prologue

Imagine a young creature, alone in the world, completely new to everything. think of all the questions they would have: who am I; where did I come from. Questions that may never be answered. The only thing in mind being a memory. The sound of laughter from around the corner. Carefully getting out of a basket and following the sound. seeing someone else like them, laughing in the arms of a human female who was tickling her tummy.

Because we're not like others from here. We are the only ones like us and this is how we started. This is our story.

Her eyes were closed but when she opened them, it felt like time had stopped, as beautiful as they were. I could never forget those eyes. I just stood there, mouth open, staring into those eyes. They started to move away. I shook back into real life and started to follow them. But they turned another corner and I lost sight of them. By the time I'd reached the corner, they'd already gone inside. With nothing else to do, I went back to my basket and just thought about it, wishing I could see her again.

As time went by, I stayed close to that basket, on that corner, eating scraps and drinking from puddles like a stray dog. Until some friendly humans decided to take me back with them. They didn't come from whatever country I was in at the time. They were just staying for the week. So when they took me back to where they came from, they took me with them. That urged me to travel. Different people took me in at different times and none of them came from the same country. While spending time with these humans, I started to look more like them. After three years, the only thing that looked different about me were my ears. This was when I decided to travel on my own. This ment begging on the streets and on the rare occasion, stealing. I listened to a lot of other street kids talking and learned some teenage slang. And after watching a busker, I learned to play guitar. After that I started playing for money.

This was how things went on, moving from place to place, until I came to London.

I came just as the sun was coming up and I saw something wonderful. Something beautiful. There was a little girl sleeping on a bench. When I saw her I stopped. She had ears like mine, sticking up from short curly ginger hair and wearing a school uniform that looked too small for her. When she opened her eyes, I was sure of it. This was the same girl I'd seen that first morning…