a Kid called Alley

a Kid called Alley was halfway up a stack of pallets behind the Pit, trying to see where all the noise was coming from, when a Bull underneath them cleared their throat.

“That’s not a ladder,” the Bull said. “That’s the WOOD bin.”

a Kid called Alley climbed down. The yard was a square of wet cobbles with three bins chalked CROCKERY, WOOD and WHATEVER THAT IS. Posters covered every wall, layer on layer, so thick the brick was only a rumour, and the top sheets were still wet and curling at the corners. The whole place smelled of paste. Up a lane no wider than a pair of arms, somebody had left an amp on, and Container Row was rattling with it. Under the amp were wheels. Wheels on ramps, and somebody whooping.

The skateboard was already under a Kid called Alley’s arm. Everything they owned was strapped to it, which wasn’t much.

“Odds,” said the Bull, holding out a hand. “I keep the Smash Yard. And you’ve got wheels.”

“I’m going up there,” a Kid called Alley said, nodding at the noise.

“After.” Odds pointed the other way, down to Burnt Pan’s hatch, where a crate sat on the step and bread was peeling off the hotplate in long curls. “Burnt Pan’s been saving odd mugs all year. I want them in my bins today, read out proper, before the yard fills up. Otherwise they turn up on Smash Night again. Every year it’s mugs. All crunch, no ring.” Odds sighed. “One Smash Night with no mugs. That’s all I want.”

a Kid called Alley looked up the lane. They looked at the crate. The whooping got louder.

“Course,” they said. Nobody had asked them for anything yet in the Beastside, and they found they couldn’t say no to the first one.

The crate fit on the board if they didn’t breathe on it. The lane was cobbled and slick, papered underfoot where old posters had slid off the walls. It turned a corner every ten steps, it seemed, as if it had been built by somebody who kept changing their mind. a Kid called Alley pushed with one foot and walked beside it, slow, and the mugs chattered like teeth.

At Rag Corner a Cat sat sewing a patch onto someone’s jacket. “Whose colours are you wearing?” they asked as the board crept past.

“Nobody’s yet,” said a Kid called Alley, and the needle kept going.

Then a cheer went up from the Row, big and ragged, and the amp howled. First run. a Kid called Alley felt it in their chest like a door shutting. Three more corners to go. They could tip the crate up and jog it and be up there in a minute.

Instead they stopped, pulled off their jacket, and packed it round the mugs. Then they went on slower.

Back in the yard, Odds read every mug out loud to the hatch, “Burnt Pan has outgrown this one,” and dropped each one in CROCKERY with a lovely, honest crack. At the bottom of the crate was one more. Somebody had scratched a name into its base, deep, and the letters had worn too far to read.

Odds turned it over twice. Odds didn’t read it out. They set it on the wall above the bins, out of the way, and said nothing about it at all.

Somebody handed a Kid called Alley a curl of wall bread. They ate it on the way up the lane, board under their arm, and at the top a skater on a cracked deck looked them up and down.

“You missed the first one,” the skater said. “Second’s better.”