"Oh my god, Saskia! It's been ages!" squealed Carmen, anxiously craning her neck above the sea of other Elm Tree House care kids to see the new girl, or rather the old girl who was returning to the Dumping Ground. Saskia Jones, the said returnee, had left Elm Tree House, a care home also known as the Dumping Ground, many months before, and had been fostered by a couple called the Lancashires, who had a son called Rydian, who Saskia didn't get on well with. In fact, they'd ended up fighting so much that Saskia had asked to come back to the Dumping Ground. Head careworker Mike had accepted this request and finally, Saskia Jones was coming back.

Her careworker Megan hobbled after her, dropping two suitcases down when she reached the front door, puffing and panting. Saskia, a calm girl in a pink skirt and green shirt, who was very tall and had long brown hair with blonde ends, ran up to Carmen and scooped her up in a big bear hug.

"I've missed you so much!" screamed Carmen.

"And I've missed you," Saskia admitted.

"And I've not missed you one tiny bit," I said. A quick reminder for those who've forgotten: my name is Demon Traylen and I'm a stroppy thirteen-year-old, with a hot girlfriend called Viva, who'd recently dyed her hair jet-black, leaving just a few long streaks of blonde. I thought it made her look even sexier, coupled with the increasingly, outrageously short skirts. I liked the short skirts. A lot. And also, my voice had broken in the past fortnight or so, and Viva said that made me sound a heck of a lot sexier. Win-win situation. I live at Elm Tree House, the care home, and I've got black hair which is pretty long, but not too long. I was still in mourning for my dead fourteen-year-old sister Siren. As well as that, my best friend Elektra had moved out, and she hadn't called me or emailed me since she left. All in all, I was not a happy person. But I had Viva, so there was some happiness in my life.

"Demon!" said Faith Davis, a brown-skinned almost-sixteen-year-old who was pretty much in charge. All the other kids looked up to her and considered her a leader, even though she'd only been at the Dumping Ground for three weeks. Personally, I was a bit miffed about this – normally the kids looked up to me, and then this new girl comes swanning in, and everybody acts like she's the boss.

"What?" I said.

"Oh my god, Demon, you're still here!" smiled Saskia running up to me excitedly and hugging me. "I thought you'd have gone by now!"

"What, taken away by the police?" I asked.

"No idiot, fostered!" Saskia said.

"Of course not, only the cute little ones get fostered, and I'm not cute or little."

"Whatever."

"You really thought I'd be fostered by now?"

"I didn't," said Tyler, "because nobody would ever want to foster Demon in their wildest dreams."

"Thanks a lot Tyler. That's really made my day so much better," I said sarcastically, glaring at Tyler obviously. "And I did get fostered once."

"Really?" asked Tyler, obviously not believing me. "And how come you're still stuck at the Dumping Ground?"

"I, er, I punched my foster dad."

"Exactly!" said Tyler.

"Oh shut up you two. Come on then, let's see my room," Saskia said, smiling.

"Carmen, could you show Saskia her room? Saskia, it's great to have you back, by the way. You've got your own room, and we're going to let you design it as you want. Nobody's in it at the moment, so it's very bare, but as soon as we've painted it and everything it'll look great," said Mike.

"Okay, that's fine," Saskia said, as Carmen grabbed her hand and dragged her up the stairs. Saskia Jones was back at the Dumping Ground, and it was going to be great. For her, maybe. I was still feeling upset, and I didn't think I would ever get better.

Mike, Tracy, Mark, Toby, Brandon, Skye, Tyler, Carmen, me (Demon), Johnny, Viva, Saskia, Gabriella and Faith in...

THE DUMPING GROUND DIARIES

Episode 1: Discovery in the DG

"Right!" cried Mike. "It's ready, two webcams, two rooms, perfect CCTV. Mark, you've always been saying that somebody's been stealing all the chocolate biscuits, so now I've got a webcam in the kitchen and you can catch whoever it is in the act. The other webcam, in here, so everything stays safe and shipshape".

"If you say so," said Tracy apprehensively.

"Relax, it'll be fine!" said Mike. "Probably," he added.

"Right guys. Diaries," said Tracy when all of us kids were assembled in the living room about an hour later. New arrivals since the death of my sister included six-year-old Toby Aldred as well as Faith. Toby was fun and outgoing, with brown curly hair. He often wore dark blue jumpers, and shared a room with Brandon.

"Yeah, what about them?" asked Tyler.

"You're going to write some," Mark said. Everybody groaned.

"But I'm too busy to write stuff every day!" protested Johnny.

"I don't care, Johnny," said Mark. "It's going to be a big long project. I want you to write a regular diary, write something every single day and make it enjoyable, funny, and very good. I want brilliant diary entries from all of you every day until Christmas. It's a fun project and it lets you remember everything that happens every day in the Dumping Ground."

"So, we've got you all a diary, and we want you writing as soon as possible!" Tracy said.

