friend a scruff ever had! Park yer arse, stray, and we'll learn yer the ABCs of being a scruff. We'll learn yer how us Scruffians STAMP!

Like fugitives from the musical Oliver! by way of Clive Barker, like some queer punk bastard brat born of Neil Gaiman and William Burroughs, the Scruffians should appeal to readers of dark fantasy with a wicked sense of blackest humour. Wielding whimsy in the service of satire, with a wink to Peter Pan, a nod to The Borribles, and a salute to Sweeney Todd, this is punk fiction for yer inner feral child.

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“The post- post- modern Victorian fables that comprise Hal Duncan’s A Scruffian Survival Guide inhabit a unique dark fantasy world – a feral dream. The language is mad genius.” — Jeffrey Ford on A Scruffian Survival Guide

“Hal Duncan's cheeky and charming Scruffian stories hide a steely shiv of inspection that digs uncompromisingly into the ribs of the establishment. This latest volume, populated as always with wonderful characters old and new, deepens that exploration and brings it bang up to date. I loved every word of it.” — Neil Williamson on A Scruffian Survival Guide

"[A] wickedly entertaining collection of short fiction fantastical and queer in nature... sharp-tongued and a bit dark—I’d even say a little roguish, sometimes—these stories are delightful and provocative, and I’d certainly recommend picking them up for a read." — Tor.com on Scruffians!

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NB: The Taking of the Stamp is only available in the print edition of this book or as the standalone ebook novella available from Popcorn Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hal Duncan
• Release date: Sep 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463540688

Hal Duncan

Hal Duncan lives in Glasgow.

Book preview

Scruffians STAMP

• 1

Orphans, foundlings, latchkey kids. Urchins, changelings, live-by-wits. Rascals, scallywags, ruffians, scamps. Scoundrels, hellions, Scruffians STAMP!

From his seat on the bench, the Scruffian who didn’t know he was a Scruffian yet, who didn’t even quite know what a Scruffian was, watched the other kids in the park, half-wishing he was like them, with their homes and happy families—well, families, at least—and half-hoping he would never be like them, never. Soon they’d all be going home to their tea, though they probably called it dinner. He wasn’t going home to neither, not ever, not likely.

•

Orphans, foundlings, latchkey kids. Urchins, changelings, live-by-wits. Rascals, scallywags, ruffians, scamps. Scoundrels, hellions, Scruffians STAMP!

They were playing hopscotch, boys and girls together, which was a bit strange cause hopscotch was really a girl’s game, he’d always thought, and none of the boys looked like sissies. Not that looking like a sissy meant you was one, or that not looking like a sissy meant you wasn’t one. The Scruffian, who wasn’t really a Scruffian yet, just on his way to it, knew that.

He shivered in his thin red windbreaker, which wasn’t anything in this kind of weather.

•

Orphans, foundlings, latchkey kids. Urchins, changelings, live-by-wits. Rascals, scallywags, ruffians, scamps. Scoundrels, hellions, Scruffians STAMP!

With the last word, the girl or boy playing hopscotch would come down hard with both feet, while the rest would all stamp one. Made it all like some… war-dance. Weird. And some of them… some was a bit old for hopscotch surely.

Orphans, foundlings, latchkey kids. Urchins, changelings, live-by-wits.

They all had such sharp looks on their thin faces too.

Rascals, scallywags, ruffians, scamps. Scoundrels, hellions, Scruffians STAMP!

And they was all looking at him on that last word.

• 2

Orphan was the first Scruffian, so they says. See, he had the sweetest voice ever heard, did Orphan; so sweet it was, there’s many as think he must have come from Heaven. Well, he was found as a babe, abandoned on a mountainside. Would’ve been left there too if it weren’t for the fact that even his crying was like music. The shepherd as found him, he was flat astounded, took the lad home just so’s he could sit there listening to him… bawling and bawling. Why, that’s bloody beautiful, the shepherd thought. And did fuck all to soothe him.

•

Weren’t long before the lad started singing. And how! When he sang a sad song, that’s what made the willow tree weep, and when he sang a happy song, why, even the stones would dance. So naturally the groanhuffs all wanted him singing at their funerals and weddings. No matters how he felt. Sing us a sad song, they’d say, even if he were happy. Or, sing us a happy song, they’d say, even if he were sad. And because the foundling didn’t have no-one as truly cared for him, they’d just clip his ear if he says no.

•

You was in one of those foster homes before yer run away, right? I’ve heard what goes on in some of those places, from the telly, from the news. And I remember me own days in the workhouse. I’ll tell yer this: I dunno if it happened how we fabbles it, but even if it ain’t aktcherly true, it is true aktcherly, I’ll bet. If yer sees what I mean. Even if Orphan’s story was just made-up to fill in what none of us knows, it ain’t no fucking lie the way that pixie dust and pirates bollocks is.

• 3

Anyways, one day Orphan’s singing at the wedding of a princess, a song about how beautiful she is, how lucky any husband is to have her, and the dancing of the stones, well, that carries his music right down to the Lord of