Chapter Six

May-Li, Johnny, Jody and Tyler sat in the minibus, just round the corner from Ashdene Ridge. May-Li was just trying to get her head round this.

"I can't believe he's taken them," she muttered. Jody told her, "None of us did." Johnny was looking out the window. He hadn't said much since they'd left Ashdene Ridge.

Jody reassured Johnny, "We'll find her." But Johnny just couldn't get the sound of Tee screaming out of his head. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Tee when he'd last seen her; just ten minutes before she was abducted. She'd been in her day clothes, as she was finishing up painting her nails. She'd been happy and smiling.

He didn't want to try and imagine what she could be going through.

Then May-Li fumed. "There must be something we missed. Why would they take them?"

Tyler suggested, "Well, I there was a syringe on the floor. Maybe they made them sick?"

"But that doesn't explain why they took them all at once," May-Li argued.

Jody asked, "Could the fact that Mr Dunstan has a load of handbooks in other languages mean anything?"

May-Li answered, "I can't quite connect that. Maybe if I had a few more clues, it would make sense." Then May-Li cast her mind back to when she had visited their rooms.

Mo. Bailey. Carmen. Kazima. Harry.

Something was different about them, but she couldn't figure out what.

Carmen and Kazima and Harry simply hid under their beds. The illness couldn't have made them too weak to move, as she'd seen Carmen stick her hand out from underneath her duvet…

May-Li jerked her head up as she thought about that. She remembered that Carmen was wearing a glove. But why would she wear a glove in bed? She had also changed her pyjamas. If she'd just been injected, why would she – or anyone else – bother to change her pyjamas?

There was also Mo's voice. It was much deeper and even though he had a cough, that didn't explain it. In fact, now that she thought about it, the coughing seemed forced on, not an actual cough.

Bailey's room.

She explained her thoughts to them. "Bailey's room was tidy when I went in," she concluded, "but, he wasn't there. If they made him sick as well, why take him and not bother with the others? Why keep them here and take Bailey?"

Then she gasped as she looked outside. The white van was back. The three men got out and into Ashdene Ridge.

"Right, let's go." May-Li told them. "Where?" Jody asked. May-Li turned as they went out, "We need to see their vans. Maybe there are still clues in there."

The red van was locked firmly, but the white one still had its door open.

Inside was a lot of rust, grey rust from machines. There was a metal bench, as well as black, saggy suitcases.

The four of them tore them open, looking, before Johnny, on his knees, stopped searching. May-Li looked over at him and saw that he'd found some objects.

"Look!" she called and they all saw what Johnny had found.

Carmen's lipstick, Mo's glasses, a pair of slippers that Floss wore. But Johnny wasn't looking at any of that.

With one hand, he pulled out what he'd been looking at.

It was Tee's bra.

He fumed, clenching his fist and muttered, "I'm going to kill him."

Then May-Li put her hands on his shoulders, telling him, "Johnny, you can't go and attack him now. They'll overpower us."

Then he ran a hand down his face, before telling her, in a hoarse voice, "All right."

As they left, going to the other side of the road and running, just in case they saw them, Jody asked, "What are we going to do now?"

May-Li thought. But before she could come up with an answer, she saw the three men coming out. Running back to the minibus, she made sure they were on before she looked round the corner.

The flabby man and the bald man had got in the front. She saw a small child clinging onto Mr Dunstan, as he went in the back. It didn't seem as if Mr Dunstan was forcing them in, this child genuinely looked as if they were willingly getting on.

May-Li recognized Harry's pyjamas. Then she thought of something. Maybe Mo, Carmen and Kazima were still inside.

A/N: The solution – or part of it – will be revealed in the next chapter, but before then, can you work anything out?