Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster Page 3

  Toby Squall was a mudlark. He spent his days wading along the banks of the Thames searching for rubbish and things he could repair and sell. Most mudlarks found only junk. But Toby had an eye for treasure—if there was a good bootlace or hairpin in the river, you could bet he would find it.

  “I’m busy,” Nan said.

  “Just a peek!” Toby clasped a hand to his heart. “Everything’s half price for my best girl.”

  Toby was also always calling Nan his “best girl.” He claimed to have loads of other girls, but Nan was his best.

  “Go dunk your head,” she said, walking more quickly. Her cheeks were burning, and she was grateful they could not be seen beneath the grime.

  Nan and Toby had been having exchanges like this for the better part of five years. No matter what route Nan took each morning, Toby Squall somehow managed to be on the way.

  She cut up Bride Street to Farringdon Market. Girls and old women sold watercress and oranges and fresh oysters for a penny. Maids and butlers and servants rushed about on errands while their masters and mistresses slept late into the morning. The Sweep had never understood how a person could sleep through the sunrise. “It’s like Heaven itself is offering you a gift you’re too lazy to open,” he used to say. Then he’d wink and add, “Ah, well. More for us.”

  Nan stopped in the middle of the market. People flowed around her like water around a stone. She closed her eyes, and sang.

  With brush and pail and soot and song!

  A sweep brings luck all season long!

  When Nan sang like this, she could almost hear the Sweep singing with her—his voice high and bright. She kept her hand in her pocket, clasped tight around the Sweep’s char. It almost felt as if she were holding his hand. Sometimes she thought that if she could just sing loud enough, the Sweep would hear her . . . and would be drawn back to her by the song.

  As she sang, everything around her seemed to go quiet. Merchants and servants slowed their pace. Even beggars raised themselves from the gutters. She knew every one of them was thinking the same thing: How could such a voice come from a person so filthy?

  Nan opened her eyes to find her first customer. It was a woman in a black shift with a pinched expression.

  “Morning, mum,” Nan said, and tipped her top hat. It was much too large for her, and she kept the inside stuffed with newspaper so it wouldn’t cover her eyes.

  The song was over, which meant the spell was broken. The woman now eyed Nan as though she might bite her. “Who’s your master, boy?”

  Nan didn’t bother correcting the woman about her being a girl. “I work for Wilkie Crudd.” When Crudd’s name drew no response, she added, “The Clean Sweep.”

  “The Clean Sweep?” The woman’s cheeks flushed red. “I may have heard . . . something about him.” Nan was pretty sure that “something” had to do with his being handsome. The woman touched the back of her hair as if it were made of glass. “Will, er, your master be attending the task personally?”

  Nan pretended not to understand what she was asking. “I’ll be doing the flues, mum. But the master always comes round to settle the bill and give a final inspection.” She let this last bit hang in the air like a promise.

  “Of course,” the woman said. “Follow me.”

  The woman led her up Holborn and Oxford Street. Nan glimpsed an abandoned mansion in Bloomsbury with more chimneys than she could count. The house was famous among climbers. They called it “the House of One Hundred Chimneys.” Everyone knew it was haunted. It was bad luck to even look at the place.

  The woman’s heels clacked sharply against the wet sidewalk. Nan wondered what kind of house let the maid wear high boots. It didn’t seem practical, but then rich folks never were. Nan’s own feet were bare—her soles hard as leather from years of climbing rough brick. She didn’t mind. Besides, in the wrong part of town, a pair of boots could get you killed. No one could steal what you didn’t have.

  At last they reached an imposing house in Marylebone. “Here we are,” the woman said, removing her gloves. Nan looked up at the tall building—stone, not brick—with a flat front and many windows. No gables, no proper stoop. And far too few chimney stacks.

  Nan heard a pianoforte playing from one of the rooms on the second floor. A chorus of small voices sang along with it:

  How doth the little busy Bee

  Improve each shining Hour,

  And gather Honey all the day

  From every opening Flower!

