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it’ll be no good, they’ll just have to come back. But I guess they will all right.” He grinned at Noel.
    They had been told to wear their Sunday clothes and be on their best behaviour to meet Mr and Mrs Malone and say goodbye to Luke. And then the announcement was to be made as to whom Luke had chosen to go with him. More than to go with him, thought Noel.
To be Luke’s brother
.
    The platform at the end of the small assembly hall held a table with a vase of subdued flowers and six wooden chairs arranged in a straight line. Mrs Grenfell mounted the dais,sweeping her visitors along with her and Matron hastily held chairs for the smiling new parents. Luke, flushed and excited, took a seat next to Mrs Malone. She reached over and patted his hand. She was small and slender and not at all old. Noel thought she looked quite beautiful. And Mr Malone was tall, upright, comfortable in tweeds. Noel could see the tip of a pipe peeking from the top of his jacket pocket. He looked calm and jovial. The way a proper father should.
    “We are very lucky,” began Mrs Grenfell in that high-pitched voice she used when she thought she should talk louder, “to have Mr and Mrs Malone come to us to offer a home to two of our children. Of course,” she glanced over the top of her glasses at the assembled rows of clean young faces, chapped hands neatly folded in their laps, “we shall miss them. But they are two of our finest children and I am sure they will work hard to make their new family happy.”
    Mr Malone shifted uncomfortably on his hard chair and his eyes met his wife’s behind Mrs Grenfell’s back. Mrs Malone raised her eyebrows slightly and then looked away. Noel waited for what Mrs Grenfell would say next. It wouldn’t matter if they thought he was ugly or anything, he’d prove to them that he was clever and quick, soon he’d grow bigger and Luke would help him with sports so that he wouldn’t let them down … Lost in his dreams he didn’t hear Mrs Grenfell’s next words. He watched Cecilia Brown rise from her seat two rows in front of him and walk to the platform. She mounted the steps and walked towards Luke as applause swelled around the hall. Cecilia Brown was the prettiest girl at Maddox. She was twelve years old and had been at Maddox for eight years, since her parents had been killed in an automobile accident in St Louis. Her aunt, her father’s sister, had refused to take her; having enjoyed a spinster life for forty years she had no mind to take on herbrother’s child. She had never visited, never written. Cecilia Brown deserved a break. Sweet Mrs Malone put her arms around her new daughter and Cecilia smiled tremulously and took hold of Luke’s hand.
    Ice crept into Noel’s veins, inching its way around his heart, chilling its way through his brain. “Come on,” hissed his neighbour, “move along. We’re supposed to go outside and wave goodbye.”
    Noel walked carefully down the forbidden front steps, standing quietly at the back of the crowd. Mr and Mrs Malone climbed into the bright, shiny red car. Cecilia hugged her friends and with a sweet smile took her place in the seat behind them. Two small new suitcases were hefted into the trunk and it snapped shut with a solid thunk. It was a very beautiful car.
    “Noel! Noel.” Luke pushed his way through the crowd of envious well-wishers. He grasped Noel’s hand in his.
    “Good luck, kid. I’ll write. When I can. I guess I’m gonna be awful busy from now on.” He turned and strode towards the car, tall, red-haired, confident. “By the way,” he called, “I left something on your bed. A present.” With a final wave he stepped into the car and took his place beside Cecilia. Her smile seemed to light up the landscape like the setting sun as the car took off in a spurt of gravel, to freedom.
    Noel lay on the bed, the unwrapped present beside him. Its pink paper napkin was stained with grease from the buttercream that sandwiched together the