Chipper

By James Lincoln Collier

It’s 1895 in New York City. Hard times have hit, and life isn’t going to get noticeably better any time soon.

Almost-thirteen-year-old Chipper Carey is running with the Midnight Rats kid gang just to survive. Chipper doesn’t normally like to think beyond the present. His past has been bad enough! Ma died of consumption when he was six. His short-lived stay with Aunt Millie and Uncle Bert consisted of endless beatings. He never even knew his father. Sure, Chipper feels badly about the gang’s stealing and fighting. He knows Ma wouldn’t have approved. He knows she wanted and expected a respectable life for him. What does it matter that even he sometimes feels he’s different, maybe even better, than the rest of the gang?

What ultimately has to matter is reality, and without the Midnight Rats, Chipper would have nothing. He’d starve. He’d face thrashings more serious than those inflicted by the police. Worst of all, he’d be alone. Fortunately for Chipper, fate takes over and introduces him to the wealthy Miss Sibley. For once, it becomes possible for him to forget that the rich are the enemy. For once, like his Ma, someone else believes that he really was meant for something better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781620646939

James Lincoln Collier

James Lincoln Collier is the author of more than fifty books for adults and children. He won a Newbery Honor for My Brother Sam Is Dead, which he cowrote with his brother, Christopher Collier. Twice a finalist for the National Book Award, he is also well known for his writing for adults on jazz. He lives in New York City.

Book preview

COLLIER

ONE

IT WAS NEARLY three o’clock in the morning. The gas lamps threw a criss-crossing maze of shadows on the sidewalk. Chipper was scared, his stomach tight, his legs watery, sweat trickling down his side despite the cool April night breeze. Pinch’s plan was no good. Pinch’s plans were never any good. Pinch could always see the beginning of the plan, when the gang crept through a door somewhere, and he could see the end of the plan, when they were sitting around a fire under the Brooklyn Bridge, their pockets stuffed with twenty-dollar bills. Pinch could never see the middle of the plan, where the thing got done. As a result, something always went wrong with the middle of the plan. Rivington Street was quiet this time of night, but even so, in New York City there were always likely to be people around. From time to time somebody came down the sidewalk toward him, and occasionally a wagon rolled over the cobblestones, the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves making a rhythm against the steady rumble of the iron wheel rims on the stones. A light stink of garbage from the gutters hung in the night air. Chipper tried to walk briskly, as if he were carrying a message or were delivering something, so it would appear that he was on legitimate business. The five-and six-story tenement buildings along Rivington Street were mostly dark, but here and there a window was lit like an unsleeping eye, where a baby was awake or somebody on an early shift was hastily eating a dry roll and washing it down with black coffee, you never could tell who might be watching.

This time the end of Pinch’s plan was to blow a hole in the side of a bank where the safe was and run off with large sacks of ten- and twenty-dollar bills. The beginning of it was where Chipper clambered over a high wooden fence into a building site where there was supposed to be dynamite stored in a toolshed. Chipper wasn’t worried about the end part, where they blew a hole in the bank, because it wouldn’t get that far; and he wasn’t worried about the beginning, where he clambered over the fence, for he was a good clamberer and had done things like that plenty of times before. It was the middle that had him scared. Jabber had stolen a steel bar from a pushcart on Mulberry Bend, which Chipper now carried buttoned under his worn and dirty jacket. Chipper was supposed to creep up to the toolshed, slip the steel bar through the padlock loop, and twist the lock off the hasp. Then he was to grab up an armload of dynamite, toss it over the high wooden fence, and clamber out after it.

There were a dozen things that could go wrong. Suppose the lock wouldn’t twist off. Suppose there was a night watchman in there. Suppose there wasn’t any dynamite in the shed. Suppose anything you wanted. Chipper had enumerated all his supposes to Pinch, but Pinch had only scoffed, saying that Chipper was just being yellow.

The building site was farther east, at the corner of Rivington and Pitt, the wood fence running about a hundred feet in either direction from the corner. Chipper had looked it over a couple of days earlier. He trudged on, huddling himself up inside his jacket as best he could against the spring night breezes that rose up to confront him every few minutes. All he could think of was being caught, maybe beaten with a club by some tough night watchman, maybe jailed, maybe both. He shuddered. He’d been whacked by cops with their billy clubs a few times. It stung plenty, but the cops weren’t out to bust kids up, just run them out of some cellar or off some ferryboat where they weren’t supposed to be. A night watchman might decide to bust you up, just for fun, because nobody was looking. Chipper shivered under his jacket.

