I was in a hostel, a stop-off for impossible kids in east London somewhere. I'd been there a couple of days, walked in off the streets half-starved, because I had to. […]
They gave me old clothes, washed thin and mended and almost the right size. They asked me lots of questions in return for two meals and a dry place to sleep. […]
"I'm Gordon," [the man] said. "And the lady's name is Ginny."
"Well done," I said. "Good for you."
"And you are?" he said.
I looked at my shoes, somebody else's shoes, black and lumpy and scuffed. […] "I'm nobody," I said. […]

The Ginny woman came with something in her hand, a piece of paper. "Can I have a word?" she said.
Gordon got up and they left me in the room on my own again. I could hear them on the other side of the door. They were whispering, but I could still hear.
She said, "I only saw it this morning. Pure coincidence."
"Bloody hell."
"He's been gone nearly two years."
"Well. I. Never."
"Do you think it's him?"
"Look at it. It's got to be."
The door handle moved. […] When they came back in they were altered, careful, like I was a bomb that might go off, a sleeping tiger, a priceless vase about to fall. […]

"Cassiel?" [Ginny] said.
I looked straight at her. I didn't know what was going on. "What?"
"Cassiel Roadnight?" she asked.
My name is not Cassiel Roadnight. It never has been. […]
"Who, me?" I said.
Gordon gave me the piece of paper. It was a printout, a picture of a boy with the word MISSING across his forehead. […]
"Oh my God," I said, and took in a breath and I held it. […]
My face exactly – my nose, my mouth, my chin. […] I kept my eyes on the picture. There was something wrong with it.
Here are some things I know for sure about my face. I see them every time I look in the mirror. One. I have two scars. […]
Two. I have three piercings in my left ear and two in my right. […]
Three. My teeth are bad. […]
In the picture there were no scars on my face, no piercings. I had perfect teeth. I was happy and well fed and wholesome.
In other words, it wasn't me.
I tried to tell them. I looked up from the picture and I said, "No."
"Cassiel," Gordon said. He crossed his legs. His trousers and his mouth made a shushing noise. I shook my head. "Not me." […]

"What are the odds," Gordon said to Ginny, like I wasn't there, "of there being two identical missing boys?"
"Billions to one," Ginny said, like that settled it.
"I don't care what the odds are," I said. "It's not me." […]
They didn't believe me. They wanted it to be right, I could tell that. They were going to insist on it. It doesn't matter what you say to people like that. When they have made up their minds they stop listening.

I breathed in hard and I tried not to think. I looked at the boy in the picture. I thought how incredible it was to have a double like that, somewhere out there in the world, to look exactly like a total stranger. I looked at Cassiel Roadnight's happy, flawless, fearless face. And the thought occurred to me then, that I could be him, if I wanted. […]
There were people looking for Cassiel Roadnight, but they were people who cared. He had a family and friends. He had loved ones. He had a life I could step right into. And what did I have?
Nobody. Nothing […].
I always wanted to be someone else. Doesn't everyone?
"OK," I said to the thought, so quietly I almost didn't say it at all.
"What?" Gordon said.
They looked at each other and then back at me. It was like they'd been holding everything in. Suddenly there was this noise in the room of them breathing.
"OK," I said.
"Good," said Ginny, and Gordon said, "Your name is Cassiel Roadnight?"
"Yes," I told him. "My name is Cassiel Roadnight," and I watched the smile spread and stick to his face.

_{Adapted from: Valentine, Jenny. 2010. The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight. London: HarperCollins. pp. 7–17.}