The January wind off the Thames in 2025 whipped like a sergeant major’s tongue, the kind that slices through fingerless gloves and turns snot to icicles. I was eight, knees knocking under a charity-shop coat three sizes too big, its hem dragging in the slush along the South Bank. Mum and Dad had gone under a lorry on the A40 the Christmas before; the social worker called it “instantaneous.” I called it empty. Foster carers came and went like tube trains. That day I had a patch of pavement outside the National Theatre, a flattened cardboard box for a sign, and a fistful of crayons nicked from the home’s art cupboard.

The sketch was on the back of a pizza menu—Princess Kate and Princess Charlotte, copied from a soggy Hello! someone had dumped in a bin. I’d never seen them in the flesh, but the photo showed Kate’s smile like warm milk and Charlotte’s eyes like mischief bottled. I drew Kate’s hair in yellow loops, Charlotte’s bobble hat in purple. The crayons were stubs, the paper greasy, but the faces looked alive. My sign, in wobbly capitals: “Princesses. £1 or whatever you can.”

Passers-by stepped over me like I was a puddle. A businessman dropped a 20p coin; it rolled into the gutter. My fingers went numb; the Thames stank of diesel and despair. I kept shading Charlotte’s scarf, humming “God Save the King” because it was the only tune I knew all the words to.

Then small boots stopped. Pink wellies, splattered with embankment mud. A child’s voice, posh but curious: “That’s me! And Mummy!”

I looked up—well, tried. The sun was a white coin behind clouds. A girl crouched, duffel coat the colour of clotted cream, bobble hat matching the one in my drawing. Princess Charlotte, eight and a half, cheeks apple-red from the cold. Two protection officers loomed behind her like lamp posts, radios crackling.

“It’s brilliant,” she said. “The hat’s exactly right. I wore it to the panto.”

I couldn’t speak. Throat full of frost. She took the pizza menu carefully, like it was the Crown Jewels. “May I show Grandpapa?”

I nodded. What else could I do? She tucked it inside her coat, patted the pocket. “Stay here. Promise.”

They moved off toward Festival Hall. I thought that was that—another dream nicked by the wind.

An hour later—fingers blue, hope gone—a black Range Rover purred up. The back door opened. Charlotte again, this time with a man in a camel overcoat: the King, scarf up to his chin, beanie pulled low. He knelt—actual knees on the wet pavement—and studied the sketch against the real Charlotte’s grin.

“Remarkable,” he said. Voice softer than on telly. “Young lady, what’s your name?”

“Evie,” I croaked. “Evie Jones.”

“Evie Jones,” he repeated, like tasting it. “We’re having a little auction at the palace. For Great Ormond Street. This will be lot 27. Proceeds to you. Fair?”

I didn’t know what “proceeds” meant, but I nodded anyway.

Charlotte squeezed my mittened hand. “I’ll bid first. Ten pounds!”

The King chuckled. “We’ll start higher, Lottie.”

They left. The Rover’s taillights vanished into the dusk. I sat there till a constable moved me on for the evening rush.

Three weeks later, a social worker found me in the breakfast queue at the children’s home. She had an envelope—thick, cream, embossed with a crown. Inside: a cheque for £1,000, a photo of my sketch framed in gold on a velvet easel, and a note in purple gel pen:

Dear Evie, Grandpapa says it sold for £950 + my £50 pocket money = £1,000! Come to tea when you’re better. I’ll save you the chocolate biscuits. Your friend, Charlotte xxx

The frame now hangs above my bunk in the new foster flat—proper walls, no damp. The £1,000 paid for art classes at the Southbank Centre, a proper coat, and a visit to Great Ormond Street to draw portraits for the kids who can’t go home. I still sketch on pizza menus sometimes, but now I sign them Evie Jones, Royal Auction Lot 27.

Some winters, when the Thames freezes at the edges, I swear I feel small wellies stop beside me again. I don’t look up. I just keep drawing, because Princess Charlotte taught an orphan that crayons and kindness can weigh more than gold.