10 August, '93 — Just off High Street, Hogsmeade

"What do you mean, don't want 'em? They're for you!"

The urchin stared in a stupor at the woman. She had a thin waist cinched so tight it must have pushed the rest of her up, because her neck was longer than any Charley had ever seen. It craned down over the red capped head of the flower-bearing urchin, giving the delivery a great sniff. Charley willed her legs in place to avoid taking a step back, or two or three, and stuffed a hand in her pocket to search for a hanky. Either the lady was just testing her nose or she was about to blow Charley all the way back to Miss Crouch's flower shop with the world's biggest sneeze.

"I know quite well who they're for, and who they're from," the giraffe lady sniffed again. Charley might have offered the woman her cap if it wasn't holding up the pair of braids she'd stuffed up inside it. Anyhow, she was not keen on plopping some lady's snot down on her head. "You can deliver them to the nearest waste bin, or wherever. I don't really care."

"But..." Charley stood wistfully at the closed door, her hand stretched out too late for coin. Everyone gave her a coin on delivery, that's how it worked. Usually just a knut, sometimes two. She'd never gotten a sickle but she'd always hoped. Especially this one, where she'd wandered up towards Wellingtonshire, though not nearly close enough to hope for a galleon.

The urchin had never guessed she'd walk away empty-handed.

No, not empty-handed. Charley only realized after she had covered half the block back to the flower shop, she still had the giraffe lady's flowers in her hands! Curling her arm around them, the urchin took a turn on the street past the flower shop, she didn't want to face the chance of another delivery yet. Not if she was going to keep getting stiffed today.

Besides, she was getting hungry.

That coin would have paid for something on High Street, particularly something sweet and sticky like the kind Mrs. Mann didn't keep around. Charley passed by a stall of dry-looking muffins instead, but even those were looking good to her stomach right now. Surely one wouldn't go missing, right?

"HEY! "

She was halfway past the next stall, her mouth full of muffin, when the urchin heard the voice cry out to her. It sure sounded like that was to her, and it sure didn't pay to take any chances today. Charley did the only reasonable thing, she picked up her feet and ran.

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P.S. I'm aware this is a long post, I won't expect anyone to match it. Feel free to catch or help Charley.

  

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It was a day for patrolling High Street, and Benji was trying to keep an eye on the masses while ignoring the beads of sweat trickling down his neck. August was the worst month to be a constable. (He would probably disagree with himself once they reached January, but for now — August was the worst month.) Luckily, he was trading off with one of the other constables in an hour or so.

He missed the moment of theft, but a stall-worker shouting HEY! and pointing at a street urchin could only mean one thing. Benji straightened to attention and sprinted after the child.

He grabbed for the back of the urchin's shirt.

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   Charley Goode

Charley prided herself on a lot of things. Her cleverness. Her wit, which she thought was quite excellent for her age. The nimbleness of her fingers, especially with all the practice she'd obtained finding handholds while climbing or pilfering things that no one seemed to be paying much attention to. There were others talents of hers she might boast about another time, but the one she prided herself in the most was how fast she was.

The urchin knew she was a speedy little thing, dashing away from would-be attackers and the justice of slow-witted grown-ups.

Not this time. Charley's shirt snagged on something and it gripped her throat, so much that she felt her feet go out from under her. They scrambled for purchase as her hands flew to her cap, heedless of the flowers she had been carrying. Worse yet, the muffin dropped carelessly to the ground, gathering dirt and worse before turning its taunting, once-bitten face back up at her.

"Owww!" Panic set in while the urchin clambered to her feet, tugging at her shirt to free it from whatever had caught her.

Make that whoever had caught her.

The tall, dark figure of the constable loomed up over her, a spectre of menace upon her day. As if today hadn't been bad enough, getting stiffed on a tip, having no coin for some food and now getting caught by the coppers. Charley squirmed in his grip, pulling and ducking to loosen the hand holding her shirt collar. It may as well have been an iron shackle around her throat, for all the good her efforts made. "Lemme go!"

A desperate wheeze whistled through her lips, and Charley tried again, "I can't breef!"

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The urchin was squirmy. Benji hated catching kids. He'd gotten in trouble for letting some go before, and there was a large part of him that wanted to just let the child go — but too many people were around. Still — it was sad, and the child was so young that he could not entirely tell what their gender was. He grabbed the child's wrist in one hand and let the back of their shirt go.

"Can you breathe now?" Benji asked, holding on tight. Still — it was more important that the urchin be able to breathe than it was for Benji to bring them to the constabulary.

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   Charley Goode

The copper put her down at last, delivering air into Charley's waiting lungs. Free to breathe at last, she took a few —and then a couple more for show— long, gasping breaths. The urchin nodded to conserve her energy, but she wasn't free at all. Not really. The urchin's hurt eyes glared up from under her red cap at the man who still kept an iron grip on her wrist.

Charley pulled at it, giving her arm a hard wretch. She twisted and wiggled in his grasp, straining against the ease of the copper's strength. She whined again, not yet certain it was futile, "Lemme go!"