At the corner of Norfolk he stopped to let a wagon rumble by. The rumble died out, and Chipper was about to cross Norfolk, when he heard the sharp wail of a startled baby suddenly awakening. A woman’s voice said, Shut the window, Charlie, the baby’s cold. Chipper turned and looked up. On the third floor he could see a man in an undershirt holding a baby to his chest with one hand and patting its back with the other.

Chipper had once lived like that. Well, not with a pa—he’d never had a pa that he could remember. But he’d had a ma. He’d been six when she’d died, and he still thought about her every day. Things were always reminding him of her. He’d see a jar of hardball candy in a variety store window and remember how, if she ever had a penny left after shopping, she’d buy him penny candy. He’d pass somebody reading a book on a park bench and he’d remember her bringing home books from the library to read to him, often books about little dukes and princesses, so he’d learn how respectable people talked. He was to grow up to be respectable, she’d always said. He was better than the rest of them and wasn’t to be riffraff. She was forever correcting his speech, teaching him not to say ain’t and it don’t. You’re not like the rest of them. You have to learn to speak like respectable people.

In truth, Chipper had never seen how he was very different from the rest of them. He wore the same raggedy clothes, with his pants out at the knees, his shirts out at the elbows, his socks out at the heels, his shoes out at the toes, and all of it none too clean. Like the rest of them he stole for a living, pilfering from pushcarts, snatching purses, heisting anything from anywhere that could be sold to the junkman for a few pennies with which to buy potatoes, onions, scraps of meat for stews boiled up in lard cans.

True, he spoke better than the rest of them. At first his speech had been a source of amusement to the Midnight Rats, who decided that he talked like one of the charity ladies they sometimes came into contact with, and called him the lady. But Chipper had got stubborn about it, because it had been important to his ma, and now that she was in Heaven he didn’t want to let her down. Chipper wasn’t at all sure about Heaven. He knew there was God, for sometimes when he’d done something really bad he could feel God’s eyes boring holes in his back. But Heaven was stretching it—all those angels flying around among the clouds, playing harps and singing, that was stretching it. Heaven or not, Ma was out there somewhere, and Chipper didn’t want to let her down by saying ain’t and it don’t. So he’d punched a couple of kids his own age in the face when they’d teased him about it, and after a while the gang had let it go—it was just Chipper’s way.

Suddenly Chipper realized that he was still standing there staring up at the man in the lighted window patting the baby on the back. He turned away and looked hastily around. A man with a dog was coming along Rivington Street toward him. Chipper trotted across Norfolk and on down Rivington, trying to look as if he had a message to deliver. The man gave him a glance but kept on going. The building site was now only two blocks away.

The funny thing about it was that they had not drawn cards to see who had to clamber over the fence into the building site. That was the usual way in the gang when something like this had to be done—draw from the greasy pack Jabber kept in his back pocket, low card had to do it. This time Pinch had simply announced that Chipper would have the honor. Hey, Chipper had protested. I thought we were supposed to draw for it. Pinch had answered. I decided to choose you, Chipper. Chipper had looked around at the others, who had looked away. They all had known that it wasn’t right, but they had also known that if they had objected they might end up clambering over the fence in Chipper’s place. It hadn’t been the first time something like that had happened recently.

It puzzled Chipper. Why was Pinch picking on him?

Then ahead of him he saw the rough board fence around the building site along Pitt Street. He went on, still trying to look as if he were on an errand. The fence was about seven feet high. Chipper could jump high enough to catch hold of the top, and then swing himself over. He crossed Pitt Street and went farther along Rivington down the board fence until he came to a spot between the lamp lights where it was relatively dark. Here he stopped and knelt down as if to tie his shoe. His heart was beating quickly, and his hands felt clammy. Still bent over, he looked around. Nobody was coming. He stood, wiped his sleeve across his forehead, and examined the facades of the buildings across Rivington Street. Three or four lighted windows were scattered across the facades, but so far as Chipper could judge, nobody was looking out of them. Of course you never knew: somebody unable to sleep could be sitting by a black window, staring into the lamplit street, waiting for dawn.

Chipper backed a little way into the street to get a running start. Then he heard voices and looked around. Two young fellows were coming toward him from Pitt Street on the opposite side of Rivington. They were drunk, laughing and cursing at each other like the best of friends. Chipper began to walk briskly back toward Pitt Street. When he was well past the two young fellows he stopped, turned, and watched them until they disappeared down the block.

