Excerpt: The Slightly-Exxaggerated Autobiography of Ferraby Waldus Marchbanks I

Ferraby banged on the door with his fist, hoping that the owner was still in. Behind him in the ally, a car door slammed and the voice of the police officer was joined by another voice, screeching and icy. “Oh no, not Bannister. Pip, this is your fault. I told you not to steal that bread! I would have let you have some of mine, if I weren't hungry or if I found some more but you just had to be greedy. You're sleeping on the floor tonight.” Ferraby banged on the door again and gave Pip a stern looking. Pip whimpered and bowed his head, his ears flopping miserably. “Oh, come on then--” He reached down to pet Pip just as Ferraby lifted his fist to bang again but the door swung open and a hand reached out and grabbed his collar, yanking him inside with Pip in tow. He gave a yelp but a callused hand slapped a hand over his mouth and he was picked up and tossed unceremoniously into a hole in the floor and shut in darkness. Pip fidgeted in his arms and whimpered. Ferraby tried to clamp his hand over the dog's mouth but he instead shoved a finger in Pip's nose to which Pip responded by sneezing violently and scrambling out of Ferraby's arms and plopping to the ground. “Shh!” he scolded, trying to give the dog a stern look in the little light that streamed in from the holes in the floorboards. Pip gave him a sardonic look, or as sardonic as a dog could look, and laid on the ground by his feet. “Dumb d--”
“Open up!” a booming voice came from above and Ferraby looked up sharply, craning his neck so as to just see the front door in the darkness. “Open this door or by the power invested in me by the law I will break it down.” Ferraby snickered and there was a sharp bang as someone stomped on the board above his head then shuffled over to open the door.
“To what do I owe this tremendous, if ill-scheduled pleasure, officer?” the man inquired. The officer and the woman with him strode in the room, pushing the man aside without answering. The man closed the door quietly and lit a match, carefully lighting an oil lamp. The lamp flooded the room with a dull glow and Ferraby could see the face of the three, wait, no-- four people. A woman was sitting in a rocking chair in the corner sliding a needle into a piece of fabric, embroidering and rocking as if there were not two uninvited guests striding into her living room. The man who had lit the oil lamp was wearing a comically short dressing gown that Ferraby thought must have been a hand-me-down from an infant, house slippers, and a ridiculous sleep hat with a knobble on the end that bobbed whenever his head moved. He was rather old, with white hair that stuck out from his head like a hedgehog and had a long nose with a bulbous end that seemed pinker than the rest of him by a good six shades. The police officer looked like one would imagine a police officer to look, with an unnecessarily bushy mustache and expressive eyebrows. One of his eyes was slightly bigger than the other and in the darkness the smaller eye would seem to disappear, giving him the appearance of a lopsided cyclops waving a night stick. Ferraby nudged Pip off of his feet and moved closer to the wall, trying to better hear the conversation.
“--terrible influence. I know it's him and I know he's here. That boy is nothing but a delinquent and for what? Orphans are orphaned all the time, no harm in not having parents. It builds character. This is the last straw, Brockett. I'm getting that little thief and sticking him in the workhouse. Now I am asking you one more time, let me search your house or I will be forced to search it anyway.” The man walked towards Brockett, perching his meaty hands deliberately on his hips in a gesture that Ferraby thought seemed a tad over dramatic. Brockett seemed to think so too, as his next words seemed to be covering a laugh.
“Honestly, officer, you have no right to search my house for a boy that I'm not even sure exists. But if you would really like to indulge yourself you can go get a search warrant or come back in the daytime when I am not in my pajamas and have at it. Now, may I offer you a cup of tea before you go? It's awful chilly outside and chasing hardened criminals who steal sweets from a street vendor must take a lot out of you.” The officer looked disgruntled, his mustache twitched angrily and the knuckles on his hands turned slightly whiter, but looking at Brockett's placid face seemed to reassure him and he shook his head gruffly.
“No, I would not care for any tea, I'm on the job. That little miscreant is probably long gone, hidden in some illegal nook or cranny hoarding all of those stolen goods. It is rather cold outside. And wet, too. My boots are soaked through-- Nevertheless, I have a city to protect and no tea is going to stop me from fulfilling that duty. As they say, it's a dirty job, but someone has to be dirty.” He gave a brusque nod to Brockett and marched out of the door purposefully, letting it shut on the scurrily following woman behind him. From outside a muffled, “we'll try downtown, maybe he's gone back to the scene of the crime” came from outside and Brockett walked over to the door and bolted it, shutting out the cold. He heaved a tired sigh and trudged over to sink down onto the faded couch, upsetting the doily sitting on the back of it. “Third time this week, Norah. They're starting to suspect, for sure. That Stourmouth's a dunderhead but Bannister is catching on. I can see it in her beady little eyes. She's got it in for us, the wench.” He punched a stained pillow and snuggled into it, sighing again. The woman from the corner looked up for the first time and murmured,
“the floor's still down, Oscar.” then went back to her needlework. Oscar's head popped up and looked over, nearly making eye contact with Ferraby through the floorboards.
“Bollocks, sorry Ferraby. Forgot, you know.” He pulled himself regretfully off the couch and trudged over, yanking up the boards over Ferraby's head with a grunt and showering him with dust and light. “You know, I could just leave you down there, you spend enough time down there it's efficient.” Ferraby grinned and handed the man called Brockett Pip, who was still sleeping and beginning to snore softly.
“Yeah, but then you'd have to admit I exist.” Brockett chuckled gave Ferraby a smirk and extended a hand, the same he had slapped over his mouth earlier, and pulled him up out of the hole with a rough jerk.
“That's true. I don't think I'm ready for that kind of commitment.” The man slid the floorboards back into place and stomped, covering any trace of a hole and leaving the patch of floor hiding it identical to the rest.