Olivia Twist ~ The True Story ~ 4 By Susan Brown In which I find out what is expected of me ~ meet Nancy ~ get useful with a needle ~ find myself in peril

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Sleep did not come easily this night. Visions of Fagin with a knife haunted me and Bill Sykes was a man of whom I was mortally afraid. I was beginning to wish with all my heart that I had not met Dodger on my journey and been led unknowingly to this place of degradation.

Cracking open my eyes I could see Fagin and Sykes talking quietly in the corner. Sykes had a sack and he was pulling items from it and showing them to Fagin.

Occasionally their voices were raised and they seemed to be arguing over the value of the items. I assumed that Fagin was a buyer of some kind as he handed what looked like some coins to Sykes. I pretended I was asleep and I think that at times they forgot I was there. I could catch some of the conversation…

‘Fagin, you avaricious old devil; you pay me the going rate or I’ll slit your froat as soon as look at yer.’

‘Bill, Bill, you know how hard it is to fence this stuff. The Peelers will grab me if I try to sell too near.’

‘Nonsense you old goat; it’s not been a problem before. Pay what yer owe, or else!’

‘No violence, Bill, I beg of you, or you will have to find someone else.’

‘Are you threatenin’ me, Fagin?’

‘No, of course not, Bill, we go a long way back. We must be civil to each other and not ruin a good thing.’

‘Right give me my money now and no messin' then.’

Through hooded eyes, I saw Fagin pass some more coins to Sykes.

‘Right, I’m orf.’

‘Will you be in the pub later, Bill?’

‘Yus; come on Bullseye.’

Without a glance at me Bill Sykes left, kicking his yelping dog before him.

I was looking at the retreating Sykes and jumped when I realised that Fagin had come up to me.

‘Ah, you’re awake then, my dear. Sorry about Bill, he can get excited sometimes but he has a heart of gold.’

I doubted that very much and it must have shown on my face.

‘Ah yes my dear, anyway,’ said Fagin changing the subject, ‘How is your head, all better?’

‘A bit.’

‘Good, good; now we talked a bit earlier about you helping?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘If you are up to it: would you like your first lesson?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Such a polite girl you are. All right, up you get.’

I arose from my hard lumpy bed and waited with some trepidation to see what Fagin had in store for me. After seeing what had transpired between him and Bill Sykes, I was fearful, to say the least.

‘Now, Olivia, do you see this handkerchief in my pocket?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘We will pretend that I am walking down the road, perhaps looking through some shop window. You must try to take the handkerchief without my realising it. Do you think you can do that my dear?’

‘I’ll try sir.’

Fagin walked about the room stopping occasionally and I came up behind and pulled the handkerchief from his pocket as he stopped again.

‘Here it is, sir.’

Fagin jumped around in surprise.

‘Olivia! Well done, my dear. I would never have known. You have a light touch to be sure. Let us try again.’

So it went on for some time. I got quite proficient at taking handkerchiefs after a while and Fagin declared himself satisfied with my progress.

He went over to a box and pulled out several handkerchiefs.

‘Look here, Olivia. See that these have initials on them?’

He showed me several which had letters embroidered upon them.

‘What I want you to do with this needle is to unpick the letters so that they show no trace of any letters. Look, this is how we do it.’

He showed me the method that he used and I could see that it was no great hardship doing as he asked.

‘Run along to the corner by the roof light. There you will see more clearly, my dear. Try to be quick as there are many that need alteration.’

I went over to the corner as he requested and I was soon working at the letters.

My thoughts were dark as I worked away. As I had begun to suspect, I was being trained up to be a thief. I had not shown any reaction to what was requested of me as I was in fear of my life. I had not been left alone since I had been in this place and the children and the adults all seemed to be of the same type and quite happy with their circumstances.

I lie ever so slightly I suppose as I was allowed some privacy to use the toilet. This comprised a bucket, situated in a corner that had a blanket for a screen and limited privacy. The idea was that you filled and then emptied the used bucket out of the window. It was hard for me to do this without messing my voluminous clothes as my penis was tiny and tended to spray everywhere, to my complete embarrassment.

