Excerpt from The Bully of Order by Brian Hart, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

There were dozens of children from other schools and I didn't know any of them by name. My mother pushed me toward them but I spun around and hid behind her stiff muslin skirt. Some of the boys had hats and I wanted one. Mother had her hair up and her plaid blouse was ironed and flat. She carried a canvas bag with our lunch and extra coats. Little girls with braids and white dresses held hands and ran in circles on the wharf.

The ship we were to board was decked in blue bunting like the rest. A band was marching in the streets of town, and after boarding, a band set up in the bow and started right in and the band onshore stopped their song and waited, and then joined in with the band on the boat. We stood at the rail in the stern of the steamer and watched the wake. It was loud with the two streams of music and the wind and everybody talking and crowded and I was ready to get off. The ship was just like the ferry, no different. The wake was just the same, only bigger. We weren't going any faster. Steel was colder and somehow just as slimy as wood.

"Stop that," Mother said.

"What?"

"You're moping."

"I'm not."

"You are. There's a rumor that a ship is beached on the coast."

"A shipwreck?"

"Yes."

I thought of pirates and deserted islands, solitary endeavors, days and eventually years surveying an isolated and foreign land, surviving, pros­pering, escaping heroically, a flash of genius and daring; upon my return a celebration not unlike the Fourth. My mother let me read by the fire before I went to bed and I had the stories in my head always.

Gulls passed through the smoke from the stack. I'd had an apple after breakfast on the way to town earlier but I was hungry again. The mist covered the hills and blocked the openness of the coast. The carts of clam­ diggers dotted the shoreline, their shadowy figures working the tide, ebb harvesters. Pelicans and their sagging bags. The grass on Rennie Island was flattened by the wind and the trees all leaned after it, giving needles and leaves, whatever they had. A boy climbed onto the rail and his mother tugged him back down by his pants and gave him a whipping. I wanted to run away but there was nowhere to run.

Mother was speaking to a man in a bowler. It wasn't anyone that I'd seen before. She told me we'd be seeing Dr. Haslett today but it wasn't him—they wore the same hats is all. We hadn't seen Dr. Haslett for a long time and I rarely thought of him anymore. This man had a mustache and a big nose and he was big, much bigger than Father. His gray suit didn't fit him and it was too tight to button over his chest. He smelled strongly of vinegar and his fists hung out of the inadequate sleeves like kneaded dough that had been left on the board to dry out. His mustache was red and black and gray and so was the curly hair sticking out from under his hat. Mother caught me staring and introduced the man as Mr. Tartan, a friend of Mr. Bellhouse's from the Sailor's Union. He took my hand in his and squeezed until it hurt and wouldn't let go. The pressure didn't increase but it didn't let up.

"He's grown tall, hasn't he?"

"He has," my mother said.

"Give me my hand back."

"I'm not holdin' you at all, hardly squeezin'. Go and take yer own hand."

"It hurts."

"Let him be, Lucas."

The man let me go and I held my hurt hand with my other one.

"I was playin' with him, Nell. I wouldn't-a hurt him."

"You're scaring him."

"I wasn't scared."

"Ready to piss yer pants, you toughy slint."

"I wasn't."

"It's all right, Duncan," Mother said.

"I'm not scared-a him."

He leaned down and spoke: "A folly of youth is what that is."

Excerpted from The Bully of Order by Brian Hart. Copyright © 2014 by Brian Hart. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.