A kid called Bowss

A kid called Bowss came up the Beastro at first light with a borrowed bowl, and the first Beast they greeted was going grey.

They didn’t know that when they waved. The avenue was lighting its pans, oil starting to spit in a dozen open kitchens, and the Beast sitting on the kerb didn’t wave back. A kid called Bowss put it down to the hour and went on toward the only shutter on the street still up from the night, the Late Window: a narrow counter, a lamp burning low, every stool taken, one Beast to each, and a queue leaning on the wall behind them.

A kid called Bowss went down the stools the way they go into any room. A hand to every Beast, a question to each. Where’ve you come in from? Was it dark the whole way? It slowed the queue badly. Behind the counter a Koala with a ladle in each hand was apologising to every stool for the hour and not looking at the clock. They gave A kid called Bowss the long flat look of a keeper who has woken to a full house.

The Beast on the kerb hadn’t come over. From the counter A kid called Bowss could see the colour going out of their sleeves, cuff first, toward the elbow.

A kid called Bowss crossed and sat down beside them. “Morning. I’m new. You?”

“Off the east stretch.” The voice was thin and getting thinner. “Don’t bother the keeper. Just something hot, if there’s any.”

A kid called Bowss went back to the counter. The keeper stopped mid-ladle, looked at the kerb, and pushed a small pot and the ladle across. “Kerb’s yours. Keep them talking till the bowl’s empty.”

“Ta, Biscuit,” said the Beast on the nearest stool, and reached over to serve themselves.

The rack was empty, every bowl out. So the soup went into A kid called Bowss’s own bowl, the borrowed one, with somebody’s kitchen chalked on its foot, and A kid called Bowss held it in both hands under a stranger’s chin. They asked about the east stretch, then the lamps, then anything at all. The first answers came back in pieces; by the bottom of the bowl they came back whole. The cuffs stayed grey. The voice came back rough, but it stayed.

“Got here in the night,” the walker said. “Keeper was asleep. Didn’t want to wake them. Sat out here instead.” They looked at the empty bowl. “I’ll come back at three. If you’re here.”

At the counter the stools had fed themselves. Somebody had rinsed the pot rack. The note pile by the till had grown a hand’s width, leek, two and barley, sorry, and among the paper lay a single old metal coin. Biscuit swept it into an apron pocket and went on wiping the counter.

A kid called Bowss set the ladle down and stopped in front of the wall behind the counter. The first note pinned there was older than the rest, gone soft at the folds. Didn’t want to wake you. Went back for them.

Biscuit watched them read it.

“Ran fine without me,” Biscuit said. “While you were out there. Fed itself.” The ladle hung still. “Three o’clock. Awake. Every night till the eve of first frost. And don’t ask me why that night.”

Down the avenue the cooks were setting out chairs for breakfast. Three o’clock has very few of those.

“Yes,” A kid called Bowss said.

They wiped the borrowed bowl, chalk still on its foot, and put it back inside their coat.

Biscuit took a second stool down from the stack, set it behind the counter beside their own, and put the spare ladle on it.

“Lamp lit and somebody awake under it,” Biscuit said through a yawn, pressing the iron shutter hook into A kid called Bowss’s hand. “Lose one and you lose both. Hook comes down, shutter comes down, and it stays down till I’m up.” Their ladle tipped toward the softest note on the wall and stayed there.

On the end stool a Piglet pulled grey thread through a cushion.

A kid called Bowss sat on the second stool behind the counter with the spare ladle across their knee. From that side the Late Window looked different: the row of stools and the note pile by the till. It was the first place in the Beastside that had felt like theirs. They thought a hook was a small thing to hold. They meant to be awake, and the stool was worth a sore neck. Which would go out first, the lamp or the Beast under it, they didn’t think about.

They hung the hook on the leg of their own stool. Biscuit nodded once and was asleep sitting up, ladle upright.

At two a Wolf in a good coat took a stool. They ate one bowl of leek without hurrying and laid an old metal coin on the note pile, a Mark, the only one there. On the way out they ran a folding rule along the counter’s edge, then across the stove. They folded it away and went. A kid called Bowss watched the Mark a long time.

At a quarter to three the walker from the kerb came back early, grey to both elbows now.

“My friend sat down,” they said, rougher than at breakfast. “Past the last lit post on the east stretch. I couldn’t get them up. Can you come?”

Every spare lamp on the avenue had gone out at dusk on the runners’ carts, to other dark posts. The one over the counter was all that was left, and past a dark post the road only shows itself where a lamp is hung. A kid called Bowss shook Biscuit’s shoulder.

“I’m awake,” Biscuit murmured, and wasn’t.

If they stayed, the window was honest at three and somebody out there went quiet. If they went, the next walker found it dark, like the first note on the wall. Both were true. The walker’s sleeves were going while A kid called Bowss thought it.

They lifted the lamp off its hook and ladled the stove pot into a carrying pot. They put the borrowed bowl in their coat and brought the shutter down with the hook.

The east stretch was black from the fourth post out. A kid called Bowss hung the lamp on each dark post in turn, went back for it and hung it again. At the third post a Beast sat against the iron, the colour gone off them to the collar. A kid called Bowss crouched, gave their hand and their name, and asked where they’d come in from. The answer took a while. They tipped soup from the carrying pot into the bowl from their coat and held it while the Beast drank. At the fifth post there was another, and the same bowl came out again.

They came in at first light, the lamp swinging, three walkers behind it. At the avenue’s mouth stood a row of mismatched chairs with a covered plate on each. A kid called Bowss sat the two from the posts in the nearest chairs and lifted the lids.

The Late Window’s shutter was down. A folded note stuck out of the slot. Came at three. Shut. Went on up the avenue for the runners.

Biscuit was standing behind it with the hook in their hand. They raised the shutter, took the note and pinned it on the wall beside the first one. They hung the hook on its nail by the till. A kid called Bowss took the borrowed bowl out of their coat and set it on the counter, chalk foot down. They hung the lamp back on its hook.

Biscuit lifted the second stool over the counter, set it at the end of the row on the pavement side, and put a bowl of barley in front of it.