(A/N): Hi, it's great to see so many people reading this :) makes me so happy. A quick response to DG Fan who is asking whether I should make a one-shot about the future of Jyler… well, I don't know! Let me know if you want a cute one-shot.

Anyway here's the next chapter!

Jody POV

My brother's been writing to me again, asking for money. I didn't tell anyone at first, knowing how they'd all react but Floss told everyone during a mock trial.

'Hey sis,

I know you and me haven't always seen eye to eye. But that's alright. I'm sorry for not looking after ya properly. I want us to start again. Just me and you, no one else.

You're my little monkey, and I know you still care about me. That's what family's about, in't it? I wish I could hear ya voice again, maybe smuggle me a phone sometime.

Love from your big bro Kingsley :)'

I read the letter again and again, looking for some apology. Some sign that he'd changed his ways. Nothing. I loved Kingsley, but I wasn't an idiot. After the whole fire incident, and him locking me in my room... I knew I couldn't let him screw me over again.

Still it hurt. Rejecting your family.

But not as much as this.

"Crookman Developments. 3-storey multi-occupancy house..." Mike read out. The littluns had found a letter in the garden and Mike had gathered the house round for a meeting.

Little did we know, this meeting would change our lives.

"What's multi.. um.. occu-pansy?" Taz asked unsure.

"Flats," May-Li replied in shock, "Someone has applied to build flats here..."

Tyler scoffed, "Where? There's no room.."

Mike's face held a grave expression, "What this is saying is that they're going to knock Ashdene Ridge down..."

All of us turned to each other, worry etching onto our faces bit by bit as the situation sunk in. Our home. Destroyed. For once no one said a word; they were all speechless at the prospect of losing their home.

A part of me kind of wished it was a joke, like the one we'd used on Mike. It wasn't.

"But you can't just make a decision without letting us know!" Mike exclaimed into the phone as he paced in the office.

We had all gathered by the door watching Mike and May-Li dial up numbers frantically, trying to hide their panic and worry. They were failing.

"What written notice? We have definitely not had a visit from the Head of Building Planning..." Mike continued as his face got redder by the second.

Ryan spoke up from the stairs, "Maybe they got us mixed up? I mean, this has got to be a mistake..."

"We've got to complain!" I exclaimed. This was so unfair! I mean did they even think about all the kids who lived here? I didn't get it. How could this have ever been allowed to happen in the first place? It didn't make sense.

"We could go to the council..." Tyler suggested.

Alex scoffed, "How come you're the boss?"

"Cos I'm the Children in Care council rep...?"

"Oh, I'm scared...!" Alex mocked. Seriously? Did he not care that we were about to be shut down?

"Letters? What letters?!" Mike shouted into the phone frustrated.

A few moments later, Taz returned with a wad of brown letters. She looked like she was about to cry, and I couldn't help but empathise with her. Her dad had always told her to hide the brown ones. How was she to know what was inside them?

May-Li looked up from one of the letters, "Last day to put your objections in writing... a month ago!"

Great. Now what?

"Come on Mike, let's go! Council?" Tyler asked, shrugging on a blazer. I smiled at him gratefully. You could always count on Tyler to think quickly under pressure.

Hopefully they'd listen to him and change their mind. We were a kid's home, surely they would understand?

Tyler POV

Turned out my idea was hopeless. The council kept banging on about budget cuts and selling off assets. Besides, they seemed to fancy the idea of splitting us up and getting more money.

"Tyler Lewis, the voice of the people!" Alex smirked, but I knew I couldn't have tried any better. The council wouldn't budge.

Dexter looked worried, "But it's nearly Christmas. Will it be after that?"

Mike shrugged defeated, before heading back into the office. Even he couldn't reassure us that everything would be fine. Jody looked horrified.

"No. We're not taking this! We're not giving in!" she emphasised looking around at the others.

"I tried everything Jody..." I told her sadly as Alex scoffed from behind her. Was he for real?

"You wanna go then fill your boots!" I exclaimed angry and defeated, "Show us how it's done!"

"Should've asked me in the first place..." he muttered grinning. Yeah right!

"You're an idiot. You wouldn't even know where to start!" I replied looking him up and down. What did he care? He didn't even want to come here in the first place, despite everyone's efforts to try and make him feel welcome.

I was done trying.

"Quiet!" Joseph exclaimed, "If we're going to save the Dumping Ground we're going to have to work together..."

The reality of the situation sunk in as everyone turned to one another in silent agreement. Joseph was right. We needed all the help we could get. We all immediately set to work as everyone chipped in with ideas.

We needed to spread the word to everyone who could help. Sasha was busy posting vlogs to all her subscribers, Jody was phoning up all the old residents and Floss and Joseph were making petitions to stop the DG closing down.

I had the bright idea to call up the radio station but unfortunately that route was a dead end. All my contacts were busy reporting over some dumb museum opening. Just because the Royals were gonna be there.

A new Ancient Roman wing. Who cared about a room of old relics anyway? All I wanted was a fraction of their publicity, was that too much to ask?

Everyone else seemed to be successful; Jody had convinced a lot of the old care kids to help with the campaign and Sasha's phone had been blowing up with comments on her latest vlog. I couldn't help but feel somewhat useless.

My council rep position had been useless and now I couldn't even count on Five Bridges radio to back me up. If we were going to save the DG, we needed a miracle.

A few moments later, all of us care kids were called in to watch the news. The title read 'Disturbance at Local Museum' and as soon as Alex's stupid face turned up on screen, I facepalmed. Hard.

What the hell was he thinking?

