Excerpt:

I was halfway down the drainpipe, hanging on for dear life. I couldn’t go any farther because there was a policewoman down below, nailing a poster to the wall. I’d seen the same thing pinned up all over town, asking for information about this Johnny guy.

It was past midnight, so it was just my bad luck to run into the policewoman. And even though I swear to God I wasn’t up to anything bad, it didn’t look good for a Gypsy boy to be shinning down the nineteenth-century drainpipe of the cathedral.

I’d been up on the roof, but only so’s I could sit on the highest ledge and eat my takeout chicken Balti and Peshwari Nan with only the gargoyles and the stars for company. This combined my two favorite pastimes: climbing the highest thing I can find and eating chilies. But you can bet that if the policewoman saw me coming down, she’d think I’d been up there after the lead or something.

I’d got a good grip on the pipe, the sort monkeys use on tree trunks when they’re climbing. It meant my feet acting like another pair of hands, so I could hold on for a while longer without moving, but not forever. I was already losing the skin on my palms to the rusted iron of the pipe. So to take my mind off my predicament, I began thinking about what my mammy’d do if I got lost. I don’t think she’d sit back and rely on posters; traveler kids are like little princes and princesses. If you don’t believe me just go to a Gypsy wedding and see them all in their D&G Junior, with their mammies and daddies watching them with doting eyes. Gypsy families are so close-knit, there’s never a chance to stray.

I shifted my grip slightly. Another cop had joined the policewoman and they were standing talking. Jeez, didn’t they have any crooks to chase?

“Johnny Sparrow? Is he one of the Sparowski Corporation Sparrows?” said the cop, nodding at the poster.

“Yep, the only son,” said the policewoman. “Ran away from boarding school. Last seen living rough near the park. Poor little rich boy, right?”