Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster

While Nan is having a bath, Charlie comes into the bathroom to ask her what he is. Nan reminds him about privacy and tells him that he is a creature made of soot. He goes to the Books Room to find out more even though he cannot read. Nan and Charlie decide that Charlie needs a body because he is getting too big for her to lift and he cannot do anything for himself. They look through a book on monsters—The Illustrated Book of Beasts—for inspiration. Nan tries to make an antler for Charlie out of soot, but Charlie asks to change his body himself.

Charlie, asking for privacy, goes to the basement for days. Nan brings him soot. Finally, he emerges as an enormous figure with fully functional arms and legs. He is self-conscious about his appearance, but Nan assures him that he looks perfect and hugs him.

Nan finds an entry in The Illustrated Book of Beasts about a golem: a creature made from mud or clay, which finds its origins in Jewish mythology. She decides that maybe Charlie is a soot golem. Charlie says that he would prefer to just be Charlie. Nan remembers how dehumanizing it was when she was called “sweep” or “boy” and agrees that simply calling Charlie by his name is enough.

Nan goes to the Thames; it is low tide, and people are picking over various objects in the mud. She finds Toby, who is not surprised that Nan is still alive, even though the boy she worked with told him that she got burned in a fire. Nan learns that Toby found the attic where she had hidden with Charlie. Nan presents Toby with a newspaper article about a prototype of a new mechanical sweeping broom which could replace chimney sweeps. Nan wants Toby, who loves making things, to try to make it. He correctly deduces that she is getting too big to sweep; she reflects that she is outgrowing her clothes and that she is having to turn down jobs with square nines (the size of the flue she got stuck in at the seminary).

Nan asks offhandedly if Toby knows what a golem is. She knows that Toby, whose last name is Schaal, is Jewish, so she deduces that he may know more about the golem than The Illustrated Book of Beasts was able to provide. Toby doesn’t know about golems. Unbeknownst to Toby, this question is Nan’s real reason for finding him. Toby asks where Nan is staying, but she leaves without answering.

Nan goes out to buy licorice, and Charlie asks if she will buy sugarplums for his friend. Worried, she asks who his friend is. They go into the Nothing Room to find Prospero, Toby’s rat. When Nan returns, pulling herself up onto the roof, she finds Toby there. He has fashioned a pulley system for her. Toby explains that the captain’s house, where she is living, is vacant because of a legal dispute between the dead captain’s relatives. Toby also warns her that Crudd is still looking for her.

Nan gives in to Toby’s request and allows him to see what she is hiding, but she makes him promise to keep the secret. Nan explains that Charlie came to life from her piece of char during the fire that Roger lit under her at the girls’ seminary. Charlie explains that he made Nan’s heart wake up; Nan is intrigued and confused by this statement. Toby happily shakes Charlie’s hand, and they have dinner together, Charlie wants Toby to live with them, but Nan refuses.

Nan leads Toby through the house and explains that Charlie is a golem.

Nan works hard through November and arrives home exhausted each night. Charlie wants her to read to him, and she decides that instead, she should teach him how to read. They start by writing the letter A. Toby hears that Charlie is learning to read and provides him with blocks, each depicting a letter of the alphabet. Charlie learns quickly.

Nan sneaks into Miss Mayhew’s Seminary to look for a reading primer. When she climbs down a chimney into the library and finds a book with a poem dedicated to each letter of the alphabet, she is shocked to see Miss Bloom sitting in a chair, watching her. Miss Bloom is also shocked to see Nan, for she believed that Nan had burned in the fire. Miss Bloom finds a more interesting book to help Nan to teach her pupil (whom Nan doesn’t name) how to read.

When Nan sees that Miss Bloom is reading a Hebrew book, the girl realizes that Miss Bloom is Jewish and asks her about golems, particularly about the word “obsolescence,” which Nan read in The Illustrated Book of Beasts. Although Miss Bloom does not believe in golems, she explains that “obsolescence” in this context means that golems die once they have fulfilled their purpose.

Note: This chapter is italicized to indicate a temporal shift; it takes place in Nan’s past when she lived with the Sweep.