My biggest fear was that I would be found out as being a boy and not a girl. I could see that violence was only just under the surface in this place and I had a strong feeling that if my secret were found out, I would be in danger of my life.

You may wonder why I did not just tell Fagin the truth. Perhaps that was foolish of me. I could have just told him when I arrived and explained my dressing as a girl as being a simple disguise to get away from my pursuers.

My thoughts at the time were that I was possibly safer as a girl than a boy. I hoped that being of the gentler sex, I would not be expected to be strong and tough and do things that the boys might be expected to do.

It seemed though, that I had misjudged things. From the little time that I had been in this hateful and scary place, I could see that the girls were expected to do exactly the same as the boys. Their manners were rough and course. They spat, drank and smoked, just like the boys and they thought nothing of swearing terrible things that made me blush with embarrassment and horror.

Do not get me wrong, I was no prude. I was just a young child who had been brought up to fear God and his retribution for doing terrible things the like of which I had seen constantly since arriving in this dingy filthy place. The poor house may have been a terrible place to live and work, but I had morals that had been beaten into me on a daily basis whilst living and working there.

So, the result of all this was that I had to pretend to be one of them. I needed to get away at the earliest possible time and until that time presented itself, I needed to be patient and above all, careful.

There was another reason why I did not inform anyone of my pretence. It was something that I barely acknowledged to myself. It was the simple fact that I liked being a girl. Although I was now dressed in poor clothes compared to my arrival, it was still a dress. No one disputed the fact that I was a girl. I felt more at ease with their assumptions. It was difficult to formulate why I felt like this, only that it was right and my former existence as a boy was false and this was the real me. I did not know why this should be so, but I accepted it as being God’s will that I was this way.

Many days passed and I was now considered a fixture with everyone accepting me for who I considered myself to be: Olivia Twist, not Oliver, a boy.

Bill Sykes visited a few times, normally at night under the cover of darkness. Once he brought a girl with him. She was dressed slightly better than other women that I had seen; her name was Nancy, pretty, with blond hair under her bonnet and a smile that I knew to be good and sincere. Why she was associated with Bill Sykes, I would never know, but I liked Nancy and she was kind to me.

Whilst Bill Sykes and Fagin were discussing or shall I say arguing business, she came over to me.

‘Well, so you’re the young Olivia that everyone been telling me about, eh?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

She laughed.

‘Don’t call me Miss! I’ll be gettin’ ideas above me station!’

I laughed and said, ‘What should I call you then?’

‘Just Nancy, love, I'm just Nancy. Now you don’t look right being here like this.’

My heart jumped. Did she guess about my secret? Would she tell?

‘I-I’m sorry Nancy, what do you mean?’

‘Well,’ she said laughing, ‘you 'ave manners and look too nice and genteel like, to be here amongst this den of thieves.’

I sighed with relief and laughed along with her.

Soon, she left with Bill and I continued my never-ending job of unpicking.

A few days later, Dodger came up to me. ‘Wotcher, Olivia, are you ready then?’

‘Ready for what?’

‘Didn’t Fagin tell yer?’

‘No.’

‘You’re coming with me and Charlie Bates; we’re going to show you how we work the streets.’

I got up and picked up my bonnet, the only thing that I had been allowed to keep. After placing it on my head and tying the bow, I followed the boys out. As we left, Fagin came up to me.

‘Time to spread your wings then, my dear, follow what Dodger tells you and you’ll come to no harm.’

I left with those words ringing in my ears and wondering what was in store for me.

As I stepped out into the daylight, my eyes squinted at the unaccustomed brightness. Once they had become accustomed to the glare of daylight, I found myself following the boys through a maize of filthy roads and lanes. It was a hot day and the smell coming from the excrement, dead cats, decaying dogs and other unmentionable things was almost overpowering to my senses.

