BIG MOVEMENT CONCEAL LITTLE MOVEMENT!

The cemetery which is home to the Tombstone Kids is large, wild and overgrown. A landscape of stone angels and ivy. White stone and green growth. Tall grass. Venerable yew trees in which owls wait for nightfall. The smell of rosebay willowherb and the scuffling of rats.
Blank faces of angel stone, features eroded by the wind and rain, keep silent vigil over child graves. Moss cushioning stone. A small chapel, its roof caved in, its walls dense with ivy, its interior stripped and set fire to, sits on the periphery of the cemetery, guarding the gates.

In the centre of the cemetery sits a war memorial. It is here the children meet, lighting a fire at the foot of the monument and sitting on its steps, telling stories and entertaining one another with magic tricks. Oliver Twist, the orphan fox cub sits with them on these nights, in the fire-heat, intelligent of eye, handsome in his red coat

The Tombstone Kids. Unorganised. Leaderless.
The children live in mausoleums. Dry and warm. With the dead to keep them company.
There are no better thieves, burglars and pickpockets. Ghosts that flit through crowded streets. Unseen and unheard. Light fingered enough to snatch the watch from your wrist. Quiet enough to unpeel the pyjamas from your snoozing wife. Deeply knowledgeable about the history and traditions of their craft they delight in reinventing old ruses and set pieces. Cons and techniques. Slice the pocket out your trousers with a pair of scissors. Skilled in street magic, masters of misdirection, sleight of hand, suggestion and cold reading. They pride themselves on their elaborate ruses. Their choreography. Their audacity. The Tombstone Kids elevate theft to an artform. An performance. A spectacle. They will stage alien abductions to steal a wallet. They have no sense of proportion. The more extravagant the better. The item to be stolen is merely an excuse for the performance. A new method of misdirection. A new conjuring trick. Some subtle ploy for the appreciation of the connoisseur.
Not many of them. It's a select group. A few boys. A few girls.

Here's Fellini. A thin kid, moves like a cat, and just as nervy. Dark hair, dark eyes, cheekbones you could slit your wrists with. Long fingers, delicate, like a concert pianist. A master of his trade. Only 14. Dresses well. Today we find him in a top hat, a velvet waistcoat over a white shirt of Egyptian cotton, a silk cravat and an antique, gold fob watch. On special occasions he wears the mayors chains of office. Took them right off the old boy's neck. He never felt a thing.