Tom

The sound of the constable pounding on the door was particularly irksome to the ears. It only ever meant one thing. Sighing and muttering to himself, Mr. Douglas straightened the collar of his white shirt and shuffled to the foyer. At the door he was met by a placid-faced officer chaperoning a small, scraggly boy who wore the typical vestments of an urchin: a shirt in tatters and scuffed pants in need of mending. Dirt and grime coated his pale feet. His hands were better off, for they were outfitted in woolly gloves. As the officer greeted the guardian, the boy’s gaze remained anchored to the floor.

         “Where’d you find this one?” Mr. Douglas asked.

         The officer responded with a grunt and said, “Heaven knows where any of them come from.”

         “And yet Heaven always sends them to my door.”

         “Well, you better do Heaven’s work then and keep an eye on this one. Scrawny as he is, this one’s born trouble. We caught him stealing bread.”

         “Gutsy, are we?” Mr. Douglas poked the boy in the chest. “Well, you won’t have any time for mischief under my roof. What’s your name?” The child didn’t react, even as his silence was met with more poking and prodding. Two dark eyes remained wide and empty. “What’s wrong with you? No one teach you manners or you’re a mute?”

         “Eh, don’t fret over it,” said the constable. “He hasn’t spoken a word to us either.”

         “Fine, if you don’t come with a name, we’ll just have to give you one. From now on, you’re… you’re a… Tom. You think stealing is light, Tom?” Mr. Douglas grabbed the boy, newly christened Tom, by the shoulders and shook him roughly as if to wake him. “You look at me when I speak to you, boy. Look at me.” The man got right in his face that his spit easily crossed the space between them. “Do you know how thieves were dealt with under the old law? They would capture the scoundrel, and slice off his offending hand!” He snatched the boy by his wrist. Immediately, viscerally, the child fought to pry himself free. At this, the man laughed, almost in good humor. “Lucky for you, I’ll be lenient this time. But if I ever catch you stealing from ME, I’ll give you something fierce to cry about. You understand me? Nod your head, boy.”

         The child’s head shook so fast it made him dizzy, and the man let him go. “Come on then,” he said and shoved a broom into his hands. “I’ll show you to your work.” Trusting that Mr. Douglas had the situation under control, the officer took his leave.

         Tom had been charged with sweeping the first and second floors in reparation for his crime. It was Sunday, the only day the children of the orphanage looked forward to. They were a rowdy bunch. Even from inside, Tom could hear their hoots and hollers. From the windows, he could see them racing across the lawn, kicking a small ball, or wrestling one another. Occasionally, some boys passed him by in the hallway. The well-mannered ones stopped to greet him. A couple sneered. Tom ducked his face and focused on sweeping. (The staff would have to explain things on his behalf, seeing that the boy was incapable of introducing himself.)

         It had taken Tom the whole day to finish. For his labor, he was rewarded with a biscuit (he had missed supper) and an oversized set of clothes to replace his rags, though his gloves remained a staple of his outfit. At last, Tom thought he would retire to the dormitory – a long, low hall lined with thin straw beds – but he froze at the entrance, unsure of where to go or how to navigate through the tide of bodies pressing in around him with introductions and questions – all day, the scamps had waited to meet the newcomer more formally.

         “Hey Tom! Where’r you from?”

         “How old are you?”

         “Is Tom really your name?”

         “Don’t you remember?” One of the older boys, Jack, rolled his eyes. “Doug said he can’t speak. He’s a mute.” The audience marveled.

         “Why’s that?”

         “Can he make any sound at all?”

         “Wait, look there!” All the attention made Tom’s face flush. His lips quivered and hung partly open as if he were trying to speak. This excited the boys greatly.

         “Don’t be shy!” said a boy with dark ginger hair. His name was Kay, but he went by Red – most of them used nicknames for each other. “You can do it.” Different faces looked at Tom encouragingly, but his mouth snapped shut.

         “What did you expect?” went Jack.

         “You’re making him shy!”

         An idea came to Bow. “Or maybe… Maybe he’s not mute. Maybe he had nobody to teach him words. We could teach him!”

         Red liked that idea. “Oh, is that it? Try saying your name first! Like this: Tt – ohm.” He demonstrated with great emphasis, opening his mouth wide and slowly. Evidently, the other boy was overwhelmed. He grabbed a spare blanket, marched to the end of the row of beds, and settled down to sleep. “Alright, we can try tomorrow!” The audience dispersed to their beds.

         For once, the boys were eager for the next day’s lessons, curious how Tom would perform. They had tried again at breakfast to get him to speak. As if he were a puppy, they coaxed him with extra bits of food and slowly sounded out words. Failing to get anywhere, they placed their hope in old Mr. Peasley to teach him something, anything, about letters and words.

         Red had made sure to sit next to Tom – both to help the boy and study him. As the class copied letters onto paper, Tom stared absently at his pencil. “Just draw the lines and shapes,” Red whispered to him. He demonstrated by writing the word “Tribulation” as it appeared on the board. Tom looked instead toward the window where a brick wall topped with iron thorns separated them from the city.

         Tom was still staring when Red tapped his leg with his foot, mere seconds before an irate Mr. Peasley exploded in his face. “What are you looking at, Tom? The board is up here. Write!” The boy’s eyes trembled as if to communicate that he couldn’t. Hating to repeat himself, Mr. Peasley slapped his wrist. “Didn’t you hear me? I was told you were mute, not deaf. You can copy the letters.” Tentatively, the child began to scribble a word. Mr. Peasley stopped him partway through. For the first time, he took stock of the boy’s gloves. “Why are you wearing these? You don’t need them now. Take them off.” The tone of his voice left no room for debate. The boy peeled the gloves off, and everyone could see how his right hand didn’t match his left. Instead of smooth skin, rugged pink patches covered his palm and fingertips – hideous leftovers from a burn that didn’t heal right. The boys around him shivered and cringed. Mr. Peasley wore the ugliest grimace of all. “Humph! Keep them on.”