Down on the street, the flowers had fallen out of their packaging and now blooms and stems stuck out at all ends. Charley gasped again and reached for it, suddenly haunted by the spectre of Mrs. Mann grilling her over a failed delivery and dirty flowers. To the urchin, her ire was far worse than that of a constable, no matter how tall or strong. "Please," she tried desperately, "I gotta deliver those. It's important!"

The urchin wasn't putting on a show now, her long face turning back up at him. Crying would actually help her now, but all Charley could feel was a cold fear drilling down into her stomach. Making her hand as small as possible, she tried once more to pull it free. "I don't care about that dumb muffin! I en't even hungry no more!"

What copper wouldn't let her go now that the urchin proved she wasn't even a threat?

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Oh, the urchin was pathetic now, crying and reaching for her delivery. Benji's chest tightened. He didn't want to bring her in, but there were all these people. He couldn't risk his own job for her. Still —

"I should take you into the constabulary," he said, a warning. There had to be a way to do his job without taking the child in; the urchin was so young. Why was it so much easier to catch petty thieves like this than it was to catch real criminals?

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   Charley Goode

Now the iron grip was a manacle around her wrist. Charley's eyes bulged and she was sure even her freckles had gone pale. Her eyes scoured the copper's face, searching for a crack between the crow's feet lines on his face or the joke somewhere in his voice. The words fell hard on the urchin instead, condemning her with the enormity of their phrasing.

"...take you in...constabulary"

"No, I—!" Charley knees felt weak and she struggled to stay standing. Her wrist pulled at her captor's grip, keeping her upright on the street now. Others were watching, whispering around them. The urchin knew how she looked to them, a thief caught red-handed by the righteous arm of the law. She was sure none of them had seen a hungry day in their lives, not one when they were shorted on a proper tip either!

Her mood shifted. Charley's glower was back and now her mouth twisted down. The warmth on her cheeks told her they were burning, and it sated some part of the deepening pit in her stomach. She nearly spat her words like they were something foul she couldn't get rid of fast enough. "You can't! I didn't even get a proper bite outta that dry, awful muffin anyhow! The real crime is callin' it food, I bet a lummox like you ent about to arrest the baker!"

Charley could stand a little better now, her limbs each a coiled spring. If the copper started having second thoughts, enough to loosen that grip of his, she'd be looser than a cat out of a bag in no time.

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At least now the child was being pissy again; it made Benji feel better about his job. With his free hand, he reached around his belt to grab his handcuffs.

"Hey!" Benji said, "It's still stealing if you didn't like it!"

  

And there it was, that stuffy sense of judgement from grown-ups who had it better than her. Charley fumed and shook her head, ginger curls acting like the smoke that would have otherwise been pouring out of her ears. She didn't know any spells that would set her enemies on fire yet, but now she vowed to learn one just for this man.

"It is not!" she shouted back. The urchin's eyes widened as the handcuffs came into view, urgently pulling on the constable's grip gain. "You can't honestly 'spect nobody to eat those doorstops! He should be payin' me for all my hardship!"

If she had her wand, Charley might have summoned the muffin into her hand just to show him. Her eyes caught the flowers again, lying mournfully on the road. Without her freedom, they were doomed to be abandoned now, trampled by boots and horses and all kinds of people who couldn't possibly appreciate a pretty thing in life. Just like the copper whose handcuffs gleamed in the sun.

He was taunting her with them, he had to be. The copper was going to let her go, all the urchin had to do was suffer enough for the show. Just play a part, she could do that. It was just a theatre, and that was what she had trained all her life for. Not magic, acting!

"Pleeeeeaaase, no!" Charley sank to her knees, her wrist straining against his grip. She joined her other hand to it, offering a prayer to the constable's inner goodness. His kindness. Or perhaps his humiliation, whichever one did the trick. "I swear I'll be good now, you won't never see me steal again. I'll pay it all back when I got the coin, I'd even pay for two jes' to make it right! Please don't send me up, I en't made for the clink!"

Charley didn't have any stones in her shoe this time, and her wrist was only sore. That didn't stop her from pleading with her eyes, making them as big and watery as she could. Even if she couldn't cry, the copper wasn't about to lock her up without a long, hard look into a face that was ready to.

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Benji was starting to feel rather pathetic, and it was probably because the urchin was being so pathetic. He couldn't even tell for sure if the child was a boy or girl. They were probably very hungry, either way — and spending the day in lock-up at the constabulary might not help her. It certainly wouldn't help him — she'd be whining all day.

Oh, goddamnit.

"Stop it," Benji said, his tone half-scolding and half-exasperated. "I'm going to write you a ticket, alright? You'll have to pay a sum to the constabulary for what you did wrong. Can I trust you'll pay it?"

He probably couldn't. But he could try, right?

  

Charley buttoned her lip at the copper's threat. He didn't even need to say 'or else' or what came after that, it was written on his face and his stance. Every inch of him screamed what would happen to the urchin if she didn't obey, and so far she had done plenty of not obeying. So she stopped and shut her mouth, waiting for the copper to hand down his sentence.

