Yes. This is long. Yes, I love you so very much if you read it.
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Chapter Two
The sunlight sprinkled over East Bristol, England, like sugar sprinkled over a cake. The dawn cracked over the horizon, and the small city was illuminated from the dark of night.
There were sentry guards with swords at their waists standing nigh over the tall trees below them. The sentry gate walls stood higher than any tree could grow in the city. There was one way into the city and one way out. One of the guards rubbed his hands together to warm them, for the night brought a chilly breeze.
Just passed the sentry gates laid the tall mill, and next to that was a factory that occasionally sent smoke spiraling into the cold, spring air. East of the factory were where the cabins began, and they continued on for rows and rows, full of families who were trying to make a living.
The sun glinted over the top of the houses, glaring into their windows, making all who resided in them to stir and turn away from the sunlight. The further down the rows, the more separated each house was from each other. Farms took places of gardens; sheds took places of large cattle barns.
Near the end of the rows and rows of houses lay the Stowe farm, a cottonseed and onion farm. When the sunlight burst through the small, and somewhat shattered, windows, Aly Stowe’s mischievous face lit up like a candle. She was by her bedside, in her bedroom that she shared with the family cat, Zekyll.
“Shh,” Aly whispered to Zek. The cat purred and rubbed against Aly’s leg as she attempted to silently open her bedroom door. The wooden floorboards creaked as she stepped lightly on them, but even her light weight was no match for what she called the ‘squeakers’.
“Zek, try to not step on the squeakers. You’ll wake up Auntie Clair and Uncle Steven! Hush, now, or we’ll never get out to the Rats on time,” Aly quietly warned her cat. Zek purred and obeyed her, as if she could understand what Aly was speaking about.
Aly reached the door and cracked it open, while Zek uttered a quiet yawn. Her aunt and uncle were not awake yet, thank heavens. Aly slid out of her bedroom and tiptoed down the hall, being extra cautious as she passed the other bedroom. Once she entered the tiny kitchen, Zek skid past her and to the front door. She leaped up and scratched it gently with her long paws.
Zek was a black cat with lemon yellow eyes. Uncle Steven, while out in the fields of endless cotton and onion, spotted her wounded by a dog. He had brought her inside, and Aly helped nurse her back to health. While she was doing so, she fell in love with the cat and gave her a name.
“All right. Calm down!” Aly whispered, walked over to the breadbasket. Inside of it were two loaves of bread, which Auntie Clair had purchased with the last of the money she had received from her job as the schoolteacher.
Zek purred again and licked her small lips, as Aly made her way towards the door, a chunk of bread in her hands.
“Sorry. I was hungry. And y’know how I am when I eat. All grumpy and mean. I want today to be extra nice today, because You-Know-Who is gonna be there.”
Zek raised one of her eyebrows at Aly.
“What? You know I like ‘em.”
Zek purred again and clawed at the door, beckoning for Aly to open it. She did so, and they both escaped out of the house and into the cold, spring morning. She could instantly smell a fresh smell that originated from the onion plant that she adored farming with Uncle Steven. The fact that things could grow in her own area amazed her.
Aly was eleven years old to this day. She had planned to stay the entire day with a group of restless boys that called themselves the Rats. Of course, Aly wasn’t allowed to officially become a Rat. You had to be a boy, Aly knew. Still, that didn’t stop her from creating mischief around the town with the Rats.
There were seven different boys in the Rats. One of them, Percy Smith, lived next door to Aly. He was thirteen and the nicest out of all of the Rats, or so Aly thought. Zek recognized that Aly liked to the boy from the moment she saw him, four years ago. It had been Zek herself that had found the rats playing beside the canal, behind the factory that spewed smoke like a nasty gash. It was from the moment that Aly had finished nurturing Zek from her poor health when Uncle Steven had found her. They had both escaped outside to explore the city together. Zek led the way and found the Rats playing by the canal.
Aly and Zek walked side by side down the many, many lanes and rows of houses, each house getting closer together as they neared the Town Hall, the factory, and the mill. Aly was wrapped up in a long dress that covered her ankles; she hated dresses, but Auntie Clair refused to let her wear anything else.
