“Please, just ten pounds,” pleaded the boy, offering to shine the CEO’s shoes—when he explained it was to save his mum…
Edward Hartwell wasn’t a man easily interrupted. His days ran with Swiss-clock precision: meetings, mergers, and marble offices filled with polished laughter and expensive coffee. That frosty winter morning, he’d ducked into his favourite café to check emails before the board meeting that would decide whether his company swallowed yet another rival.
He never saw the boy coming—not until a small shadow appeared beside his gleaming black shoes.
“Excuse me, sir,” piped a tiny voice, nearly lost under the whirl of wind and falling snow. Edward glanced up from his phone, irritated, and saw a boy no older than eight or nine, bundled in a coat two sizes too big, mismatched gloves on his hands.
“Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it,” Edward snapped, turning back to his screen.
But the boy didn’t move. He knelt right there on the snowy pavement, pulling out an old shoe-shine box from under his arm.
“Please, sir. Just ten pounds. I’ll make your shoes shine proper. Please.”
Edward raised an eyebrow. London was full of beggars, but this one was persistent—and surprisingly polite.
“Why ten pounds?” he asked, almost against his will.
The boy lifted his head then, and Edward saw raw desperation in eyes too large for his thin face. His cheeks were red and chapped, lips cracked from the cold.
“It’s for my mum, sir,” he whispered. “She’s poorly. Needs medicine, and I ain’t got enough.”
Edward’s throat tightened—a reaction he instantly despised. He’d taught himself not to feel those tugs. Pity was for those who didn’t mind their wallets.
“There are shelters. Charities. Go find one,” he muttered, waving him off.
But the boy pressed on. He pulled a cloth from his box, fingers stiff and red.
“Please, sir, I ain’t asking for charity. I’ll work. Look—your shoes are dusty. I’ll make ’em so shiny your posh mates’ll be jealous. Please.”
A cold, sharp laugh escaped Edward. It was absurd. He glanced around; other customers sipped espresso inside the café, pretending not to see this pathetic scene. A woman in a tattered coat sat against the nearby wall, head bowed, arms wrapped around herself. Edward looked back at the boy.
“What’s your name?” he asked, annoyed at himself for caring.
“Alfie, sir.”
Edward exhaled. Checked his watch. He could spare five minutes. Maybe the boy would leave if he got what he wanted.
“Fine. Ten pounds. But you’d better do it right.”
Alfie’s eyes lit up like Christmas lights in the dark. He set to work at once, polishing the leather with surprising skill. The cloth moved in quick, precise circles. He hummed softly, maybe to keep his numb fingers moving. Edward studied the boy’s tousled hair, feeling his chest tighten despite himself.
“You do this often?” Edward asked, gruffly.
Alfie nodded without looking up.
“Every day, sir. After school too, when I can. Mum used to work, but she got real poorly. Can’t stand long now. I gotta get her medicine today or… or…” His voice trailed off.
Edward glanced at the woman against the wall—her coat thin, hair tangled, gaze down. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t asked for a penny. Just sat there, as if the cold had turned her to stone.
“That your mum?” Edward asked.
Alfie’s cloth stilled. He nodded.
“Yeah, sir. But don’t talk to her. She don’t like asking for help.”
When he finished, Alfie sat back on his heels. Edward inspected his shoes—they shone so bright he could see his own reflection, weary eyes and all.
“You weren’t lying. Good job,” Edward said, pulling out his wallet. He took out a tenner, hesitated, then added another. He held out the money, but Alfie shook his head.
“Just the one, sir. You said ten pounds.”
Edward frowned.
“Take the twenty.”
Alfie shook his head again, firmer this time.
“Mum says we don’t take what we ain’t earned.”
For a moment, Edward just stared—this tiny boy in the snow, so thin his bones seemed to rattle inside his coat, yet holding his head high like a man twice his size.
