Dockingboys

Chapter One

Declan looked down from his perch on Crane Four. This crane was the tallest, and almost all the other boys were somewhere on the crane. There was even a kid sitting on the giant metal hook of the crane, casually chewing on a sandwich and reading a book, but how he got there, Declan didn't know.

Declan's own lunch didn't really consist of anything special, really. It was just a sandwich, and it didn't taste any good, either. This was really typical - dockingboys rarely got good food. At least, not according to their standards, of course.

But that was just how life was. Being a dockingboy wasn't the dream job, and kids who were born dockingboys stayed dockingboys until they turned eighteen.

Dockingboys were actually very crucial to the coastline city of Oakton. Without them, there would be no one to operate the many cranes and transport the cargo to their respective locations. No one to build the ships and welcome traders. Oakton was known as one of the most popular sites for merchants and traders who are looking for some quick money, which was, as it always is, hard to earn. Of course, a coastal city like Oakton had more than one dock, and every one of them had a team of ten to twenty dockingboys.

This was actually very typical of cities now. In coastline cities you have dockingboys to handle the cargo. In cities with tall skyscrapers, you have steeplejacks to fix the buildings and chimneys. In this case, Oakton had both. Either way, both professions were regarded as abandoned delinquents, good-for-nothings, or failures in life. You get the idea.

Declan was one of those boys. Even though he was actually very academically skilled, people still regarded him as if he didn't exist. Dockingboys went to school at night after work from six to nine AM, in which eight different classes were crammed into those three hours.

The view from Crane Four was remarkably far, as Declan could see almost the entire city.

Oakton was considered a very unique city. It featured some of the tallest buildings, fixed and tended to by dangling steeplejacks. There were tons of factories that produced the various products that a major trading site would. To the eastern part of the city, the West Docks were also a busy place. Transport trucks with cargo and oil on them frequent the docks, and cranes lift cargo off ships. The western part of Oakton mostly consisted of thieves, assassins, and swindlers looking for money. It wasn't a desirable part of the city, so it's been nicknamed "The Vulture's Nest". The boys of the West Docks were also regarded as one of the thieves and pickpockets in the Nest. The southern and northern parts of Oakton mostly consisted of the actual city, with tall buildings and chimneys. Of course, there was also a dock at the south, called the South Docks. The North Docks was to the northern point of Oakton, and the massive East Docks under construction was, of course, to the east.

Declan finished his sandwich and tucked the bag away in his satchel, then stood up. This was a dangerous task, since Crane Four was over eighty meters tall, but after years of operating cranes (and fixing them), Declan had gotten used to the height. With surprising ease, he walked along the crane arm, careful not to bump into any of the other boys.

As the other boys ate their lunch, Declan walked across the arm of the massive crane and started the fast climb that took him back down to the ground. There was actually an elevator right next to the cockpit that controlled the crane, but Declan hated it. It was dark, smelly, and there was something that looked like a crummy sandwich in the corner. So instead, he always climbed down and up on the side of the crane, where a series of metal rungs were attached. Some of the other boys did so, too, as they didn't seem to like the elevator too much either.

Declan set his foot down on the ground, and felt the afternoon wind. It was always windy near the docks, as the ocean breeze always seemed to blow towards Oakton. He walked over to the main building where the dockingboys lived and spent their life in. All of the boys all lived in a certain warehouse, called the "Hall". The Hall basically consisted of a series of emptied cargo containers that were stacked in columns of three and pushed along the side walls of the warehouse. In the middle across from the three dinner tables, there was a bathroom where the dockingboys showered and did their business. There were currently ten "bunks" on each side, and in each one lived a dockingboy. The boys were free to decorate their bunk with whatever they wanted, ranging from calendars to pictures of girlfriends to snacks. Each one was a Titan class container, which was one of three different classes of cargo containers.