“Ladies are always to be seen with dresses, Aly,” Aly remembered Auntie Clair telling her once.
One they reached the factory, Zek and Aly slipped behind it into the canal. The dirt road was laid by the stinking, green water. They traveled down the dirt road for a minute or two, and then they caught sight of the Rats.
The first thing Aly noticed was that Percy wasn’t there. She was sorely disappointed as she approached the group of boys.
“Hello,” she said. The boys nodded to her.
“You ready?”
Aly’s eyes lit up. “Am I ever!”
“We’re meetin’ Marvin, Peter and Percy at old Wilson’s place. Percy told me that he already started,” Taylor, one of the older members of the Rats, stated. Aly nodded in excitement. Zek growled in her throat.
“Let’s go then!” Aly muttered, and turned around. Her group of friends followed her.
Old Mr. Wilson was a crabby old man that lived alone, except for the two birds that he kept locked in his cages. There was a rumor going around, Aly heard, that he ate people for dinner. That would explain why some of the people in the city were going missing.
It was a topic rarely spoken about. Four people had gone missing. Two children from totally separate families, and then two newly-weds disappeared. Uncle Steven, along with some of the other men of the town, traveled to North Bristol to search for the missing people, but they never found them.
So when the rumor began that said old Mr. Wilson ate people for dinner, it was a reason to investigate his house. Aly didn’t know what to expect there. There could be anything. Maybe she’d find a boiling pot of eyeball soup. Maybe a human liver baked into a cake. Aly shivered; the thought disgusted her.
The Rats, Aly and Zek finally arrived at old Wilson’s place. It was still early morning, so not many people were up yet. Especially not Mr. Wilson. He usually was never seen before two o’clock in the afternoon. He was such a strange old man.
Just as Taylor had said, they found Percy, Marvin and Peter waiting on the man’s front porch. Marvin was fiddling with something in his hands, and when Aly approached him, she recognized it as a key.
Marvin’s father was the only locksmith in town, so it was no surprise he had made a key to get into Mr. Wilson’s house. The Rats and Aly stood in a circle, quietly whispering each other. Zek stood behind Aly, as if guarding her from some unseen monster.
"So, what are we going to do first?" Aly asked quietly, trying to keep her voice down so she wouldn't wake the man sleeping inside the house.
"Well," Marvin stated, "I had my dad make this key right here." He held up the shiny brass key in his hand; it gleamed in what little light it could catch. Aly nodded, and Zek purred around her ankles. Aly absent-mindly knelt down beside her cat and scratched her ears.
"Let's do this thing," Percy exclaimed, cracking his knuckles. Aly admired the way some of his veins stood out on his large biceps.
"Exactly how and what are we going to be doing?" Aly asked Percy as he took the key from Marvin. Percy shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Marvin.
"Look for evidence of cannibalism, I guess," he muttered, and stuck the key into the lock. Aly's gut churned as the door opened. What if the man woke up and caught her and baked her into his morning omelet? She almost vomited.
The house was deadly silent, almost as quiet as the night of Aly's birth. Shadows hung on the walls, glaring at the children as they noiselessly entered the house. The floorboards, much like the Stowe's home, creaked when you stood on them, so Percy told the children to move as slowly as they could with still being productive.
There were pots and pans lining the kitchen sink; they were filled to the rim with cold water. The old man apparently didn't like to do his dishes, or wash the floor. There was almost an inch think dust bunny in the corner of the kitchen, hidden under a table. As Aly made her way through the small house, she spotted four dirty wooden bowls placed underneath a table. She grimaced as she noticed mold growing in them.
The old man could be heard snoring in the other room. Aly's stomach grew a knot the size of London, or so she though. It pulled tighter and tighter, realizing the potential danger of this house.
