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told Luke about it later and Luke had laughed. “Lucky Matt,” was all he’d said, and in answer to Noel’s enquiring stare, “You’re not old enough yet, you’ll understand what it’s all about one day.” Sometimes, Noel had thought admiringly, you’d think Luke was at least twelve.
    It was two weeks after Luke’s mysterious visit to Mrs Grenfell’s office that it happened. Luke had been taken from class, watched with a mixture of envy because he was missing maths, and sympathy because he was being summoned to the office for who knew what reason. Luke had returned an hour later, red-faced and smiling. Afterwards the older boys had crowded round, asking questions, laughing and talking loudly. Noel had lingered on the outside of the magic circle, catching snatches of the excited talk. “What’re they like? Are they rich? Where’d they live? What kinda car? Where? When? How soon are you leaving?…”
    Noel waited, white-faced, leaning against the wall. He thrust his clenched fists deeper into his pockets, biting hischapped lips to stop them trembling, tasting the saltiness of blood in his mouth.
    “Not only that,” Luke’s voice came clearly from the ring of boys, “they said that it would be unfair to have me leave all my friends. They’ve decided they’d like a ready-made family.” He paused to give weight to what he was going to say next. “And I am to choose who I want to come with me.”
    Noel stopped breathing. He waited, listening to the blood pounding in his ears.
    “You! Nah!” There were jeers of disbelief.
    “Well, sure they have to approve—I mean they have to
like
them … but I can say
who
 …”
    Noel breathed again. Straightening up, he walked to the edge of the excited crowd. Standing on tip-toe he could see Luke’s excited face. “When?” he called. “When, Luke?”
    Luke’s eyes met his. “On Saturday,” he called, giving Noel the thumbs-up signal.
    Noel walked slowly away from the crowd, down the long brown linoleum-covered corridor, past the dining room with its rows of wooden chairs and undraped tables and the institutional smells of polish and strong disinfectant with lurking undertones of vegetables and brown gravy from many meals past, into the hall where they were forbidden to go. Flinging open the front door, he gazed down at the worn stone steps, at the long gravel driveway and the big metal gates beyond which lay freedom. Noel took great breaths of the cold air, it felt fresh to him, new and clean. Luke would free him.
    The Maddox Orphanage had a system with names. In the case of abandoned
children
, surnames were modest, common ones that could be found anywhere in America—Smith, Jones, Brown, Robinson. First names were after the apostles or the saints, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter … or Cecilia, Mary, Joan for the girls. But abandonedbabies were always given the surname “Maddox”, after the orphanage itself. Mrs Grenfell told the Maddox children that they should consider it a privilege to be named after such a wonderful, well-thought of institution. Noel was one of a dozen Maddoxes at the Orphanage, though there were, he knew, hundreds more who had gone before him and were now out in the world. “Wherever you go,” Mrs Grenfell said proudly, “they’ll know you were a Maddox boy.”
    “What are the family called?” he asked later that evening as he polished Luke’s shoes, spitting on the leather and brushing briskly.
    “Malone.” Luke grinned. “Irish. That’s why they liked me—the red hair and all.”
    “Malone.” Noel savoured the name. It felt solid. A real name, passed on from father to son. He brushed again, harder, until he could see his face reflected in the gleaming leather.
    “What happens on Saturday?” he asked, putting away his brushes.
    “They’re coming at four o’clock. For coffee and cake. We all meet and get to know each other a bit better. Then we go. ’Course, if they don’t like the other person then