They would be difficult to settle. Matt was hot in his clown costume, but he didn’t mind. The courtyard had rung with laughter as he’d told them his story of the Sultan and the Cockerel – their particular favourite – and that was all that mattered. The new girl, just brought in that morning – Matt couldn’t remember her name – sat cross-legged at his feet, beaming up at him. She had gappy teeth, and Matt remembered Olly being like that, and all the business of the tooth fairy. Home seemed a million miles away, on another planet. The swallows on the wall reminded him that it wasn’t. Evenings were when Matt really came into his own. He was busy enough by day about the orphanage, working alongside Sister Christina and the dozen or so nurses and nuns, helping out wherever he could – in the kitchen, cleaning down in the dormitories and the hospital, sometimes teaching under the tree in the courtyard. In the few months he had been there Matt had become the great fixer, their handy handyman.
