This meant he had to risk getting boots from the first floor. The orphans had dozens of rivalries, but the biggest was between boys who slept in the attic and boys who slept on the first floor. New arrivals assigned to one floor were immediately forced to run the gauntlet of the other, where they would be mercilessly kicked and punched as they tried to reach the brick wall at the far end of the corridor. Any boy who showed cowardice would be further battered by his own roommates.

Because the bedrooms were so crammed, boys had to shed their footwear in the doorways before entering. A few had returned for their boots, but there were still several pairs in the doorway of the first bedroom as Marc stepped inside.

He’d hoped everyone would be out, but a ten year old called Victor sat on his bunk, nursing an arm in a cast.

‘Hey!’ he shouted aggressively. ‘Get off our floor, attic boy.’

Marc tried to think up some clever reason why he needed someone else’s boots but there was no way around it. ‘Mind your own business, cripple.’

Marc eyed the boots on the floor. They were all huge, except for one pair, which he knew belonged to a kid called Noel who was apprenticed to the local blacksmith. Marc grabbed the boots by their laces. This rankled, because Noel was one of the nicest kids in the orphanage.

‘Put them back,’ Victor said firmly, though he didn’t come any closer because Marc was strong and had two arms to fight with.

‘Fifty francs if you keep your trap shut,’ Marc said, pulling a note out of his shorts.

Victor’s eyes bulged when he saw the money and Marc thought he was going to take it, but Victor wasn’t a fool. Fifty francs was only useful if there was somewhere to spend it and even the dumbest orphan knew that going into the village with that kind of cash would lead to an inquisition followed by a beating in the director’s office.

‘Put them down, now,’ Victor said firmly. ‘I’ll tell the lads and you’ll get such a kicking.’

Marc thought about beating Victor up. He reckoned he could do it easily enough, but there was bound to be yelling and the director was close enough to hear.

‘Just tell Noel that I owe him one,’ Marc said sadly, as he backed out of the room and swung the boots over his shoulder before jogging towards the stairs.

‘Are you thick or something?’ Victor screamed, jumping off his bed to give chase.