The Orphan Boy

Thieving

Aeryn woke up in a tree. It was a very tall tree with huge leaves, perfect for hiding in. He had wrapped a blanket around himself then tied himself into the tree last night so that he wouldn't fall out. This tree was one of the many places that he often slept since he couldn't sleep in the city.

He couldn't sleep in the city for two reasons, the first was because he had no parents. He wasn't an orphan, his parents were still alive as far as he knew, but neither of his parents wanted him. His mother was a whore who had given him to an orphanage when he was two, that however was in a different city. His father was probably some rich merchant somewhere who had visited the brothel that his mother worked at. His father may not even know that he existed.

The second reason was, because he had no parents, had become a thief. Aeryn had to steal everything that he ate. Food however was not the only thing he stole but it was what he stole most often. Besides food he would steal clothing, once he had outgrown the clothes he wore but that wasn't often. He also stole knives, from bakeries, black smiths, taverns, anywhere that had a knife. Other than that he stole whatever he needed, a piece of twine to tie back his hair, a strip of leather to secure a knife to his leg, the various blankets that he kept at each of his hiding places.

Thieving was a hard life but no harder than living in the orphanage he had run away from. The orphanage that was seemingly built with rotting wood. Every person who ever went into that orphanage came out with lice. There was never enough food to go around so if you didn't push your way to the front of the line you may not get anything to eat. But if the Head Mistress saw you push to the front of the line she would send you to the back. What little food was available was usually three day old stale bread, moldy cheese, or some sort of meat that stank worse that most of the children.

The orphanage also lacked space. The girls were in one room, the boys in another, and the volunteers in another room below them. The smallest children got the beds and there were usually at least four to a bed. The problem with sharing was that one of the four boys Aeryn had ever slept with wet the bed on a regular occasion. Aeryn had never had to sleep on the floor but the boys on the floor often times didn't have blankets.

Aeryn least favorite thing about the bedrooms however was the chamber pot. Once in the middle of the night he got up to relieve himself to find the chamber pot was full and some of it's contents had spilled onto the floor. Aeryn had then gone down the steps from the boy's room to the front door to the orphanage. The Head Mistress was there and asked what he was doing. He told her that he was going outside to realive himself because the chamber pot was full. She told him to bring the chamber pot down and empty it if it was full. So Aeryn brought the chamber pot down from the boy's room to empty it, at least half of it had sloshed over the sides by the time he got down the steps.

The worst was the winter went sickness would set in and there was even less food and rarely ever a doctor or medicine. After all why would a doctor come to an orphanage, orphans have no money. There were always at least three different diseases at one time circulating through the orphanage.

It was after Aeryn had recovered from a sickness that he left the orphanage. He hadn't even known what the sickness was called. All he remembered was laying in bed feeling as though his body was on fire. The air was filled with the smell of rotting flesh and the moaning of the other children. Occasionally Aeryn would roll over to the side of the bed and cough up black fluid until coughed up blood as well. He promised himself that he would never live in an orphanage ever again.

Aeryn had been nine when he left the orphanage. Once he had left the orphanage he ran to another city. After that he kept traveling from city to city until he came to this city. He wasn't sure what it was called, the city or the surrounding area, but this place had lots of food. This place also had lots of good hiding places, both inside the city and out. The other advantage was that he looked like the people who were native to the area. When people would say that a short skinny boy with black hair and grey eyes that hadn't taken a bath in over a year, had stolen food from them, well, they had just described half the boys in the city.