  A few of the voices were pretty. All of them were eager. Nan listened to the singing and felt a nervous clench in her empty stomach. “What kind of home do you keep?”

  The woman feigned insult. “I do not ‘keep’ a home. This is Miss Mayhew’s Seminary for Young Ladies.” When Nan did not respond, she added, “A seminary is a formal word for a—”

  “I know what it means,” Nan said. She adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “Let’s get on with it.”

  WHAT IT’S LIKE

  Nan hated schools. They did not pay well, and the chimneys were always filthy on account of children burning all sorts of rubbish they weren’t supposed to.

  There were other reasons, too.

  The woman, who turned out to be something called a “housemistress,” took Nan around back to the servants’ entrance. Nan followed her into the kitchen on the ground floor, which was where the main chimney began. The air was warm and steamy from what smelled like pease pudding.

  The cook eyed Nan with open disgust. “Get that trash out o’ my kitchen before she blacks my biscuits.”

  Nan silently gave up any hope of getting scraps. She made a point of letting the end of her brush rake across the wall as she passed—leaving a long streak of soot on the plaster.

  The housemistress led Nan to an enormous hearth on the back wall. It reeked of drippings and offal. “It’s this one here, the rest are upstairs,” she said.

  The cook pushed past Nan and collected some kippers that had been smoking above the fire. “Keep them hands in your pockets. I’ve counted every morsel of food in the larder—and if I find even one bite missing, I’ll reach into your mouth and pull it from your belly myself.”

  Nan was eager to get to work—and away from the smell of food. It was clear that the fire had been doused only moments before her arrival. The bricks radiated heat. She squeezed the char in her pocket for good luck. She removed her coat and top hat and closed her eyes.

  If you have never climbed inside a chimney, perhaps you are wondering what it’s like. Imagine holding an open book. Maybe you are holding one right now? Imagine a black tunnel exactly that size—an endless, winding tunnel with no light at the end.

  Imagine that the walls of the tunnel are sharp enough to cut your skin bloody. Imagine some of the walls will crush you if you touch them wrong. Imagine some of the walls are on fire.

  Now imagine placing a cloth over your head.

  Take a deep breath, if you still can.

  And crawl inside.

  A PUZZLING QUESTION

  Nan reached the roof before the parish bells struck nine. She was shaky from hunger. From this height, she could see clear to Tower Hamlets, where she lived.

  She wondered where Newt was right now. She wondered if he had made it safely through his first climb.

  What’s the point of seeing everything if there’s

  no one to see it with?

  His question rang in her mind. Louder than bells. She told herself that it was better this way—leaving Newt with Roger. The boy needed to learn that he couldn’t depend on anyone but himself. That was part of growing up.

  She reset the chimney cap and climbed down the drainpipe to collect the loose soot for her bag. By the end of the day, it would be as big as her. Soot was valuable to master sweeps—almost more than the fee they collected for cleaning chimneys. They sold it to farmers as fertilizer to make things grow. Nan always liked the idea that the soot she scraped might end up helping feed an apple she might one day buy in the market
.

  She thought about eating apples.

  Then she tried not to think about eating apples.

  With the main stack clear, Nan reported back to the housemistress, who led her up to the first floor. “The next fireplace is just this way,” she said, leading down a hallway lined with doors. “Mind you don’t track on the rugs.”

  Nan heard the sharp tap-scritch-tap of chalk against a slate board. A woman’s voice spoke from behind a closed door. “You will transcribe this poem in your finest hand, along with the answer. Any girl who provides a correct answer will receive—”

  Nan never learned what the girls might receive because that was when the housemistress opened the door. The room went instantly quiet. There must have been almost twenty girls in the classroom.

  All in pretty bows.

  All seated at pretty wooden desks.

  All staring at her.