There were portraits on the walls. Paintings of family members, trees, waterfalls, and bushes and such. They were all water colored; a technique Aly hadn't seen before. Auntie Clair, the schoolteacher, rarely allowed the children to work in the arts. She didn't have the skill to teach them how to draw. Instead, she made them work out problems with their slates and chalk.
The old man snored again, and then began wheezing. The Rats, Aly, and Zek all froze where they were standing. Was the old man waking from his slumber? No. No, not here! Not now!
They heard footsteps coming from his bedroom. He had indeed awakened. The doorknob jiggled for a moment. Its hinges were rusting. When the door finally opened, the man walked out of the bedroom, half dressed.
He wore no shirt, so Aly saw chest hair infesting the old man. He wore a long beard Aly thought looked like four of Uncle Steven's beards tied in a knot. There was only one peculiar thing about the man: his eyes. Aly bit her tongue as she looked into his eyes. They looked unseeingly back at her. She was surprised. No one had told her that the old man was blind!
Marvin's jaw dropped, and Percy raised his index finger to his mouth, telling them silently to not make a sound. The old man staggered out of his bedroom and down the hall, where he then entered the kitchen, doors swinging open and shut. All of the Rats held their breath as the old man Wilson paused for a moment.
"Eh," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Eet was probubly just theez rodents." Aly sighed, trying not to make any sound. The man stood at the head of the kitchen, where the dust bunnies and moldy bowls were at, under a table. The man ran his long, thick fingers through his hair and sighed.
"Food. What shall aye do for food?" he muttered to himself, completely oblivious to the children in the kitchen, frozen in place. Zek was even frozen at Aly's heels.
Old man Wilson walked through the kitchen, nearly bumping Percy over. The child quickly dodged the man soundlessly. Aly envied his agility to do everything.
The old man opened one of his three cupboards and rummaged through it, his fingers feeling the different textures. He slid out a hardened loaf of moldy bread. Instead of cutting it with a knife, old man Wilson tug his teeth into it and ripped it apart like someone would a piece of meat. Aly flinched. What if that was how he ate the children and the bride and the groom? With those terrible, nasty, yellow rotting teeth? She shuddered.
"Eh?" Wilson muttered. "Eez there someone in 'ere?" He chewed with his mouth open. No one replied, save for Zek's tiny movement of her paw.
"No. I wezz just dreamin'," he murmured, and ate the rest of the moldy bread. Aly bit her tongue to keep from saying anything. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Percy take a tiny step. And then another.
"Are you crazy?" Aly mouthed. Percy didn't reply. He silently crept back into the hall, where old man Wilson had just come from. One of the floorboards creaked, and Wilson jumped up into the air.
"I know 'ou are in here! 'ou filfthy critta! 'ou abhorred scum! Out, aye say! Out!" Wilson shouted, bread falling from his rotten teeth. Aly didn't know whether to move or not to move. None of the other rats were.
Suddenly, there was a scream from the hallway. It was Percy. Aly's heart turned cold as she thought of the possibility that he had found the dead bodies, perhaps cut up with blood everywhere. She shivered.
"Eet iz 'ou! Out!" Wilson started towards the bedroom as Percy came sliding out of the hallway.
"Everyone!" he shouted. "Run! Run! Fast!"
Aly took off as soon as he had said "Run!" Old man Wilson was slightly confused for a moment, until he registered that there were more than one child in the house. He roared and bounded for any source of noise, but by that time, all of the Rats, including Aly and Zek, were out of the house and into the yard, yelling and screaming all the way back to the canal, where they lay down on the dirt road, panting like a dog after a long run.
"What did you see?" Marvin asked Percy, whose face was pale and cold, even though he was really hot.
"What I never thought I would see in my life. It was... terrible," he muttered, staring into the green watered canal.
"Tell us about it!" one of the other Rats exclaimed. Everyone huddled around Percy as he began to tell them what he had seen.
"Well, I heard some noises from the back room, right, so I figured that I best check it, for who knows if indeed there would be dead bodies cut up into pies. When I opened the back door, it was a gruesome sight indeed."
He stopped talking, and Aly and the rest of the Rats urged him to continue.
