The boys were aged from eight to fifteen. Stringer was not only the eldest but also the biggest. He was already the size of a grown man, and there were rumblings about him leaving the gang of children to take up with a band of more ruthless men who lived in the neighborhood. Two of the boys had even approached me to take over from him, but I'd refused. It would probably mean I'd have to fight Stringer, and there was no way I could win against him. Besides, it was coming time for me to move on again. Mink in particular was beginning to look at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Sometimes I wondered if he already knew that I wasn't who I said I was.

"Anything to eat?" I asked to distract Stringer.

"Some bread," he said, jerking his head at the boy nearest the board we used as a table.

The boy tossed a hunk of bread to me. I caught it. Not a crumb flaked off the hard crust. I set it aside with a sigh, not wanting to break my teeth.

The afternoon wore on. Boys came and went, some bringing food and water that I didn't touch. While I was hungry, they were hungrier. They always were. That was the problem with boys. I had at least finished my growing. Not that I had much to show for it. Sometimes I wondered if I would have been taller with a more womanly figure if I'd had plenty to eat in the last five years. I would never know now. My size helped me to blend in, so I wasn't overly disappointed.

I slept until it was my turn to watch the entrance, then slept again after Finley relieved me. It was mid-morning on a dreary day when I got the first inkling that something was amiss. The boys who returned from foraging—as we called our thieving stints—eyed me warily. They whispered behind their hands and tittered nervously.

"What is it?" I said as one boy crossed himself when he passed me. "Why is everyone staring at me like I've got two heads?"

He wouldn't answer.

"Mink? You'll tell me."

But even Mink kept his distance and wouldn't speak to me. I did overhear him tell a group of boys that it wasn't possible and the devil didn't exist, nor did God. That earned him an eye-roll.

When Stringer returned around midday, and also gave me a wide berth and strange looks, I decided it was time to go for a walk. I wasn't getting answers. I didn't need them anyway. I knew what they'd heard. The gossip network among the gangs was more efficient than any telegraph.

I left through the hole in the wall and made my way north out of Clerkenwell. I felt no fear walking among people who were little better off than me. It was safer in the downtrodden suburb than the holding cell at the police station. My patched up clothing and shoeless feet marked me as not worth robbing, and if a man wanted to rape someone, he would wait for dark, and choose someone slower and most likely female. There were easier pickings than a small, quick youth.