  This was the real reason Nan hated schools: the students. Most ordinary folks try to be polite and not stare. But schoolchildren do the opposite. They stare and stare and stare until you feel like there’s nothing left inside you.

  “What . . . is . . . that?” a girl in the front row whispered. Plenty loud enough for everyone to hear. There were some nervous titters from the others.

  Nan didn’t say anything. She knew what she looked like. Every inch of her was caked in soot. Only her eye whites and teeth stood out from the mass of grime. She could have washed for a week, and you still wouldn’t know the color of her hair.

  The teacher was staring just like the rest. “It seems we have a guest,” she said, not looking away from Nan.

  “Forgive the interruption, Miss Bloom.” The housemistress extracted a speck of lint from her sleeve. “But this little fellow here’ll need to get through to the chimney. Miss Mayhew ordered it be done before first frost. We’ll need you and the girls out of here so as they don’t get soot on their pinafores. Seems your little poetry lesson will have to wait.” Nan got the sense that this woman was taking some pleasure in disrupting the class.

  The teacher—Miss Bloom—said nothing. She still had the chalk in her hand, suspended between thumb and forefinger. She had been writing a sort of riddle on the board.

  Feathers and bone without and within,

  I am that and this and that once again.

  Borne aloft among the winds,

  I encircle new life within my limbs,

  I bear the seed that bears the seed—

  And by spring’s end, small mouths I’ll feed!

  What am I?

  Nan read and reread the words—anything to avoid the staring eyes. The letters were long and elegant and perfectly formed. “I shouldn’t be long, your grace.” She was unsure of how to address a teacher.

  “Goodness . . .” The woman stepped closer, peering at Nan as if she were some sort of curio. “You’re . . . a little girl.”

  Nan heard a sort of horrified gasp from some of the students. But the teacher did not look horrified. She looked concerned.

  Nan shifted her weight. She wanted to say something to the woman—to show she was more than a filthy climber. Her eyes returned to the riddle on the board. “You have a very pretty hand,” she said. “My letters are rubbish.” This was true. Nan knew how to read, but writing was more difficult.

  Miss Bloom looked from Nan to the blackboard and back again. “You can . . . read that?” If the woman seemed surprised before, she now looked positively astonished. “What sort of sweep are you?”

  “A filthy one,” someone muttered.

  Nan kept her eyes on the teacher. “What am I?” She tipped her hat. “I am . . . an egg.” Without another word, she marched past the woman and set to work in the hearth.

  Some of the girls laughed at this strange response. Miss Bloom said nothing. Nan could not see the classroom, but if she could, she might have noticed the look on the teacher’s face—a dazed expression and an open mouth, slowly forming into a smile.

  CHARITY AND FOLLY

  Nan wasn’t sure why she had answered the riddle on the board. She supposed she had wanted to impress Miss Bloom. Most climbers were illiterate, but she was different. She knew how to read. The Sweep had taught her. “The man who can read is a king among paupers,” he used to tell her. “Better than a king, I’ll warrant. For there’s plenty o’ royal folk who don’t know their A— from their E—!” The Sweep would always chuckle at this last part, and Nan had never quite known why.

  The Sweep hadn’t been able to afford proper books. But words were everywhere. On bits of trash. On hanging signs. In shop windows. Nan’s favorite lessons were when they visited cemeteries. The Sweep would lead her to the headstones, and she would read the names. She would run her fingers along the deep grooves in the stone, and the stone would speak to her. A sweep lives by his fingertips—reading the grooves and faults within dark flues. It was fitting that she learned to read by touch.

  Nan was proud of being able to read. She knew it made the other climbers a little afraid of her. And it meant Crudd sometimes trusted her with written instructions—something Roger hated. She’d once caught Roger trying to read one of Crudd’s instruction sheets that he had salvaged from the trash. He had been holding it upside down. She and the boys had had a good laugh over that.