"Okay," he muttered, still panting heavily from the long run. "First, when I opened the door, I saw blood on the floor. I knew right then that there was going to be a corpse, or even maybe there was a body or something. Me stomach almost overthrew me. I didn't know what to do except push the door open some more. And then I saw it. Flesh and blood everywhere. It was like he had skinned some kind of animal or something. The flesh looked like the kind that Father took out of our cow last year. All red and thick looking. So I start screaming, right, because I know that the old man had killed someone again, and he had skinned 'em, and he was going to eat them right up."
Aly's breath caught in her throat.
"You're kidding!" she exclaimed. He solemnly shook his head.
"I indeed wish I was."
"You were so brave!" Aly said in wonder and awe. "I can't believe that you dared to go into the slaughtering room!"
"Well," Percy said, completely ignoring the other Rats, "I'm always ready to face danger to save the ones I love, you know."
Aly blushed. Percy gave her a quick wink and then turned his attention back to his other friends. Aly's heart flipped inside of her, making her feel light and happy.
It was about noon when Aly began walking home with Zek at her heels. The cat hissed and pounced on different inanimate objects on the ground. She revisited the memory of Percy saying the words, "I'm always ready to face danger to save the ones I love." That last part struck her at an amazing chord. 'The ones I love' he had said. Did that mean he secretly loved Aly? Her heart fluttered again, like a bird in a cage, wanting to escape. Darest she ask him next time she sees him? She couldn't comprehend what to think anymore. The whole adventure was beginning to mesh in together.
"Aly, may you wait for a second? I need to talk to you," Percy shouted. Aly instantly swiveled around and grinned at Percy, who held his finger up in the air, signaling for her to stop.
"Of course!" she shouted back, for they were about a hundred feet away from each other. Percy was talking to Marvin. He quickly slid the key Marvin's father had created back into Marvin's pocket, and then hustled over to Aly and Zek, who remained motionless. Aly's eyes were fixated on the way his body moved. The way his hair flowed with the wind. The way—
"Aly, may I walk you home?" "Oh! Of--of course!"
They began to walk home, and Aly's heart threatened to jump out of her throat the entire walk
. "That was quite an adventure we had today," Percy exclaimed, patting Zek, who was now at his heels.
"Yeah, it was," Aly whispered.
"I have a question to ask you," Percy said, clearing his throat. Aly's heart flipped as she turned to face him.
"Yes?"
"Uh," Percy said, continuing to walk. Aly caught back up with him.
"I've been thinking about some things, you know. Something has been on my mind for quite a long time, and I've wanted to tell you for the longest time, but I never could."
Aly remained silent, fearing her voice might break the serenity that Percy's brought.
"And I was wondering if I could kiss you." She blinked, for she had not been expecting that. Kissing a boy had never been something Aly was particularly fond of doing. It always seemed slightly revolting to her. But because it was Percy asking, things were quite different.
"Oh," Aly muttered, her breath quickening. "Why on earth would you want to do that?"
"Let's keep walking," Percy mentioned, letting Aly scoot in front of him. It seemed only polite that ladies went first. Aly didn't particularly like that idea though. She wanted to stay close to him.
"Ever since you joined the Rats, I've started thinking about you. Thoughts that I've never thought before. Feelings I've never felt. You know, right? Because I heard from someone that you kind of like me too." Aly blushed and closed her eyes. This was too much to bear.
"So, I was wondering if you'd like to kiss me," he asked kindly. Aly stopped where she was and turned to face him.
"Percy, I would love to kiss you."
They stood together awkwardly, not knowing how to approach the problem. After a few moments, Percy leaned his head in towards Aly, and Aly leaned in towards Percy. The moment their soft, innocent lips touched, Aly pulled back, her face scarlet and swollen.
They walked home, hand in hand, with Zek growling jealously at their nipped-at heels.
. I love it, and the way the story is told suits their ages... they don't sound like grown-ups struggling to create a childish story. 'Twasn't too long, and I can't wait for the next part. I hope my nit picks don't sound too harsh 