Little Nan receives a beloved doll from the Sweep, who saved his meager earnings to buy it for her after he noticed her staring longingly at it through a shop window. She calls the doll Charlotte. Nan is playing with her doll outside of a school when some girls begin to mock her; they snatch Charlotte and throw her into the air. When Charlotte the doll lands, her porcelain face smashes. Nan is devastated, but the Sweep comforts her by retrieving one of the doll’s eyes from among the mess, explaining that it will allow them both to see the magic hidden in the world. The Sweep puts the eye to his own eye and tells Nan that he sees the tail that a nearby woman is concealing in her skirts. They go down an alleyway looking for fairy doors and other magical things through the doll’s eye.

In the present, Nan and Charlie walk along rooftops. She thinks about what Miss Bloom told her: “Once a golem has fulfilled its purpose, it must die” (151). A snowflake falls; Charlie doesn’t know what snow is. The next morning, Nan takes Charlie onto the roof. Charlie is amazed by the sight of the snow coating London. Toby arrives with thick gloves so that Charlie can play with the snow without melting it.

In their explorations, they move away from the captain’s house. Below the roof they are playing on, Nan hears the boys she used to work with. Nan, Toby, and Charlie peer over the edge of the roof to look at them. Nan is furious to see that Roger is wearing her hat: the hat which had been the Sweep’s. She throws a snowball at Roger. Furious and concerned, Toby pulls her back from the roof’s edge to keep her from being seen. He points out that Crudd is still looking for her, and that everything will be destroyed if he finds her. Angrily, Nan asks, “Why do you even care?” (160). Offended, Toby leaves.

Nan takes Toby’s advice and hides inside for the next few days; she is terrified by the thought that Crudd might find her. Together with Charlie, Nan reads the book of poems that Miss Bloom loaned to her. As she reads, Charlie listens and draws. Nan finds a poem about a chimney sweep and thinks that this must be why Miss Bloom gave her the book. The poem is about sweeps who die, are enclosed in black coffins, and then set free to be with the angels. Nan feels that the poem unfairly romanticizes the life of a chimney sweep and throws the book in the fire.

Nan explains the concept of Christmas to Charlie. Charlie is upset to hear that only rich children receive presents. Nan and Charlie make a list of the people who deserve, but won’t receive, presents, including Newt, Whittles, Shilling-Tom, Miss Bloom, and Prospero the rat. They both dress up as Father Christmas. For Miss Bloom, Nan fuses together candles to make an eight-armed candelabrum, which she lights and puts on Miss Bloom’s nightstand as she sleeps. For Prospero, Charlie breaks off a piece of his own body and buries it near the sleeping rat to keep him warm.

Nan climbs down into Crudd’s coal cellar and leaves a penknife for Whittles, an empty billfold for Shilling-Tom, and a fur cap for Newt. (Newt had been upset when Crudd shaved his hair off.) She had brought an apple for Roger, hoping to steal her hat back, but Roger is not sleeping in the coal cellar. She wraps the apple and leaves it under the stairs for him. Newt sleepily wakes up and thanks Nan. Nan quickly climbs up the chimney, and she and Charlie make their way home.

Toby arrives for New Year’s Eve, bringing paper crowns which he found in a bin. Charlie is determined to stay awake until midnight, but he falls asleep at 10 o’clock. Toby admits to Nan that the Sweep spoke to him on the night he left, asking Toby to look after her. The Sweep gave Toby his soot bag, which Toby now uses for his “emporium” (for collecting the goods he finds on the shores of the Thames and sells). Toby is grateful for this instruction, as it gave him new purpose in life. The Sweep told Toby that his name was Spatz, Sparrow, and, like Toby, he also spoke German. Toby points out that the Sweep left because he was obviously dying. Nan realizes that Toby is right; he was dying of soot wart. Nan reflects that the Sweep probably thought that Nan would light the char to keep warm, releasing Charlie sooner.

Nan visits Miss Bloom, who has laid out a blanket in a chair and brought cakes; Nan wonders if Miss Bloom had been expecting her. Miss Bloom is grateful for the candles, which she calls a menorah. Nan asks her again about golems; Miss Bloom produces some books that she found after their last conversation: Frankenstein and Paradise Lost. Miss Bloom tells Nan that her parents explained a golem as a “bespoke man,” a treasure created for just one person. The golem is formed out of mud or clay and then brought to life by a rabbi. Nan asks again if a golem can continue to live after it has fulfilled its purpose, but Miss Bloom tells her that according to the stories, it cannot.