"Sounds like fun," said Faith optimistically, walking up to Tracy and collecting a black hard-back diary.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I wish Gus was still here," said Viva. "Because if he was still here, then maybe he could have helped us. He kept a diary every second of every day anyway." Reluctantly, everybody came up to Tracy and Mark and collected a black hard-back diary, including me. But then I went up to my room and chucked it in the bin. They couldn't force me, so I wasn't writing any diary, no way. But it seemed that the others were.

Toby's Diary

Satterday May 4

I got a buk. I'm supost to rite abowt what is hapning. So that is wot I wil doo.

Toby wasn't exactly the best at spelling. I think that had been revealed after Faith read through his diary entry from the first day, which had (excluding the date) nineteen words in it, eight of them spelt very, very wrong. Faith liked Toby, and Toby liked Tracy. I'd worked that much out. Faith liked to help Toby with everything and see how he was doing. Right now, I think Faith needed to help Toby with spelling.

As I went down the stairs that afternoon, I noticed all the kids around the sofa, reading from the same, dusty old scroll – who had scrolls any more? But all the kids were reading it, and as I came down, they all turned their heads to look at me. Brandon walked away from me a bit.

"What have I done now?" I asked.

"We discovered this – it's this piece of paper, look at it. The writing's ancient," said Faith.

"Wow, some old writing on a bit of paper, doesn't explain much. It's not exactly the best discovery in the DG so far."

"Listen to this," said Carmen, taking the scroll from Tyler. "'Elm Tree House will soon be haunted by a figure in black, in the blackest room of the house, with black hair, and a black heart. This figure in black, an evil demon, will try to destroy all. Beware 2013." Carmen warily handed me the scroll. The paper was yellowing and the information written in an old-fashioned untidy scrawl.

"Right, well on the basis of that-" began Johnny, but suddenly Skye stood up.

"Did you hear that?" she asked, crossing to the door. She opened it and gasped in shock. The other kids crossed to the door and gasped again. It was a toddler. A tiny toddler, a boy. He toddled warily through the door, past the crowd of children, and fell onto the floor in front of the piano.

"Oh my gosh, it's a baby!" cried Faith.

"Well, what do we do about it?" asked Brandon. "Where did it come from?"

"We need to do something. We'll give him to Mike, he'll know what to do," decided Viva.

"But in the meantime, we've got a bigger threat," said Gabriella.

"Gabriella? You believe this stupid scam too? I thought you were one of the nice ones! Johnny did this, or Tyler or somebody, but believe me I can prove to you that this is a fake."

"How?" asked Saskia.

"Well, I'm still thinking about that."

"Until then, get out," said Tyler, and he pushed me out of the door. At least some of the kids were complaining. Faith, Gabriella and Saskia looked a bit shocked, and Toby, Skye and Brandon weren't doing anything. Viva tried to stop Tyler, but he pushed her back. I tried to barge my way back in, but Johnny and Tyler pushed me out of the doorway. I fell backwards onto the painfully sharp stones.

Then I had a brainwave. I barged my way back into the house, and this time I managed to get it, pushing my way past everybody. I walked past the office to the art cupboard and pulled out a big roll of art paper. Then I cut off about 30cm of it, as the kids around me protested and shoved. The ends of the paper curled up a bit. I walked into the office and found a free computer – Mike's. Easy – I knew the password already. I entered it – 'beaker' – and opened a blank document. I shoved the art paper into the printer and quickly typed out the words from the scroll, into the document, using an old-fashioned font. I printed out the document onto the art paper and showed it to the kids.

"The exact same writing as the scroll," I said. "Because the scroll was typed. So it can't be that old. The art paper curls up like the ends of a scroll, and all the culprit needed to do to make this look old-fashioned, was to rub it with a tea-bag. And thanks to Mike's new CCTV... I can find the culprit". I triumphantly walked to the window, where the webcam was stationed, and pulled the slider back on the video, scanning backwards through the images until I saw a familiar blue jumper...

I played the video from that point on, and everybody could see Johnny Taylor typing the words onto Mike's computer, and printing it out onto the scroll.

"Sorry for doubting you, Demon," said Tyler.

"Yeah, sorry," added Carmen.

"Thanks, but next time, wait until you have more proof before you kick me out. As for Johnny, I think we should lock him in the coal bunker, whilst Mike's pre-occupied with this two-year-old. Who agrees?" Quite a few people put their hands up.

"Six people, great. Then let's go and lock him in there for, I don't know, an hour? Whilst I relax. And then Mike can get rid of the baby, and everything's back to normal." I smiled. Maybe life wasn't so bad after all. I didn't have my sister and I didn't have my friend, but at least I had the Dumping Ground.

Well, I couldn't resist giving it to you early! So this episode should give you an idea for the series. The diary entries will feature in most of the chapters. Faith and Toby are the new kids, and Saskia has returned, and there's another new kid in the next chapter...

NEXT TIME...

When new boy Joel Sherwood arrives, things start to go missing and pranks start to be played on people. But who's doing it? Demon knows it's Joel, but nobody will listen to him, and as well as this Joel is sharing rooms with Demon. Eventually, after bouts of stealing and lying, Joel's evil doings reach a dangerous climax...

Episode 2 is called "Mischief in the DG"