literature

Scraps of Hope

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Thin hands pushing through piles of trash, Scraps searched for edible bits of food. The sandy-haired boy had low standards for what passed as a meal – it was the only way the little homeless children could survive. He pushed what could be salvaged into the large pockets on his open, wool vest, and tucked away pieces of useful things like paper and lead into his pants’ pockets. Mismatched and coated with dirt, he always looked the part of the perfect orphan.

Scraps had not always been called Scraps, and he had not always considered the streets his home. Once, his name had been Liam, and he lived with his kind parents. He could remember pieces of that life. His parents, though poor, had always done their best to get by. They told him wonderful stories, how they had left poor Ireland to find opportunity in young America, seduced like so many others by the new nation in the new century. They had left with great dreams, lived with driving ambitions, and died without hope.

Now it was nineteen-twenty-something. Scraps had left the name Liam at his parents’ small, double grave. Now eleven, he had been living without a home for two years. He had a new family, the other parentless children trying to live in dirty New York City. Six months earlier he had become the eldest, after his best friend Grub had been hit by one of the new cars speeding down the streets. Scraps took the role of parent without complaint. He often went hungry to feed his wards, and always put off what he needed to help his kin.

“Scraps! Scraps! Dat you?”

Turning to look over his sharp shoulder, Scraps offered a smile to his smallest friend, a tiny girl of barely five years, a small beauty they had decided to name Flower. Scraps nodded and stood, walking to meet the breathless girl, wiping his dirty hands on his equally dirty pants to ruffle her dirty, curly red hair. “Yeah. What’s it, Flower?”

Taking in a few more breaths, Flower leaned forward, hands on her thin knees, before answering. “Dere’s a fight, Scraps,” she said in her high, English-coated voice. “Da bigger kids’re all fighting my da docks!”

Frowning, Scraps knelt down to be eye-level with the now- crying girl. The small group rarely had any scuffles, but the boys tended to feel the need to dominate the others from time to time. Scraps sighed at the thought and took Flower’s small hands in his. He would go try and sort things out, but he wanted to make sure everyone else was safe.

“Shh, it’ll be a’right, Flower, just you wait and see. I’m gonna check it out. You get everyone not involved to the base, okay? Everything’ll be a’right, you make sure to tell them all that.” He offered her a warm smile and gave her hands a reassuring squeeze. He trusted her to be able to do that, even if she was the youngest. He trusted all his wards, all his friends.

Clutching his hands for a moment longer, Flower took comfort in his faith in her and nodded. She always felt safer around him, always felt like she could do anything. She leaned in for a quick hug and nodded, pulling away with an excited “All right!” and dashing away. Scraps could handle it, no matter how hard it would be.

Scraps had significantly less confidence in himself than the others had in him. He always felt as though he were in Grub’s shadow, outclassed at every moment by the older, tougher, more street-wise boy. Fisticuffs had never happened within the group while Grub was the unofficial leader. Now that the mantle had passed to Scraps, fights were just as frequent within the gang as outside of it. Though troubled by these thoughts, Scraps pushed them aside as he ran to the docks. He was practical enough to know he had to stop the trouble before he could worry about it.

Though the docks were on the other side of the city, Scraps still breathed easily as he ran up beside it. He was one of the few orphans who had never worked the mines or with cotton, and still had the best stamina out of all of them. As his bright green eyes scanned the scene before him, he breathed a sigh of relief. Only half of the fighters were his own kin – the others were older boys with families that liked to torment the young street urchins. The fact that most of those still left standing were those very urchins brought a smile to Scraps’ wide face, and he finished jogging to the middle of the scene.

“Oi, oi, it’s Scraps!”

“Ho there, boss!”

“Ye missed out on a great fight, chief!”

“Scraps, you’re always late for the important stuff, y’know!”

The words tumbled over the boy, and he could only smile for a moment. He looked over the boys, his boys, and felt a wave of pride. Letting out a long laugh, Scraps rubbed the back of his head as he gave an apologetic shrug. “Ain’t like you lot need me,” he complained with a wide grin. “Looks like you had everything taken care of!”

“Well, ye can still get in on the fun!” A young boy missing at least three teeth pointed to the last older boy still standing.

The young man, in what was once a neatly pressed suit, still had his fists up, though he looked apprehensive. Starting fights in school with people on par with him was one thing, getting beat by street-wise children was another. Once he realized that Scraps was the leader, he looked even more anxious. Their leader was the first to fall in the impromptu scuffle.

“Yeah, yeah, teach them blokes a lesson!”

Scraps just shook his head though, shoving his hands into his large pockets and walking over to the older boy. He measured each stride, watching as the older boy stared, counting down the urchin’s steps. Stopping an arm’s length from the older boy, Scraps offered up a warm smile.

“You know, I don’t like learning that big dorks’re picking on my friends. I don’t mind when my friends beat them, but I think it’s silly. Don’t you big kids have families to bother with?” Scraps took on the tone of a lecturing father, face stern, even as he laughed inside along with his friends as he watched the older boy’s face turn beet red. “You’re gonna have a future, yeah? That’s why you’re so much specialer than us, right? So why bother with us? You like getting beat or something?”

“Hah, you wish!” the older boy finally snapped, trying to gain some composure. “You brats think you have it so good without a family, living like kings on the streets, but let me tell you, I-“

“Oh, stuff it,” Scraps retorted suddenly. “You don’t have one idea what it’s like living out here. It ain’t fun and games. We just get by. You’re the ones that’re living like kings. So go back to that and leave us be. Don’t take what you’ve got for granted, or you’ll be sorry. We’ll make sure of that.”

Without another look or sound, Scraps turned away, confident the older boy was shaken up enough not to throw a punch at his back. He smiled at the other boys, nodding to them as they flocked over, jeering at the older boy. When they were all sure he would rather tend to his friends than bother any more with them, they finally broke into loud cheers and started the trek home.

“Y’think they’ll learn their lesson, Scraps?” asked a boy with chipped glasses.
“They never do,” Scraps responded with a laugh.

“Ye looked worried, boss. Ye thought we was fighting again, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The boy with the missing teeth chuckled and slugged Scraps gently in the shoulder. “We only do that when ye’re around, boss. Don’t ye worry.”

“I think that makes me worry more,” Scraps laughed.

Joking and jostling the entire walk, the boys found making their way to the abandoned factory they called home fast and easy. Scraps still worried about the tension that flared from time to time, and could only be glad that the boys had found an outlet in a bigger enemy. Taking things in stride, as he always did, Scraps just laughed the incident off, and decided to worry about the next fight when it came.

“Scraps! Scraps! Scraps’s back! Dere all back!”

Grinning, Scraps showed no surprise as he was bowled over by the small English girl. Flower clutched him tightly, still on the verge of tears.

“’Course I am, Flower. I’ll always get back.”
A short character piece I did for my final for my Narration and Description class last semester. Scraps has been a little rag-a-muffin in my head for years now. I've always wanted to draw him, but I would never do him justice. I've been playing around with an idea for a novel about him, and written a bunch of things up. He's a lot of fun to have up there when I'm learning history.
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Aoi-Heruga's avatar
Aww, I wanna give Scraps a high-five.

Or something >>;