Escape From Home by Avi Page A

too!”
    Laurence sat back in the large chair. Though he considered the idea from many viewpoints, what he found most appealing was the thought of his father admitting his error. Why, his lordship would have to come after him, beg him to come back before the whole family. In such a scene, Albert would be humbled while he, Laurence, would be triumphant at last.
    It was the moment of returning that Laurence thought most about. How wonderful that would be! How much fun! Just thinking of it made him feel better.
    He gazed at the money again. To take it, he told himself, would not really be stealing. After all, he had been accused of stealing when he’d not done so. Therefore, he reasoned, since he had been wronged, to take the money would not be wrong. Rather, it would enable him to run away, and the running away would prove he spoke the truth, that he was not a thief!
    Laurence wondered how much he would need. Not all of it. That would be excessive. But perhaps half….
    With meticulous care, he divided the pound notes into two even piles. One he returned to the drawer. The second pile—of one thousand pounds—he stuffed into his jacket pocket.
    Heart pounding, he went to the door of the room, opened it, and peeked out. No one was in the hallway. He looked toward the gleaming mahogany front door. Not a soul stood between him and escape. Everyone was at tea. Once again he had been forgotten. They were ignoring him —again .
    With a burst of determination, Laurence raced back into his father’s study, picked the thrashing cane up from the floor, snapped it in two over his knee, flung it on the table, then ran out of the house.
    Within moments, Sir Laurence Kirkle, aged eleven, was swallowed up by the fog-bound streets of London.

L aurence had no plan. Mindlessly, he ran down one street after another as if America were just a few blocks away. But though the boy had spent all of his life in London, he had never been on the streets alone. He had visited many places, from the Tower of London, where his ancestors had died, to the House of Lords, where his father sat whenever Parliament was in session. But always he had been with others: his nurse, his nanny, his brother, sisters, or parents. Now he was on his own.
    What’s more, the London fog into which he had fled was no sweet, soft mist but an eye-stinging murk, a yellow-black airborne stew of soot and ash. It turned the brightest street lamps into sickly glowworms. It hid one’s hands from one’s own eyes.
    So it was that, thirty minutes after leaving his home, Laurence was lost—utterly.
    Trying to catch his breath on a corner where the surrounding houses loomed like the shadows in a lantern show, Laurence made up his mind to find someone to tell him where he was. In that neighborhood of grand homes, however, the streets were all but deserted. Only a few people were brave enough to confront the January weather. These people, moreover, fairly flew by, their scarves, shawls, and hands over their mouths and noses as they tried to keep their lungs free of the rotten air.
    â€œYou there! Fellow!” Laurence called to an older gentleman who was moving by at a slower pace.
    The old man stopped and peered at Laurence over half-spectacles. Through the veil of fog, he saw a boy with a torn jacket and a dirty, bloody face. Alarmed, he lifted his cane to defend himself. “Be off with you!” he cried, and scuttled away.
    Laurence was shocked. Usually when he addressed people they paid elaborate attention to him. They’d stop, doff caps, bow or curtsy, and say, “Yes, Sir Laurence. How can we help you, Sir Laurence?” But when he approached two other passersby, they looked apprehensively at him and fled as well.
    Bewildered that anyone should refuse his civil requests for help, Laurence wandered down one street, then another. At last he recognized what he took to be Lady Glencora’s house. She was a friend of his