The larder is empty because Charlie gave the last of their bread to Prospero. Charlie asks if they can read, or play, or build a fort, build a snowman, dress as Father Christmas, or visit Toby or Prospero. To each question, Nan says no, increasingly frustrated until she finally finds herself yelling. Charlie is hurt and upset.

Nan explains that she is having a bad day and goes out to find work. A maid approaches her and hires her, agreeing to Nan’s doubled rate and promising Nan some cake as well. Nan follows the maid into a house, but the house does not look lived in. Suddenly, Crudd steps out from behind a screen.

Nan stares fearfully at Crudd. The maid leaves and locks the door. Crudd explains that he had Roger wear the hat that used to belong to the Sweep in order to lure Nan out. Nan reflects that Toby was right to be angry about her throwing the snowball. Crudd, who is holding the hat, throws it into the fire. Crying, Nan pulls it out, but it is ruined. Crudd orders Nan to come back and work for him; if she refuses, he threatens to plant her body somewhere that the Board of Works will find her. Thus, either way he will get back the 10 pounds he was fined for her death. Nan calls for Charlie, although she believes that it will make no difference. Suddenly, Charlie appears, looking terrifying.

Crudd scuttles back from Charlie, terrified. “Leave…her…alone,” Charlie repeatedly says as he advances (208). Nan tries to tell Charlie that she is safe now, but he advances on Crudd and grabs him by the head, burning the man’s hair and scalp in the process, and throws him from the window. Nan looks down at the now-disfigured Crudd, who has missing teeth, burned hair, and a broken nose. Crudd swears that he will make Nan pay and begins yelling that there is a monster.

Charlie behaves as if he has just awakened from a trance. They return home to the captain’s house along the rooftops. Charlie feels confused and overwhelmed at having hurt Crudd. Nan explains that he was protecting her; this is his assigned job and purpose in life.

Nan worries about Charlie; she insists that he must stay inside and out of sight, even when it’s dark. Meanwhile, she continues to visit Miss Bloom’s library, returning the books she reads with Charlie at an impressive rate. When Miss Bloom asks about the poetry book, she admits that she burned it. Miss Bloom is disappointed. Nan explains that she hated the poem about chimney sweeps; she explains her disappointment in its rosy depiction of sweeps and how she had thought that Miss Bloom had understood the challenges of her life.

Miss Bloom presents her with the partner poetry book to the last one she gave Nan. The first book was William Blake’s Songs of Innocence, and this second one, called Songs of Experience, depicts a more realistic view of child workers. Nan is moved by the poem and cries, saying that children’s lives are worth nothing to the rich. Miss Bloom says that she, too, wants to do something about this; she asks Nan, “What do you know of ‘friendly societies’?” (219).

Nan explains to Charlie that the Friendly Society is a group of rich women who want to help the poor. She will be speaking to mothers of the students who attend Miss Mayhew’s Seminary for Young Ladies. Miss Bloom gave her a bar of shampoo and a dress to wear; Nan is embarrassed. Toby, who is waiting outside the bathroom as she gets ready, is worried that Nan’s speaking engagement might allow Crudd to find her. Toby comes in and ridicules Nan in her dress but then slips and falls in the bath.

Nan realizes that Newt, who used to be rich himself, would be a better candidate to talk to the society. She finds Newt, who is sweeping a house in Hackney, and explains that he needs to go to speak to the society that night. She wants them to know what the life of a climber is like. He is convinced when she says that there will be food there. Newt tells Nan that he misses dreaming of the Sweep; Nan realizes that it was Charlie, still as a piece of char, which caused the other children to share her dreams.

It is February. Charlie finds a bird in the attic. Nan explains what a bird is because Charlie has not seen one; it has been winter for most of his life. Nan also explains the concepts of spring and whistling, and explains how birds are hatched from eggs. She tells Charlie about May Day, when the chimney sweeps parade through the streets of London. She wonders whether she will be able to attend this year; she knows that Crudd will be looking for her there.