Families sent sweets, chocolates, bootlaces, with notes that said thinking of you or have a merry christmas.
His sent books: huge tomes of English history, French essays, poems in ancient Greek. He was a runt, a loser, an easy target. They scrunched sweet wrappers and flicked them at his head. They laughed at him through sticky toffee teeth.
Teeth chattered as the weather turned. The cold flushed their fingers red, then white, then black. Then their fingers began to fall off.
His fingers stayed on. He kept them warm by a fire made of sweet wrappers and thick, slow-burning books.