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boy’s ill?” he whispered. “We didn’t tell no one.”
    “What does it matter ’ow they knew?” Doll uncorked the bottle and smelled the contents. She wrinkled her nose. “It smells all right,” she said. She nodded at Solo. “All right, you can shove off, shorty!” she said. “And tell your boss thanks, all right?”
    Whether Solo had understood or not, he turned and walked away.
    Doll turned to Eric. “Get me a glass!” she ordered. “And make sure you wipe it first with your sleeve.”
    Dr. Aftexcludor’s medicine was the first liquid that Tad had accepted since he fell ill. Even the smell of it seemed to revive him a little and he emptied the glass in one swallow. After that he slept again, but his breathing seemed to have steadied and a little color crept back into his face. Then, that evening, quite suddenly he woke up. The fever had broken.
    “My baby!” Doll threw her arms around Tad and burst into tears.
    “Be careful!” Eric muttered. “You’re so fat you’ll smother ’im!”
    Eric and Doll Snarby were so relieved to have their son back with them that later that evening they went out and bought fish-and-chips for him—although Doll Snarby ate most of the chips as she carried them home. That night Tad ate properly for the first time. And when he slept again, it was a normal, healthy sleep.
    With the change in Tad’s health came a change in the weather. The sun shone and the crowds came out, enjoying the first weeks of the summer holidays. When she was sure he wouldn’t collapse on her, Doll Snarby set Tad to work on the Lucky Numbers booth.
    It wasn’t difficult to run. All Tad had to do was to sit in front of the stuffed gorillas holding a big basket of tickets. And as the crowds walked past, he would shout out a patter he had quickly learned from his new father.
    “Come on! Try your luck! Three tickets for a buck. If it ends in a five, you’re a winner! Lots of chances! Come on, sir! See if you can win a nice cuddly toy for the missus!”
    This is what Tad did for the next four days. He felt safe in the booth, sitting on his own, and he even enjoyed the work, sitting out in the sun, watching the crowds go by. There was one thing that puzzled him to begin with. Not one single ticket that he sold actually ended in a five and soon he was surrounded by hundreds of colored scraps of paper—torn up and thrown away by the losers. The gorillas stayed where they were. But it didn’t take him long to work out the answer. There were no fives. No fifty-fives, no sixty-fives, no hundred and fives. They had never even been printed. And the punters had as much chance of winning a cuddly toy for the missus as they did of waking up on the moon.
    But Tad didn’t mind. He didn’t feel a twinge of guilt. Eric Snarby was giving him five cents out of every dollar he made and the money was quickly mounting up. Tad felt better with coins in his pocket. He felt more like his old self.
    Before he knew it, he had settled into a routine. The fair closed just after midnight and Tad shut up the booth and crawled into his bed at the back of the caravan after quickly swallowing down a meal. The Snarbys bought him take-out Chinese, take-out Indian, take-out fish-and-chips. And the cost of each meal they took out of his earnings. Bed was the worst time for him. Lying curled up on the lumpy mattress, he would think back to his life at Snatchmore Hall. He had been away from home for just over a week, but somehow home had already become a distant memory. As he shivered in the damp air, Tad would remember his electric blanket, the chocolate that Mitzy placed on his pillow last thing at night, the Jacuzzi waiting for him in the morning. Could he go back? Tad doubted it. If he turned up at Snatchmore Hall looking the way he did now, talking the way he did, smelling the way he did . . . they wouldn’t even let him through the gate.
    “You are Bob Snarby now—whether you like it or not.”
    That was what Dr.