The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce

This was an interesting little story.  It starts with a grown woman, looking at a picture from her childhood.  She remembers two boys, brothers, who came as immigrants from Mongolia to her school in Bootle, England thirty years earlier.  The first day they are at the school they choose her as their "good guide" and she accepts the appointment with gusto.  She helps them learn to fit in, dress normally, and play football. Then, one day the boys don't show up at school. She goes to look for them and they meet and take an almost mystical journey to a nature reserve in a nearby town.  After the adventure she leads them back home, only to have them be deported soon after.  The story is a little odd, and the characters are quirky, but the whole is charming and engaging.  There were a few scenes where I laughed out loud.  For Americans it is a different look at illegal immigration. (42 p)