Island of Doom: Hunchback Assignments 4 (The Hunchback Assignments) by Arthur Slade

Author:Arthur Slade [Slade, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307975744
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2012-09-11T06:00:00+00:00

24

The Boy with the

Iron Shoulders

A young man named Oppie slept restlessly on a cot in a military tent he shared with several other soldiers. He dreamed of his home far, far away in London.

More than a year earlier he had been inside a giant that walked across London and swung its metal fists at the Parliament buildings. He was one of many children chained to the giant to make it work, and he remembered only blurred images of those events. If he didn’t know better he would’ve said that none of it had happened. A nightmare, a horrible flight of fancy. But he had bolts sticking out from his shoulders that proved differently, and memories of a redheaded witch with a metal hand and an evil white-haired doctor who had poked and prodded and made him drink potions that changed him. When he closed his eyes at night he saw the hideous pair lurking in the darkness, so he rarely slept well.

He had been removed from the broken body of the giant, set on the ground, and given chocolate. He did recall talking to Mr. W, a detective type who’d had a room at the Red Boar, Oppie’s place of employment. Then Oppie had been taken away in a carriage to be poked and prodded and questioned by men in black uniforms and an old, gruff man named Mr. Sockrats, or something like that. And later still, Oppie was poked and prodded by other, friendlier doctors. Within a week they had cut the ends off his bolts, patched him up, and sent him home to his mum.

He enjoyed six weeks of bliss and joy and magic. His mum suddenly didn’t have to work because of something she called “shush money.” So she stayed home and Oppie went to school—actually went to school—the place Mr. W had said he should attend. He’d started to read his first words. And the best part was that his father was growing stronger each day. He’d been yellow with some sickness that had crawled down his throat, but his mother could now buy medicines and pay a doctor. Within a week his dad got up and walked and laughed and rubbed Oppie’s head and said, “My boy, my boy.” And Mum had told Oppie that he had a brother or sister who would be delivered by a stork. A stork, of all things! He didn’t understand exactly where the stork was from, but his mum kept rubbing her tummy.

One night his dad went to sleep. The next morning his mum was shouting for the doctor, but his dad was already cold and yellow and dead. Then Oppie got sick too. His shoulders grew bulkier. His feet and his hands outgrew the rest of his body. Then the rest of his body began to catch up. Sometimes he’d grow an inch in height overnight! And his temper grew too. He wouldn’t remember his tantrums, but would wake up to broken chairs or dishes or pots lying all around him, his mum huddled in a corner like a frightened bird.

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