  Just as Nan expected, the upper chimneys of the school were horrible—nine inches square with half a dozen switchbacks. Climbers called such flues “dread shuttles” for the way they weaved back and forth, picking up other flues on their way to the top. In theory, she could reach any other room in the school from this one snaking flue.

  The chimney was a tight fit, and she was making slow progress. The rule for safe climbing was “elbows and knees,” but there wasn’t even enough room for that. Nan thought with wry dismay how useful it would have been to have someone small like Newt helping her on this job.

  She squeezed herself through a tight corner where two flues intersected. She heard voices echoing from somewhere close by.

  “. . . would never have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears,” said one voice. “I am an egg.”

  “Tosh,” said another voice. “She was probably just thinking of breakfast. I’d taken her down to the kitchen before that—”

  “I’m telling you, Lottie,” said the first voice. “She read the riddle. And she solved it faster than any one of our girls.”

  Eavesdropping was one of the few perks of the job. From a single flue, a climber might hear a dozen different scenes playing out. Nan was fairly sure that it was Miss Bloom talking to the housemistress. And it sounded as if they were talking about her.

  The voices were coming from a dirty flue just above Nan’s head. It was dangerous to climb into a flue that hadn’t first been brushed—the walls could come down around you. But Nan had to hear what the women were saying. She braced her elbows and forced herself into the narrow passage. A sharp bit of brick cut a fresh wound into her side, but she ignored the pain.

  “I’ll kindly ask you not to take that familiar tone, Miss Bloom,” the housemistress said. “And may I ask why you are bothering me with all this when you’ve a class to teach?”

  “A class you interrupted. And I’m telling you because a girl like that deserves better than sweeping filth. The seminary has charitable patrons. I know they—”

  Here she was interrupted by a laugh. “There’s charity, and then there’s folly. If you think a girl like that would ever be let into a place like this, you are even more mistaken than I thought.” Nan heard footsteps as the woman moved across the room. “We might as well take in lepers and ragmen while we’re at it.”

  “Perhaps Headmistress Mayhew will see it differently.” Miss Bloom followed after her. “If we can just . . .”

  Nan listened as the voices receded. She wanted to kick the housemistress. But more than that, she wanted to know what the teacher was saying.

  If she could find the chimney path to the next room, perhaps she could hear them. She released her elbows from
the wall to drop back to the main stack.

  And that’s when she discovered that she was stuck.

  STUCK

  So much of Nan’s life involved forgetting things. She lived with the grime by forgetting what it was to be clean. She scaled heights by forgetting to look down. She squeezed through a flue by forgetting she was in a flue.

  Once Nan realized she might be stuck, however, that was all she could think of. I’m stuck, she thought. I’m stuck! And when she tried to forget this fact, her mind shouted even louder—

  I’M STUCK!

  She tried to push her body down and then up but only managed to wedge herself in more tightly.

  “Nan, you fool,” she muttered. How many thousands of chimneys had she gotten through without a hitch? And yet here she was, packed tight as a musket ball. The worst part was that she knew it was her own fault. If she hadn’t been so desperate to hear what Miss Bloom was saying, she wouldn’t be in this predicament.

  And why did it matter what that woman said? She was just another grown-up.

  Nan still had a burlap cloth over her head. It was meant to protect her eyes and nose from loose soot. Usually she could make out light through the fibers, but not now. The chimney cap high above her was too far away to let in even a speck of light.

  “Hello!” she called.

  Not even an echo came back.

  She could feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears. The burlap on her head suddenly felt suffocating. Her brush hand was tight against her cheek, and so she let go of the handle and pulled the cloth from her face. Soot sprinkled down in her eyes, but she didn’t care. She could breathe.

  “HELLOOOOOO!” She called again.

  This time someone heard her.

  “Who is that?” said a small voice.

  It was coming from a room beneath her. Nan felt a wave of relief. She had heard stories of climbers who got stuck and weren’t found for days. She pitched her head toward the voice. “It’s the sweep,” she called down. “I’m stuck in a flue!”