Stray: The Scarecrow

“So who is he?”

One of them – they were called the Mau, weren’t they? – tipped back the battered flat-cap on his head to shoot him a bemused look. “Huh?”

Jason flushed slightly at the sheer incredulity woven into that one word. It emphasized the fact he was a complete outsider to this underworld, drove in the feeling of being useless baggage. And he did not appreciate it. He wasn’t the one scraping a living off the streets, after all; they had no right to make him feel inferior.

“I asked who that man was,” the boy repeated, a touch of haughtiness permeating his tone. “The Scarecrow, or whatever you call him.”

Flat-cap snorted, exchanging a now amused look with his companions, who rolled their eyes in silent agreement. Jason gritted his teeth. He hadn’t asked to be kidnapped, and he certainly hadn’t asked for his father to hire a street gang of all things to retrieve him (I mean, who was to say he wasn’t worse off than before? At least the kidnappers had possession of food that hadn’t been scrounged from a disposal unit).

“I don’t know how things work up there kid, but down here on the Lower level, you don’t just hand information about yourself out.”

He bristled at the dismissal. Considering over half of them looked to be younger than him, the ‘kid’ comment was completely out of line. “You could have just said you didn’t know.”

“But we do know,” contradicted a male, blowing a casual puff of smoke out. “Bits and pieces anyway, starting from when he arrived.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the other guards scattered around the small room – slouched against the walls, or draped over whatever object could bear their weight. They were the epitome of what defined the Strays – ragged, rough and clearly used to making use of whatever they could. He didn’t trust them in the least.

“Was anyone there when he actually came?” queried a girl sitting elegantly on a precarious pile of boxes, one leg positioned on top of its twin and a black scarf wound around her neck. “Risk?”

“Not me,” said the cigarette-toting man. “I got my first glimpse when I came back from a quick scout. Gave me a right bloody fright. I come in, and there is this freakin’ stranger standing in the centre of the den with the rest of the gang cowering at the edges.”

“He gave Captain a black eye, didn’t he?” laughed the flat-cap wearer. “Poor guy was half blind for at least a week and a half.”

“Scarecrow could’ve done a lot worse than that,” Risk retorted. “Cap’s just lucky Scare took a liking to him.”

Jason blinked incredulously. “He’s just one man,” he argued. “How on earth do you manage to control a territory if you can’t even outnumber and defeat one man?”

“You haven’t seen Scarecrow fight,” the girl sniffed.

“So unless you want to take him on yourself, shut up,” Risk added helpfully, earning himself a quick smack over the back of his ginger-haired head from the female.

“His particular style is designed for winning against larger numbers,” she continued. “He’s actually worse when it comes to one-on-one, though no less dangerous. And in an enclosed space, like the den…well, once he got in there no one would have been able to get within two metres of him. So he stayed like that until Blue arrived – and accepted him on the spot, naturally.”

“Despite the fact he’d just attacked everyone?”

“Think about it,” piped up flat-cap. “This is someone who’s just proved they’re capable of single-handedly taking out your entire gang. Would you want them on your side, or going off to join your enemies? Besides,” he supplied thoughtfully. “There’re more of us now.”

Jason shook his head. It still seemed like a rather foolish thing to do. And these gangs of Strays were actually managing to survive and grow? “So he just waltzed into your, uh, ‘den’ and said ‘I am The Scarecrow, accept me now?’”

He cringed at the raucous laughter that echoed loudly within the small space.

“You have got to be the weirdest Mid-leveler I’ve ever met,” gasped the girl, clinging weakly to the side of her haphazard seat.

“Nah, Streak,” chortled flat-cap. “For all we know they’re all like that!”

It was Risk who decided to take pity and elaborate. “Firstly, he didn’t tell us his name, ‘cause he didn’t have a name back then. Secondly, I think it was more like Blue saying ‘Looking for a place to stay?’ and Scare agreeing, and that was that.”

“Everyone has a name,” Jason muttered, pointedly avoiding looking at the still cackling Mau and attempting to pretend his face wasn’t heating up like shiny metal left in the sun.

“Not down here they don’t,” Risk said shortly. “Names are a privilege down here. You earn ‘em.”

Flat-cap drew in a shuddering breath, finally stifling his mirth. “I mean, c’mon. You think my parents would have named their child ‘Jinx’?”

“Or Streak?”

“Or Weave, or Sleek, or Reflex or Bullet?”

“So…you choose your own names?” Jason hazarded uncertainly.

“No, you earn them,” Risk repeated. “When people get to know you, they start giving you little nicknames…and eventually one of them sticks.”

“You can end up cycling through names,” Jinx confirmed. “Captain used to be Fledgling when he first arrived. Then the little Fledgling grew up and moved out from under his sister’s wing, and Captain turned out to be a better name.”

“Scarecrow’s name stuck right from the start,” Streak mused. “Well, it fit him pretty well.”

Risk swung his cigarette through the air triumphantly, scattering bits of ash across the ground and making Streak draw back with a disapproving hiss. “I was there for that! I was right next to Archer when he said it. We were doing a watch for Haze and her crew – that was the plantation raid, remember? – and he tagged along. Dunno why; ‘cause he could, probably. And Archer looked up at where he was standing on the building across from ours, that hair of his doing its half-up half-down thing, clothing flapping about everywhere, and you could just imagine his weird eyes staring down at the street. And Arch said, ‘Looks like a freakin’ scarecrow, doesn’t he?’”

“His eyes aren’t that weird,” Jinx protested.

“One brown and one green eye?” Risk pressed. “You’re telling me that didn’t freak you out at all when you first saw it?”

Jinx wrinkled his nose, but remained silent.

Satisfied, Risk continued with his tale. “I dunno how it got around so fast, but before you knew it everyone was calling him Scarecrow. Some even called him The Scarecrow – I suppose whole ‘defeated the entire company of Maus single-handedly’ thing earned him a little infamy.”

“It’s funny,” Streak mused. “Despite all the deep, dark rumours, he’s actually pretty laidback.”

“Forgetful,” Jinx grumbled. “For someone who’s spent years down here, he gets lost real easy.”

“Bad habit of sneaking up on people – nearly made me jump right off a catwalk, he startled me that bad.”

“You can never tell if he’s serious or not, half the time.”

“And I wish he’d quit with the hair-ruffling thing. I already know he’s taller than most of us, no need to rub it in.”

“So,” Risk summarized, taking a quick pull on his smouldering drug. “Does that answer your question?”

There was a faintly stunned pause, then a brief snort as the young man rubbed a hand through his hair. “Yeah.” Jason gave a small smile. “More or less.”