“Keep it,” he said at last, tucking the notes into the boy’s gloved hand. “Consider the extra for next time.”
Alfie’s face lit up with a smile so wide it hurt to see. He scrambled over to the woman—his mother—knelt beside her, and showed her the money. She lifted her head, tired eyes brimming with tears she tried to hide.
Edward felt a knot in his chest. Guilt, maybe. Or shame.
He gathered his things, but as he stood, Alfie came running back.
“Thank you, sir! I’ll find you tomorrow—if you need a shine, it’s on me! Promise!”
Before Edward could reply, the boy darted back to his mother, wrapping his small arms around her. The snow fell heavier, blanketing the city in silence.
Edward stood there longer than he needed to, staring at his gleaming shoes, wondering when the world had grown so cold.
And for the first time in years, the man who had everything wondered if he had anything at all.
That night, Edward Hartwell couldn’t sleep in his penthouse overlooking the frozen city. His bed was warm. His dinner, chef-prepared; his wine, poured in crystal. He should’ve been content—but Alfie’s large eyes haunted him every time he closed his own.
By dawn, the boardroom should’ve been all that mattered. A billion-pound deal. His legacy. But when the lift doors opened the next morning, Edward’s mind wasn’t on the charts and figures waiting upstairs. Instead, he found himself back at the same café where he’d met the boy.
The snow still fell in soft swirls. The street was quiet at that hour—too early for a boy to be shining shoes. But there he was: Alfie, kneeling beside his mother, urging her to sip from a cup of watery coffee.
Edward approached. Alfie spotted him first. His face brightened with that same hopeful grin. He jumped up, brushing snow off his knees.
“Sir! I got fresh polish today—the best in town, swear! Want another shine? On the house, like I promised!”
Edward looked at his shoes. They didn’t need it—still gleaming from yesterday. But Alfie’s eagerness was a knot in his chest he couldn’t undo.
He glanced at the boy’s mother. She looked weaker than yesterday, shoulders trembling under the same tattered coat.
“What’s her name?” Edward asked quietly.
Alfie shifted awkwardly, looking back.
“My mum? She’s called Maggie.”
Edward crouched in the snow, eye-level with the boy.
“Alfie… what happens if she doesn’t get better?”
Alfie swallowed.
“They’ll take me away,” he whispered. “Put me somewhere… but I gotta stay with her. She’s all I got.”
It was the same desperate logic Edward had clung to as a boy—when he, too, learned the world didn’t care how good you were if you were poor.
“Where d’you live?” Edward asked.
Alfie pointed to a rundown shelter around the corner—an old warehouse behind a derelict church.
“Sometimes there. Sometimes… other places. They don’t like kids staying long.”
Edward felt the cold seep through his gloves. He looked at Maggie again, her eyes barely open. She met his gaze—ashamed, but steady.
“I don’t want charity,” she rasped. “Don’t you dare pity me.”
“I don’t,” Edward said softly. “I’m angry.”
That day, Edward skipped the meeting—the first time in fifteen years he’d kept investors waiting. He found a private clinic, called an ambulance, and helped carry Maggie himself when she nearly collapsed on the pavement. Alfie clung to her hand, shadowing her every step.
The doctors did what they could. Pneumonia. Malnutrition. Things no mother should suffer in a city of skyscrapers and billionaires.
Edward didn’t leave the hospital until past midnight. He sat beside Alfie in the hallway, the boy curled in a borrowed blanket, eyes red from fighting sleep.
“You don’t have to stay,” Alfie murmured. “You’re busy. Mum says men like you got big things to do.”
Edward studied the boy’s messy hair, the way he clutched his polishing cloth like a lifeline.
“There are bigger things,” Edward said. “Like you.”
Maggie’s recovery was slow. Edward paid for every test, every pill. Hired nurses to tend her day and night. When she finally opened her eyes properly, she tried to rise—to argue, to refuse. But when Edward handed her the hospital papers,