Maybe she could still smash his foot and run, only Charley didn't know how well that worked on wizard coppers.

"A ticket?" she asked, confused for a moment until he explained. More like a fine, a slap on the wrist. Hers was screaming worse than a banshee at the moment, but the urchin would gladly take another slap on top if it didn't mean something worse. "So I en't getting sent up?"

Charley's voice brightened for the first time since she'd greeted her customer an hour —no, it couldn't have been that long— ago. Her face was dry of any streaks and the street was spared of watching her frogmarched down the street to jail, leaving most of the bystanders to turn back away from her. It was just the urchin and the copper now, no audience and no witnesses.

She stood up tall, not pulling or resisting him this time.

"I said I'll pay and I will. Now lemme go and we'll shake on it like real men," Charley told him, holding her chin high and her eyes steady into his. She dared not blink, almost daring him to question it. The only time she let her eyes move was to lean down, stretching her wrist the barest of inches back at her to hock a loogie into the palm of her fastened hand.

If some of her spray got on the copper, it was just more reason for him to take her way out. She'd make good on her word, so long as it was sealed the right way.

The only way Charley would honor.

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At least the child wasn't screeching anymore. Benji grimaced at the spittle that hit his hand, but it wasn't the grossest fluid he'd been exposed to this week, so he limited his reaction to a grimace. He eyed the urchin's outstretched hand. "Not yet," Benji said. It was of course because he didn't trust the child — he was softer on most criminals than some of the other constables, but he wasn't stupid. If she ran off now, he'd have problems later.

"What's your full name?" Benji asked, raising an eyebrow at her. He didn't want to take out a warrant on wayward urchins who ran away, but he had enough experience dealing with urchins (like the redhead) to know what happened when he didn't check names first.

  

Charley only flinched for a moment at the answer. Her hand lingered, fresh saliva that threatened to drip from it, waiting for a hand that might never clasp it to shake. That's how a real gentleman would do it, if the copper knew any sort about being one. A real gentleman wouldn't stand there still, torturing her sore wrist with his iron grip, demanding even more from the urchin.

She clenched her teeth, freckles blurring until they merged on her jaw. Charley might not be a boy, but she knew how to take a punishment. Stagecraft wasn't too different from real life, except that a slap could actually hurt. This pain wasn't so bad as that. So long as she kept her feelings under wraps, like her chest and deepening curves, the copper might keep treating her like a boy on the rough side of his luck.

Which is all Charley ever needed to be seen as.

"My full name?" the urchin echoed, as if it was the strangest question she'd ever been asked. She could guess why he wanted it, Charley figured there was already some paper in his office with her details on it. Coppers had informants, snitches and busybodies and nifflers who ratted on all the dirty details of the town.

Charley would have liked to get her hands on those papers, she was sure it said a few things about townsfolk she had only heard snippets of! If only she had a spell to attach to her name. The copper was just going to stroll back and add her name to the top of that paper. Someday, she promised herself, the urchin would be clever enough to take advantage of that somehow.

"Fine, if you want the whole show I'll put it on. Then we shake, yeah?" Today, without a spell to her name, nor a coin neither, she could only offer it up on credit. "Name's Charley Goode, that's with a 'y' and an 'e'."

The urchin and her spittled hand could only wait so long, the copper better be good with details.

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Charley Goode; it was too specific to be entirely made up. In one fell motion, Benji reached out with his free hand to shake her spit-covered one, and released his grip on her wrist. "Can you read?" Benji asked, once he released Charley. He pulled out pocket notebook for tickets and began writing with his constabulary quill; the paper was charmed so that it appeared on the sheet underneath, as well, so that they would both have a copy.

"I can read the ticket out for you, if you can't," he explained, still writing. "You'll owe your payment to the constabulary by the thirtieth of the month."

  

Pfft, Charley scoffed, blowing the air out of her mouth in a scowling retort. She was already being too nice, standing around just waiting for her ticket like a by-your-leave. What else did the copper want from her? A bow and a thank you for the gift of a ticket and sore wrist? "Don't gotta insult me, I can read just fine!"

Those blasted flowers! They'd gotten her into more than enough trouble today, and now Charley would have to explain it all to Mrs. Mann as well. She'd sooner pay a hundred galleon fine than have the shop-witch breathing down her neck.

The urchin snatched the ticket from the man, still writing or not. She didn't like the idea of owing anyone, and liked less the idea of having her word picked apart by some quill-driver from the uppity side of town. He wasn't down here with the muck, getting stiffed for tips and scrounging for scraps of food. A scowl lurked at the edge of her polite facade, growing like a shadow across her face. If only she could cast it like a spell on the copper instead, or on the flowers still lying forlorn and nearly forgotten on the ground.

"Yeah, yeah, you want your sickles, cash on the nail, I got it," Charley spat out, unamused by the copper's dawdling. She could have found a better bite to scrounge by now, or a pocket to pick. It wasn't like any of those coins were going to the constabulary now.

The urchin huffed as she shook the spit off her hand, swooping down to snatch the bouquet of flowers before she left. How could a copper who didn't even know the rules of the streets expect an honest word anyway?

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