ABANDONED. Fantasy about a boy in some kind of orphanage in the future

[Giulio]

All I remember is: In the very beginning of the book this young boy is taken away/separated from his family for some reason and put in this weird orphanage/prison and the kids are all separated and can't talk to each other (don't remember if only during the night or all the time). He's just arrived to this place so he doesn't know anything but soon finds out that the kids actually talk to each other by hitting some sort of metal tubes that runs trough the orphanage/prison in what I can only speculate was some kind of morse code.
Book setting: probably a dystopian/alternate present or future.

I know this is oddly specific and probably useless but I started reading this book in the book shop at the mall while my mom was shopping. Before we had to leave I asked her to buy me the book but she did't want to so I never got the chance to read the whole thing.
This happened 10+ year ago while I was in middle school, I remember the book was near Artemis Fowl on the book shelf so I must be of the YA/Fantasy genre.
I would guess the book was published somewhere in between 2000 and 2006 since here in Italy books always come a couple of years later (they have to be translated). Also books never stuck around in that book shop if they are not very successful so I must have been something fairly new.
The cover was pretty cool (I always picked book by the cover) but that's not useful because when the book it's localised for Italy they change the cover.

I know I gave basically no relevant information but I had to try. I mean, it's 10 years that this book hunts me 'cause I have never got the chance to read how the story goes on.
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read this post and thanks in advance to everyone who will suggest some possible books.

PS. I have tried searching on Google Books but "hit tubes communicate" and other keywords did't get me anything relevant. It may have helped if I had read this book in english but I didn't so I don't even know if this words are actually in the book.

[Shanna_redwind]

It's been a while, so I'm not sure they communicate by tapping pipes, but this one has a boy in a very nasty prison in a dystopian type setting.

Lockdown

[Giulio]

Shanna_redwind wrote: "It's been a while, so I'm not sure they communicate by tapping pipes, but this one has a boy in a very nasty prison in a dystopian type setting."

I checked that out and that's not it. Thank you though!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Giulio, are you still looking for this or did you find it?

[Sue]

The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sup...

[El]

The Supernaturalist for the Goodreads link (Sue's suggestion)

[Rainbowheart]

Still looking, Giulio?

[Rainbowheart]

Could this be the same book Sara is looking for here?

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Giulio, are you still looking for this or did you find it?"

No response, moving to Abandoned.