He turned and walked back to where he intended to make his jump. He was sweating all over now, his heart pounding, feeling weak all over. Wasn’t there some way he could get out of it? Go back to the gang with some story about a watchman standing on the corner or something? They ought to have drawn cards for it, anyway. Why did he have to do what Pinch told him to do? Why couldn’t he just go back, tell Pinch it wasn’t fair and he wasn’t going to do it?

But he wouldn’t do that, and he knew why. It was because of the gang. It was one thing to face down Pinch; it was another to go against the gang. You didn’t do that. Have a fight with one of them—Jabber, Annie, even his best friend, Shad—but not the whole gang. They were your blood, your skin. They were all you had.

He took one last look around. Nobody. He stepped three paces into the street, took a deep breath, charged the fence, and jumped. His hands caught the top, and in two seconds he had scrambled over and dropped onto the dark ground inside.

For a moment he crouched in the shadows of the wooden fence, breathing fast, sweating, his heart thumping inside his chest, trying to calm himself down. There was no light inside the site, no shining lantern, but from the city around came a vague yellowish glow, which lit up higher object—the top of a stack of lumber, a cement mixer, the lids on some fifty-gallon drums.

Where was the toolshed? He stared through the vague light. Finally, over toward the Pitt Street end of the site he saw a shape. That had to be it. Crouching low, he moved as quickly as he could along the fence, where it was darkest, until he reached the corner. Beyond the wall he could hear a heavy wagon rumbling along Second Avenue. Now he could see the toolshed quite clearly, a wooden structure about eight feet square, with a tin roof. He took a deep breath to calm himself. Was he really going to do this? Was he actually going to go back to the gang with his shirt full of dynamite? He would be a hero if he did. But he didn’t really believe it.

He dropped to his hands and knees and scuttled forward, until he was by the side of the shed. Once again he paused to look and listen. Nothing. Nobody. It seemed odd that there was no watchman. Perhaps he was asleep. Chipper raised himself into a crouch and slipped around to the front of the shed. There was enough light so that he could see the hasp on the door with the padlock holding it shut, exactly as Pinch has said. Maybe Pinch had planned right for once. Now Chipper slipped the steel bar from under his jacket. Would it fit through the steel loop of the padlock? Holding the padlock with one hand, with the other he slid the bar through the loop. The lock rattled, and then from inside the shack came a low, long growl, followed by a short bark.

Chipper jerked the bar back, rattling the lock again. There came another bark, and another and another. Across the building site a lantern flared up. Who’s there? a heavy voice shouted. Chipper dropped to his knees and began to scuttle toward the fence, still clinging to the steel bar as best he could. His heart pounded and his legs felt weak. The barking went on and on relentlessly. There came the sound of running feet and a shout: Stop or I’ll shoot. Chipper stood, charged the fence at the closest point to him, and leaped. He opened his hands to grasp the top of the boards and the steel bar fell away onto the dirt. He heaved with his arms and scrambled his legs against the fence. Stop or I’ll shoot. A light flashed on him. Driven by terror, he flung himself over the boards and fell hard onto the Pitt Street sidewalk.

For a moment he lay there, dazed. Then he rose to his knees. It would take the night watchman a few minutes to get out of the site and come around to Pitt Street, by which time Chipper would be three blocks away and running fast. He leaped to his feet and took a step. As he did so something caught at his collar, pulling him backward. Hey, he shouted. Quickly he began to unbutton his jacket to slip out of it, but before he could get the last button undone somebody had grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm behind him. Stop wrigglin’, yez little rat, or I’ll break yer arm off for yez.

The night watchman would be on him soon. Please let me go, I didn’t do anything.

I ain’t found that out yet, so to put it, the voice said from behind. To emphasize the point he gave Chipper’s arm a further twist.

Ouch. That hurts.

It’ll hurt a lot worse’n that if yez don’t fess up. Chipper felt oddly relieved. He had expected something like this to come out of Pinch’s plan, and now that it had there was nothing further to worry about. He would get a beating and nothing worse, most likely. It would hurt and then he would get over it and it would be forgotten, just one more of the hard moments that came into the life of a street boy. It was a way of life, really, and he was accustomed to it. You spent a night shivering under a bridge, wrapped in newspaper, cold all over, knowing that you would just have