Rat Catchers

King's Hall

Chapter Text

By Friday morning Rose would have rather thrown herself into a barrel filled with broken glass than wait another minute before leaving the house. It wasn't that she was looking forward to leaving; she was anxious to go because it was becoming very, very, very hard to keep pretending that she was neither scared nor upset, especially to herself.

She was sitting on the top of the stairs waiting...for anything to distract her, really. Charlie emerged from the front room, frowning.

"I can't remember again," he complained.

Rose rolled her eyes.

"You've to try harder," she said.

"I am," Charlie protested. "Mok...moki..."

"Mó-ka-do," Rose said slowly. "Mókado...?"

The concentration nearly broke her brother's face in half.

"Mokado moilo*!" he suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs.

"There you go," Rose sighed.

"Mokado moilo corey**," Charlie crowed just as their father came through the front door with Johnny Dogs in tow. "Chikli joobly***-"

Johnny Dogs started laughing so hard he had to sit down on the bottom step. Tommy, on the other hand, did not look entirely thrilled.

"D'you know what you're saying there?" he asked Charlie.

"Yes," Charlie said uncertainly, looking from his father to his sister and back again.

Tommy gave Rose a pointed look.

"You said to start teaching him," she said.

"I didn't say to start teaching him this," her father growled.

"They're not even the bad ones," Rose defended herself. "And he'll have to have something when they start calling him a gadj."

"She's got a point, y'know," Johnny Dogs said, wiping his eyes. "How's Rosie? All better?"

"Yes, thank you." Rose got up and came down the stairs, digging a fistful of loose coins from her pocket. "D'you take bets yet?"

"Sure."

"What's this now?" Tommy said incredulous.

"Four shilling and twenty...no, thirty p on Bonnie Gold," Rose told Johnny Dogs, ignoring her father completely.

"D'you want to put in for a round?"

"No, thank you." Rose looked up at Johnny Dogs curiously. "Unless you know something I don't."

"Many, many things, bitti pen." Johnny Dogs handed her a scrappy chit. "Hold onto this. Don't give it til you've your money."

"Do I look thick to you?" Rose asked, mortally offended.

"Are the two of you quite done?" Tommy snapped impatiently. "We've a bit to do still, ay? You-" he pointed at Rose and Charlie "-upstairs and out of the way til it's time to go. You'll be goin' in with your uncle Finn and some of the lads."

"Save a seat up front, yea?" Rose said cheerfully.

If nothing else, she was looking forward to the fight something shocking. Her father looked at her as if she'd just grown a second head.

"What?" she asked. "I'll be able to see fuck all from the back."

"Mind how you speak to me," he said. "And you'll be able to see all you need whilst you're waiting in the change room."