Up until two months ago, a few mornings each week, just before his kindergarten class, Master Note, a nine-year-old boy in our care, rode his imaginary broomstick horse around our Mercy Centre compound...

The triplets skip along footpaths, giggle, chirp, chatter. They have signals - really a special world all their own - especially at secret-telling time, which is pretty much all the time, writes FR JOE MAIER.

The cook found them at the side entrance just before dawn, when you could still make out the stars: Six-year-old Fon, her mum and our ferocious, slum-born, street-wise guard dog, all curled up asleep together.