“A secret can be a friend or a weapon, Thomas,” his mum had warned. “Take care how you use it.” And then she’d gone into her room and cried. Thomas’s backside had stung from his dad’s lashing for hours, but the pain of betrayal in his mum’s teary eyes still ached in his heart.

Thomas thought about the secret he now kept. His lies hadn’t worked with the recruiter. They’d cost him his last chance to find his brother and return him home to his family. It was over. He’d failed his parents again. His secret no longer mattered. It was not his friend or his weapon, but aside from a photograph he’d taken from home, the medals around his neck, and the potato in his pocket, his secret was all he had left. He wouldn’t lose that too, not to a lying street urchin.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those boys who wants to go fight so he can feel like a real man,” the nosy boy pressed.

“No,” Thomas said, kicking at a loose pebble on the cobblestone street. “I need the money.”

“You and me both. See, we already have something in common. So tell me, Timothy Bennett.” He said the name through a knowing smile, hitting each t with sharp enunciation, as though he and Thomas shared an inside joke. “What’s your real name?”

Thomas glanced over his shoulder, afraid someone might overhear their conversation, but the boy waved away his concern. “You could call yourself Dorothy around here. No one’s gonna bat an eye.”

Thomas’s lips pressed into a hard line.

“Fine. Timothy it is.” The boy pulled the cigarette from behind his ear and held it between his lips as he looked Thomas up and down. “Tiny Tim.” He chuckled at his joke.

Thomas didn’t. “Don’t call me that.”

“Tiny or Tim?”

“Either.”

“Then what should I call you?”

“Thomas.”

“Any last name, Thomas?”

“Sullivan.”

The street urchin held out his hand. “Good to meet you, Thomas Sullivan. Name’s George.”

Thomas stared at George, waiting for him to finish his introduction.

“No last name. Just George.”

When Thomas didn’t take his hand, George rested it on Thomas’s shoulder. “So Thomas Sullivan, I have a proposition for you.”

“A propo—”

“—sition,” George said. “You know, an offer. I get something I want. You get something you want. Everyone’s happy.” He leaned forward and placed his hand against the wall behind Thomas’s head. “All you have to do is come with me.”

Thomas ducked under his arm. “No thanks.”

“You haven’t heard what I have to offer.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Thomas said, walking faster, “and I’m not interested in your kind of help.”

George strolled alongside him. “You sure about that, Tommy?”

Thomas broke into a run. No one called him Tommy except his brother, but he had neither the time nor the patience to explain that to George. Distracted by his annoying shadow, he took a left when he should have cut right. Skidding to a halt, he stared at a brick wall at the end of a short alleyway. Cursing under his breath, he spun around and slammed into George.