         The children weren’t a patient bunch. Within a week, the lot of them had accepted the fact that Tom was a helpless mute. The boy could write words with wobbly letters during class, but he made no progress at speaking. The persistent ones, however, hadn’t given up on teaching him. Try as he did to avoid them or shoo them away with glares, they still pursued him. The crueler ones took advantage.

          “Tom, don’t say anything if you’re a moron.”

         “Don’t say anything if you’re a bastard!”

         At breakfast one morning, Jack sat in front of the mute boy and flashed a crooked smile. “Hey, Tommy. Don’t say anything if I can have your biscuit. Gee, thanks friend!” Quicker than a greedy fox, Jack snatched the biscuit from across the table and gobbled it up as laughter rose around them.

         “That Jack,” grumbled Red, who still had a half-finished biscuit. He passed it to Tom, who studied it for a long time before taking a bite. “Next time, tell him to stop. Or sock him.” Red’s eyes glittered with mischief. “He used to pick on me before I gave him a good wallop.”

         Tom grew despondent. He longed to leave the orphanage far behind; he wouldn’t miss its crowd. On a dark night, the boy had slipped outside and stood before the iron-barred gate; with a sewing needle he had pilfered, he had tried to work the lock, but to no success. He was a simple bread thief and knew not the fine art of lock-picking. Mr. Douglass would lock the gate every night, but the boy lacked the courage to steal the key from him. (He remembered that thieves would have their hands cut.) But neither did he have the courage to fight off Jack, so the older boy grew in meanness.

         Jack had devised a prank that was especially cruel. At night as everyone was settling back into the dormitory, he came behind Tom and shoved him to the ground. He ripped away the gloves and held them aloft like a trophy. Tom punched his nose. Around them, children called for the fight to stop or watched with interest. For the pair of gloves, his most prized possession, Tom attacked with everything he had – punching, clawing, kicking – but Jack was stronger. The small boy was forced once more to his knees as Jack stood over him.

         “Don’t worry, Tommy. I’ll give these back to you. Just say something first. Say I’m strong, and you’re weak.” His smile inflated. He knew full well the boy couldn’t speak.

         “Jack, leave him be!” yelled Red.

         “I thought you wanted to hear him.”

         Red would have sprung at Jack at that moment, but he heard Tom clearing his throat. He took in a deep breath, and everyone else held their own. In a hoarse, vicious voice he hurled a stream of obscenities at Jack. The slack-jawed boys were the ones struck mute now – even the worst of the scamps had learned a new word or two from their dear Tom. Then there was Red, who roared with laughter.

         Mr. Douglass had heard the commotion from his quarters downstairs. In no hurry to get out of bed, he grumbled and took heavy step by heavy step up the stairs to find Tom and Jack at the center of the scene. “What’s going on here?”

         Jack saw an opportunity. “Tom said something vulgar!” As others nodded their heads in agreement, Tom looked piteously at the man.

         “Tom can’t speak.”

         “He did! He did! He said…” Jack repeated the words Tom had spoken.

         The man boiled over, and Jack regretted his decision too late. “Boy! Where did you learn such foul language? And to deliver a bold-faced lie on top of it!” He dragged the howling voice away for punishment. Tom recovered his gloves and felt no remorse.

         In the aftermath, the children had grown nervous around Tom – except for Red, who held a deep appreciation for the language of sailors. The others went quickly to their beds, in hopes that when they woke up, the memory of the mute boy speaking would prove to be a strange nightmare. Red lay awake. After half an hour, he climbed out of his bed and went to where Tom lay sleeping underneath a patchwork blanket – or at least, Red had expected to find him sleeping; his eyes opened alert when he touched him on the shoulder.

         Red tried to win him with his toothy smile. “That was something great you did showing Jack. You know, you can talk to me if you want. I won’t tell anyone.”

         The other boy considered it for a long moment. “No thanks,” he finally replied in the faintest whisper. Red’s smile grew exceptionally wider.

         “You’ll think about it?”

         “Goodnight.”

         Red returned to his own bed, overjoyed.

         Tom couldn’t sleep. His mind had too much to think about now. When he considered the redhead, he thought he was a loon. Then he remembered when Red had given him his biscuit. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. Tom wouldn’t have done such a thing, not even for someone like himself, yet it made him, in a word, glad. He didn’t know what it was like to have a brother or sister, but he wondered if he might like having a friend.

         Before he had given it permission, a tear streaked down his face. And then another. The last time Tom had cried had been when his mother pressed his hand against a hot skillet. He had wailed for hours on end until his mother screamed for him to stop. Whenever asked, her face would soften with practiced pity. With all the right formality, she would explain that it was an awful accident: Anthony shouldn’t have been playing in the kitchen. She knew that he wouldn’t contradict her. She had informed the boy a hundred times over what the consequences would be if he ever spoke out of line.

         “I’ve never met a child so quiet,” someone had commented once.

         “Oh, that’s just how he is. A silly boy.”

         It took several weeks for the pain in his hand to dull, but the scars stubbornly remained. He made up his mind to run away and never looked back. It really was funny; the boy was quite silly for crying now when he had more reason to be happy.