The Last of the Gullivers by Carter Crocker

she brought a blanket for Michael and waited with her father.
    When the hospital doctor had him cleaned and stitched, Stanley Ford stepped into the pale room. “Want to tell me what happened, son?”
    â€œWrecked,” the boy answered. “My bike.”
    And the nurse said, “Mm-hm.”
    â€œWant to tell me what really happened?”
    But he didn’t tell. He lay two days in the hospital bed, both eyes blackened, ribs bruised but not broken. The Little Ones needed him and he wasn’t there for them. He’d finally found something to care about, beyond his own small needs, and here he was stuck in a smelly bed in a smelly room with butter-colored walls.
    Maxine Bellknap stood outside Folk-in-the-Clover, watching her breath hang in the cold air. Inside, Bertram, the wiry cook, brought the Chief Magistrate’s dinner of pig’s nose with parsley-and-onion sauce.
    As the town bell struck seven, Horace Ackerby II began to eat by the chattering fire, looking out on the churchyard, listening to the wind in the yews. Maxine found her nerve and went to his table and said, “Mr. Ackerby. I’m sorry to bother you. And of course, I never would. But.”
    The Magistrate set down his fork. “What is it, Ms. Bellknap?”
    â€œWell. Then. The boy. Michael Pine.” The Magistrate was listening now. “Officer Ford says he was taken. The boy was taken. To the hospital, in a bad way, a slight concussion. He told Stanley it was a bicycle accident. But of course.”
    â€œOf course it wasn’t.”
    Maxine wished she’d never come, wished she were home in a warm robe, with a pot of tea and gardening magazines, choosing spring seeds to order.
    â€œHe wouldn’t say what happened. Still I thought. You should know.”
    For a very long moment, Ackerby said nothing.
    â€œThank you, Ms. Bellknap.”
    â€œWell, then,” Maxine said and they said their good-byes.
    The Chief Magistrate chewed at his food, slowly, and fell into a silent solitary rage. A street fight, a gang brawl. And after he, Horace Ackerby II, had taken such a chance on the boy. After all the time and effort he’d invested.
    Should he end the experiment now? Should he swallow his sizable pride and send Michael to the YOI where he belonged?

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    THE DAY OF THE UPENDED EGG
    C harlie Ford, the policeman’s son, told Jimmy Bennet, and Penelope Rees overheard and told her mother, who called Frances Froth and that’s how Mr. Tiswas found out and let Gadbury know and once Esther and Stella got the news,
everybody
knew what happened at the crossroads. Gang warfare, in their own city, and one boy in the hospital with a concussion!
    The people of Moss-on-Stone knew they had a problem and they knew it was Nick and his Boys. “The most pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth,” Stella called them.
    Stella and Esther decided to start a Merchants Watch Committee. The business owners would keep an eye on each other’s shops, taking turns patrolling the streets. It was a shame it had to happen in a village like theirs, but what choice was left?
    On Wednesday, Michael was well enough for school, but still bandaged and bruised and sore. His teacher, once more, did not call attention to him but went on with their studies of the explorer Captain Cook:
    â€œAs his ship
Endeavour
rounded the tip of South America, it reached that point where two great currents converge, where Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet. The seas are unpredictable here and violent storms explode with no warning. Cook’s sails were filling with a deadly wind . . .”
    Charlie leaned to Michael and sniffled, “I have a fifty pound note in my shoe. My nan gave it to me for not failing school. You want t’see it?”
    Michael shook his head, no. Charlie was always coming up with stories like that.
    â€œYou want, I’ll