A Scruffian Survival Guide

By Hal Duncan

Urchins scrobbled down the centuries from yer poor and persecuted. Foundlings Fixed in imperishable waifhood by the Stamp & sold to rich groanhuffs as child labour. Hellions with spirits as resilient as their flesh, less like to cower from a kick than nick yer boot, hamstring yer and fuckin leg it. That's what it is to be a Scruffian, mate, and there ain't a rhyme sung or tale told in a Scruffian squat that ain't, at the end of the day, out to learn yer how to survive. So cosy in, scamps, quit yer fidgeting, and hark to the fabbler of this here crib...

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!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hal Duncan
• Release date: Sep 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463534151

Hal Duncan

Hal Duncan lives in Glasgow.

Book preview

A Scruffian Survival Guide: Part 1

• 1

I’ll tell you a fabble

Of Jack and his rabble;

And now my fabble’s begun.

I’ll tell you another

Of Jill and her brother;

And now my fabble is done.

•

Absofuckinglutely, nipper, it might well be about Jack Scallywag. He did start the Liberating after all, after’s he snuck into that giant castle of em groanhuff nobs with their noggins in the clouds, after’s he overheard their diabolical scheming, and saw the Stamp in their wanky ceremony, and got Stamped himself, and couldn’t stop it.

No, he couldn’t, not alone. Couldn’t stop em Fixing all those kiddies and marching em off to the Holy Land. All’s he could do was start his liberating of them what come back and gots sold off into servitude.

Might well be that Jack.

•

But what yer has to savvy, scamp, is how Jack were just a name for any boy Scruffian in them days, so his rabble needn’t be specifickarly them scruffs what Jack Scallywag sprung from their masters, like’s they all ended up in one ginormous crib. That Jack didn’t have no sister in the fabbles, so Jill—which were just the name for any girl Scruffian, see?—Jill being there says it’s as much about them what just Gone Offsky off their own bat.

It’s about us all being Jacks and Jills, see—each to each other and as yer pleases.

• 2

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty Scruffians,

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened

The scruffs began to sing;

Now wasn’t that a dainty dish,

To set before the king.

•

No, weren’t birds in that pie, scamps. Not even in the oldest version what the groanhuffs knows about, where they says it were naughty boys—like that even fits! No, it were Scruffians. See, the baked there is what they calls a metaphor for Fixed. It’s baked like clay, innit?

See, it’s all about how’s the first Scruffians… they was like Orphan, what hads to be Fixed—by the Stamp, like—so’s he could go to the underworld to sing for Death and come back. First scruffs… they sung sweet as birds, was Fixed to do that forever and ever.

•

Yeah, this would be before that Kiddies’ Crusade, scamp. I mean… yer’s all heard the fabble of Orphan and the fabble of Jack Scallywag, cause we fabbles Orphan for any strays what might fancy joining us nowadays—like Slickspit there. And t’other tale… well, we don’t have the liberatings since we nicked the Stamp, so we needn’t fabble it for the fresh-sprung, but I still fabbles Jack Scallywag when’s yer feels shite, don’t I? But there’s yonks of history between the Stamp being made to Fix Orphan and them fuckers setting up the Trade. In betweens? Well, that’s fabbles aplenty.

• 3

To market, to market, to buy a wee scamp,

Home again, home again, trampety-tramp.

To market, to market, to swap for a scrag,

Home again, home again, draggety-drag.

To market, to market, to trade up the scruff,

Home again, home again, huffety-puff.

To market, to market, for poor widow’s son,

Home again, home again, market is done.

•

Course, it ain’t entirely true to fabble as how the Trade begun with them waifs what had been Fixed with the Stamp—them drummer boys and standardbearers and bedwarmers and whatnot—all coming back from the Holy Land. But then there’s ain’t any fabble as is entirely true, else it ain’t a fabble, what with the fib and babble for the fun cause we ain’t fucking moany droney groanhuffs, is we? Nah, I mean, half them waifs never even made it to the ships afore being sold off. And them knights was pillaging from way back, scrobbling tykes from everywheres.

