THE BANDIT OF ASHLEY DOWNS Introducing George M ller By the time Curly Roddy was twelve years old, he'd already survived six years as a homeless orphan on the cruel streets of London in the 1870s. He slept in dustbins and ate orange peels when he could find them. Sometimes he earned a few coins by singing and doing acrobatics in pubs. He had perfected his skills at snatching purses and picking pockets. But when Curly overheard that a church was raising 3,000 for an orphan house in Bristol, his scheme of an armed robbery promised to bring him enough money for a lifetime. Enlisting the help of a local thug and thief, Spud Baxter, a plan is soon put into place. With Spud's pistol and brute force, the church's treasure should easily be taken. But the highway robbery brings Curly more trouble than he had bargained for. Is it scarier to be sent to the orphanage from which he stole the money than to be sent to prison? Will George M ller, the man in charge of the orphanage, make Curly into a slave to earn back at least a portion of the money? Or might they do something even worse? Curly's in for the biggest surprise of his young life