Clover nodded. "My- my friend ran home and I got all excited and ran too, but when we got there, I saw I wasn't near the right street." He looked up at the woman and offered a small smile at her and her child. "Thank you..."

"Well, that can happen... How did you get all dirty though." She suddenly stopped and frowned as she took a proper look at the child's face. She put John down and knelt in front of him - carefully for she was pregnant. "Did someone hurt you?"

Clover started to say, "There was lots of mud on the -" then he remembered Bram's story about the robbers and nodded a little too fervently. "-and I got a little muddy there, but when I was running with my friend we saw robbers! And they took my coat, and pushed me into the mud when I tried to get it back!"

Maggie looked at the child, utterly shocked. "What!? Okay," she got up and took John by the hand. "Come along, sweetheart." And instead of going to the child's home, she led him straight into the constable's office. "Elijah!?" As a mother, she knew that the father had to be worried, but the sooner Elijah got involved, the more chance they would find the sick bastards who would rob and attack a young child. She was horrified!

Clover dutifully went along, but shook a little in his shoes. He didn't think *this* would happen! Either way, he waited by the woman's side while she called to someone named Elijah. He rocked back and forth on his feet, looking at the ground. "They took my coat," he muttered, reassuring himself that maybe if he said it enough, it'd be true.

Hearing voices, Elijah sat up sharply from his paperwork. He stood as he approached the two and looked them over. "Maggie? Wha-.." He was very worried but sighed in relief hearing it was a taken coat. With things going the way they were, he expected something worse.

He knelt down to near eye level with the boy. "I don't believe we've met." He held out his hand to the boy. "I'm constable Crane. Can you please tell me where you were if you know and who took it? If you don't know their names, maybe you can tell me about them and point them out if we see them?"

Clover looked up and decided the man wasn't frighteningly intimidating like he'd expected a constable to be. He nodded meekly. "They- there was two. I think. They were big. And scary. And one took my coat. It's a red coat. But it's muddy now. They pushed me in the mud."

"You think there were two?" Maggie asked, a little confused. "Did they attack you from behind? What about your friend? Is he injured? Did they take anything from him?"

Elijah looked surprised at her then back at the boy. "Were they adults? Is your friend alright? Where were you?" He took a deep breath and lightly patted the boy's shoulder. "Sorry, I know it is a lot of questions. Just take your time and answer anything you can ."

Clover blushed and shuffled on his feet, looking at the ground, then he looked back up. He didn't like lying, but he felt like he was too far deep to go back now. "Two. I think they were men. They didn't say anything, so I couldn't tell by their voices. They only took my coat. My friend is fine, he made it home and then I got lost. And then you found me." He turned to the constable to answer his questions. "They were bigger than the biggest boys at school. I was on the street by the school, there was an alley I walked by and they jumped at us from there." He shivered once, the cold of the mud on his clothes seeping through to his skin and freezing him. "I want my Pa," he muttered, holding back tears. Once his Pa came, everything would be alright.