We passed a tavern: there were two women–obviously the worse for drink–fighting and trying to pull each others hair out. The onlookers appeared to be betting on the outcome. Dodger and Bates tarried a while to see the spectacle, but soon lost interest when one of the women was knocked out by a vicious blow to the head by the other’s booted foot.

We continued on, finally coming to the street market that I recognised as one that I had originally been found in by Dodger.

After negotiating our way through the various stalls and some milling people, and narrowly avoiding being run down by the post chase, I found myself about fifty feet away from a book shop.

Outside the shop were some tables and several men and women were browsing through the books lying on the table.

‘Watch this and learn,’ whispered Dodger.

He went up to an old gentleman who was engrossed with a book. Meantime, Charlie had manoeuvred himself around to the other side of the gentleman.

I looked on in horror as Charlie distracted the gentleman while Dodger took what appeared to be a wallet from his pocket.

The gentleman did not notice what was going on, but an onlooker did see that something was amiss.

‘STOP THIEF!’ He shouted as Dodger and Charlie ran past me.

Dodger shouted for me to run and in seconds, I was running for my life. I ran through the lanes and streets and could sense others running behind me. I knew not where I was and quickly became lost. Turning a corner, I was confronted by a crowd of angry people who immediately gave chase as I dodged down an alley. A few yards down the alley and I tripped on the hem of my dress and fell heavily, banging my head on the cobbles and suddenly everything went dark.

When I awoke, I had a tremendous headache and felt sick and faint.

I noticed that I was on a bench and sat up, feeing my sore head as I did so.

‘So, awake are you?’

I looked up and saw standing beside the bench, a policeman.

‘Where am I?’

‘At the court, for sentencing. Your case is coming up. Mr Fang will see to you and he does not like thieves.’

‘I am not a thief!’

‘Don’t lie, you were seen running.’

‘But...’

‘Quiet, you will get your time in court.’

I lapsed into silence, shocked at the thought that I was being accused for something I did not do. I was groggy and feeling unwell. I was very confused and my head ached so much that I thought that I might pass out again.

‘Come on, It’s your turn to see Mr Fang, the magistrate and God help you, because he won’t.’

I was dragged into the court; through a stream of people until I found myself in an enclosure with bars around it.

I looked up, tears in my eyes to be confronted by an ugly, grossly fat and red faced man wearing a dirty wig and with an expression on his face so horrible and frightening that I nearly fainted at the sight.

‘What is she up for?’

‘Thievery, Sir.’

‘Did she do it?’

‘She was caught running from the scene, sir.’

‘Anything to say?’ He said addressing me.

I could not say anything, I was so frightened, and I just shook my head, teeth rattling with fear.

‘Guilty as charged, I should hang you. How old are you?’

I still couldn’t speak.

‘Cat got you’re tongue? She looks about ten. I suppose I should be lenient. I’m in a good mood today, three months hard lab–’

–‘WAIT!’

‘What’s all this? I will not have interruptions in my court.’

I looked over to a man who I recognised as the one who had had his wallet stolen.

‘I must speak. I am Mister Brownlow. This girl has been accused of stealing my wallet. I must say that this is only a young girl, and I am sure that she was not involved. I am certain that it was a boy that robbed me.’

‘Have you proof? She ran away. Even if it was not her, she is implicated, three months hard–’

–‘STOP!’

‘What NOW!’

Another man had pushed himself to the front. ‘I saw it all; the girl was not to blame. It was others; two boys that did it. She seemed only to run away because she was frightened of the crowd.’

The judge looked at me and said, ‘Is this true?’

I nodded my head and then realised that I was falling but could do nothing about it.

The world went dark as I heard the magistrate say something about wasting the courts time and I knew no more...

To be continued...

My thanks go to Kristina L.S and Gabi for pulling this into shape.

Please leave comments as I get antsy and have hissy fits if Angharad gets more comments than me. (Not a pretty sight).