The aftermath of this is obviously Mrs Hunter not picking them up as she is at the hospital with Lloyd and the three of them have to get the bus to their house from the train station.

HEADING TO THE VILLAGE

"You don't suppose Rose is now part of SPLAT?"

The question, tentatively raised into conversation by Ingrid, had been one playing on all of their minds. The Hunter trio were living apart from them for the first time in their entire lives, and stumbling upon someone they used to know who was interacting with them daily…

"I'm sure she isn't." Mandy said, lounging back in her train seat. "Lloyd would have mentioned it in his last letter." She frowned suddenly. "Come to think of it, Lloyd hasn't sent one for a few days now."

"I'm sure he's too busy exploring the abandoned village." Ian snorted. "He's probably waiting at the train station, ready to spill all the gossip."

"What are we going to do if Rose is part of SPLAT? There should only be six of us, that's the rule and I'm not giving up my place! And she'd have to bring her own deck chair to the meetings… well, not like it'd ever happen!"

"She won't be." Ian stretched out his long legs in front of him, placing his feet onto the empty seat opposite. "Mands is right, Lloyd would have told us."

Ingrid pouted, sliding her fallen bag out of the way as an elderly woman hobbled past on her way to the bathroom. "Still think that we'll get there and she'll be trying to weave her way into our group." She grumbled to herself, before raising her voice.

"Well, she can weave her way back out. She's not going into my group."

"It's not your group, Ing." Ian rolled his eyes in exasperation at her bragging, before looking out the window, grimacing at the plentiful fields. "Maybe Lloyd was right… Does seem like it's in the middle of nowhere. I hope there's a joke shop there I can spend all my pocket money on."

"Probably not." Mandy said. "I don't think a joke shop fits into the village stereotype."

"Yeah, it's going to be all old people. Poor Hunters, they've walked into a living cemetery."

"Ingrid!"

"Oh what? I didn't say anything bad! Anyway, it's Rose I'm worrying about. What if she manages to worm her way into SPLAT? I'm not having creepy Head Prefect chanting our motto and she better stay away from my Harv-Harv!"

"Nah, don't worry, he's too short for her anyway. Hey, don't glare at me."

"But she's not the Head Prefect anymore. The Headmaster is gone, she's not under his control."

"How do we know the Headmaster is gone? He turned up at that stupid tower when we thought we'd seen the last of him. We can't be sure that he's fully gone. Bit suspicious how Rose has turned up in the same place the Hunters have moved too and at the exact same time. I don't like it."

"Ingrid, you don't like anything." Ian snickered. "Come on, it'll be fine. We'll be polite to Rose, but we don't have to become friends with her or anything. We'll be too busy hanging out with Lloyd, Dinah and Harvey."

"And she might have found her own group of friends. You just have to be civil, that's all."

"But it's hard, Mands!" Ingrid slouched in her seat, sulking. "I don't want to be polite."

"Well, you have to be. Look, the Hunters have had a fresh start, so we need to give them all our support. Rose included. It must have been hard for her as well to suddenly move to the countryside."

"Uprooted, think they call it." Ian yawned, stretching his arms up into the air. "I'm knackered, might go to bed when we get there."

"It's three in the afternoon!"

"And someone stayed up playing Playstation 1 all night even though he had a long journey the next day, but what are you going to do?"

Mandy sighed as Ingrid clicked her fingers, eyes sparkling. "You did that?"

"Yeah, Ing, nice of you to catch up."

"Rude." She made a face at him, then kicked back in her seat, earning an over the top of the chair glare from the passenger seated behind her. "I hope the village isn't too weird. Can you imagine if we encountered the Headmaster there? We'd be so isolated and if he had the whole village under his control, then we'd be stuck surrounded by the countryside and we'd be running miles and miles just to get away."

Her two friends were left stunned by this possible horrific situation, grateful when the train driver announced that they were pulling into the village where the Hunters now resided. Quickly getting to their feet and hauling their bags onto their backs, the three children stepped off of the train and headed towards the station entrance, tickets in hand.

"Let's hope we don't have to wait too long for Mrs Hunter to come and pick us up." Mandy said, breaking the silence. "It'll be good to finally find out what's going on in the village."