•

But, yeah, the Trade begun. And them scruffs being Fixed at different ages, there was the nippers what could bite at best, then the kidsters as could dig their heels in… a little, and the beansprouts as—

Bang on, Squigglish! That’s exactly what The Three Sillycoat Scruffs is about—a scamp, a scrag and a scallywag, noseying somewheres safe for a crib. And it’s just common sense, innit? You meets a trolly groanhuff claiming summat’s his—bridge or brat—you lets yer biggers deal with that fucker. If yer Fixed three feet short, yer has to be savvy. Like Foxtrot!

• 4

Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green;

When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen.

We’ll call up scruffs, dilly dilly, at break of morn,

Some to the mills, dilly dilly, some to shear corn,

Come wind and rain, dilly dilly, lightning and storm,

While you and I, dilly dilly, keep the bed warm.

Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green;

When I am cruel, dilly dilly, you shall be mean.

•

Foxtrot there—look at him—Fixed at oneteen and built even ickler, being Fixed back in em days before mashed potaters, back in Jack Scallywag’s time. Him and Squirlet Nicely and Nuffinmuch O’Anyfink—Nuff himself, gor bless him!—they was from Jack’s first liberatings, some says… as if them three sharp tacks couldn’t spring themselves, pffft! And he were the sharpest of em all, Foxy. Like the Ickle Sillycoat Scruff what’s the real hero of that fabble.

See, it were the scallywag what done for the troll—like our Flashjack avengeancing—but it were the scamp as schemed the comeuppance.

•

See, what a scamp like Foxtrot learns when they’s worldly as Foxtrot is… well, there’s some shite yer just has to be sneaky with, work around what yer can’t ever change. Like ickleness, or how groanhuffs will always, always, always fuck yer over for power and privileges. Leastways, they’s so primed to do it, it’s so writ in them by the groanhuffs before em, that sure as a scofflaw’s Stamp, even if they loves each other… even the ways they love each other is all warpy. Cruel. Mean.

So when the Trade begun… oh, how’s they all took to it.

• 5

Boy! Boy! Blackguard!

Have you any scrags?

Yes, sir; yes, sir;

Three in rags.

One for the Duke, sir,

One for the Dame,

And one for the Little Prince

Who lives down the lane.

•

It were the nobs started it, natch. Everyone else was already property to them anyways, peasants as should tug their forelock as they passed—Oh, yes, M’lord, gor bless, M’lady, thank yer ever so much for riding over me footsies with yer carriage and hobbling me for life. And it were them as had their Royal Secret Sacred Order of the Knights Templar of the Ancient Garters and Trouserleg of High Chapel Perilous, or whatever bollocks they calls their bleeding fratbro inner circle-wank. And they’d had their baked songbird Scruffians for centuries, innit?

So now…

It were only natural…

•

The prettiest of em Scruffians made such precious maids and pages. And the ones as weren’t lookers for showing off to yer hoity toity chums, they could skivvy in yer castle’s kitchens, muck out yer stables, and if yer had to lash em for getting uppity, why they sprung right back to how’s they was Fixed. They was so utilitarious thatways, why some nobs hit on it being their raisin debter.

What’s to do if Little Lord Faw Faw murders yer best hound’s puppies? When yer can’t have some commoner spank him? Why, yer punishes yer Scruffian whipping boy!

Genius!

• 6

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe;

She bought so many Scruffians, she knew not what to do.

She gave them some broth but without any bread;

She whipped all their bums and then lashed them in bed.

•

Soon enough, it were a mark of just how hoity toity yer was to have oodles of scamps and scrags and scallywags and scofflaws, an whole household of em collected like yer bleeding Imelda Marcos’s shoe closet—

What? Well, look her up on yer phone, Slickspit. Yer can’t expect me to mind whether’s that were last week or last month. I’ve been around for—

Really? That long ago? Fuck me!

Anyways, it weren’t long before them groanhuffs realised: why, scruffs being Fixed, it weren’t like they’d starve to death. So, no upkeep cost in keeping up with the Jones’s. Result!

•

And yer can tell it’s about that, cause this here's an old woman as is not just putting herself in someone else’s shoes, as they says, to walk a mile, but living in em; and not even both but just one; and if just one’s ginormous enough to be her whole house, she ain’t exactly filling em hobnail boots; and where’s that boot ain’t some particklar paragon’s boot such as she's emulatising them…