I kept running, not daring to stop or steal anything, despite my hunger. I hadn't eaten in three days, and then it had been only some strawberries. My last experience at thieving had got me arrested. It was the one and only time I'd been caught. I prided myself on being one of the best thieves on the north side of London, but I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to trust myself again. For now, it didn't matter. I was too intent on getting as far away from the police as possible to think of food.

When I finally reached Clerkenwell, I slowed. My throat and lungs burned, my heart crashed against my ribs. But I was far from Highgate Police Station and there'd been no sign of pursuit. I took the long route to the rookery, just in case, and stopped outside the old, crumbling house with the rotten window sashes and door. I glanced up and down the lane, and seeing no one about I pulled aside the loose boards at knee height. I squeezed through the hole and let the boards flap closed behind me.

"Charlie's back!" shouted Mink, standing lookout near the trapdoor that led down to the cellar. The boy lifted his chin at me in greeting. It was as much as he ever acknowledged me. He wasn't much of a talker.

"'Bout bloody time!" came the gruff voice of Stringer, from down in Hell. That's what we called the cellar. It was an apt name for our crowded living quarters where we ate, slept and passed the time. It was cold and damp in winter, hot and airless in summer, but it kept us off the streets and out of danger.

"Thought you'd scarpered." Stringer popped his head through the trapdoor. His face and hair were dirty, and I could smell the stink of the sewers on him from where I stood near the entrance. He must have gone wandering down there again.

"I got arrested," I said.

Both Stringer and Mink blinked at me. Then Stringer roared with laughter, almost propelling himself off the ladder. "You! Fleet-foot Charlie, caught by the filth! Well, well, never thought I'd see the day. Oi, lads, listen to this—Charlie got himself arrested!"

"How'd you get out?" asked Mink in his quiet voice. He was a serious boy, compared to the others, and watchful. He didn't join in with the annoying pranks they liked to pull, and he could read well enough too. I liked him more than the rest of the gang members, but that wasn't saying much. I'd almost asked him how he'd learned to read and where he'd lived before he found himself part of Stringer's gang, but decided against it.

I didn't know any of the children's pasts, and they didn't know mine. Nor did I get too friendly with them. It would make it easier to leave, when the time came. No goodbyes, no sorrows, no ties; that was my motto. I moved on twice a year, every year, and had done so since that wet night Mama died. I couldn't have lived as a thirteen year-old boy for over five years if I'd stayed with one gang the entire time.