Yes, we needed publicity but not bad press. All that would do is speed up the whole process. Now the whole town was going to think of us as troublesome kids who weren't worth the hassle. Apparently Ryan had gone to try and show Mike's MBE to the Royals, but Alex had egged them.

He'd gotten lucky, if that was anyone else they would have been locked up for sure!

"So what is the 'DG'?" the reporter was saying to the camera. I frowned confused, as the place she was stood in looked familiar. Then it hit me. They were filming right outside!

And when we thought it couldn't get any worse, Dumbleby was speaking to her. We soon realised that the 'head of building planning' was him! All this time he knew and he never said a word!

As Mike went to confront the reporter she let slip a bit more information. Apparently some Mrs X had reported Mike for harassing her. As if!

A clip rolled on screen as we saw the anonymous witness speak to the camera. It didn't take a genius to see that that was Mrs Umbleby. She was twisting all of our kind gestures into rude ones.

"I'm scared to leave the house in case they approach me..." she was saying pathetically.

"What's wrong with the woman?!" May-Li exclaimed in disbelief, voicing all our thoughts.

As the news story finished, I switched off the telly defeated. We were going to be all over the papers tomorrow, for the wrong reasons. Alex and Ryan were grounded. Sasha was losing followers...

"The Dumbleby's stitched us up big time..." Jody sighed, "Who's going to help us now?"

As if hearing our thoughts the doorbell rang.

Jody POV

"It's the army!" Joseph exclaimed.

I frowned. Like this day couldn't get any worse. What were they going to do, march us out of our home? As we all rushed towards the window, I realised what Archie had meant by 'army' and smiled in relief.

Tee and Johnny greeted us at the door, with Johnny all kitted up in his army uniform. I couldn't help the smile that washed over my face.

"You didn't say that you were coming!" I exclaimed grinning.

"Where's Carmen?" Tyler asked as Tee explained that she'd gone to France for college. Good for her! Tee didn't seem too focussed on that though.

"We saw the news. Attic yeah? We have some serious damage limitation to do..." she explained, heading up the stairs without taking her coat off. I followed her with a spring in my step; we still had hope.

Once we reached the attic we got to work, showing Johnny and Tee what we'd done so far. They helped us to believe in ourselves again, reminding us of all the good stuff that we'd contributed to society.

Tee pointed out that Sasha didn't have as many followers as Umbleby did. All we had to do was reach out further. Not just calling for the DG kids but their families, foster families and friends. Starting the 'What the DG did for me'... across all social networking sites.

I realised how far out we could reach. Bailey in America, Liam's brother was a copper and Gus' massive orchestra! All we had to do was persevere, and we'd be bound to attract enough attention.

Joseph came up with another brilliant yet risky idea. At school, the new playground had been crowdfunded by parents - all chipping in with small donations. If we tried really hard, we could get all the care kids to fund for the DG.

Buy the DG!

It sounded crazy but if we all put in our Christmas money and savings, then surely Dumbleby would have no chance!

"But how long have we got? We need to know from Dumbleby when the contracts are signed..." Tyler added. It was a valid point, but I doubted that Dumbleby would just tell us.

No... he just wanted to make us suffer.

Tyler seemed to have his ways though. Just as we'd convinced Mike and May-Li of our crazy Beaker-style plan, Tyler walked in with the news. We had one week.

It was doable. If we didn't hit our target, we'd just give the money back. Nothing lost and nothing gained. Hopefully that wouldn't happen though. I knew that we could do this.

It might have been unconventional, but we were Dumping Ground kids. We could do anything we put our mind to.

Tyler POV

Everything had been looking up. All the old care kids had donated huge amounts of cash; it just went to show how big the DG family was. Past and present, we heard from people whose lives had been changed and had gone on to lead amazing lives.

And then... the money disappeared.

Gone. Just like that.

As we gathered in the living room exhausted by the latest setback, Tee apologised for posting pictures of the cash. Anyone could have stolen it.

"Hang on... Mike's MBE has gone missing too, nothing's been posted about that..." Chloe interrupted.

Charlie caught on, "You think someone stole the MBE?"

"I know I didn't lose it. Whatever Ryan says..." she muttered back sadly. The two of them had been planning to go to London and show off Mike's MBE so the Royals could help. Apparently, that plan wouldn't have worked anyway.

"What if the same person who took the money took the MBE? Then it has to be an inside job. That means it one of us..." Jody realised, as we all realised what was coming.

Room search.

Alex stormed off despite Jody saying that she didn't suspect it was him. I didn't blame him; he'd been acting like an idiot all day. He didn't even donate his Christmas money. But stealing...? A few moments later as we sat in silence, May-Li came back in. She was trying to phone Alex who had run off.

"He's definitely guilty..." Ryan stated.

"No," Jody replied, "He's only gone because everyone's picking on him!"

"And why would he want Mike's medal?" Charlie asked, "Is it even worth that much?"

"He clearly doesn't want to save the DG!" Ryan exclaimed.

May-Li returned with Christmas decorations and tried to liven up the mood. We might have been in danger of shutting down, but it was nice to try and get in the Christmas spirit. Give us hope again.

Jody POV

It didn't take Mike long to work out who had stolen his MBE. Candi-Rose was just trying to stop Chloe from leaving, by making her fight with Ryan. It was clear that the situation was bringing out both the best and the worst in all of us.

The worst thing was we still hadn't found the money yet.

Mike was forced to report a theft, but it seemed that maybe we could raise the money without our Christmas cash. Faith donated £50 and we'd already received loads of donations.

"Mike's found Alex…" Tyler sighed, as we untangled some fairy lights.

I looked at him curiously, "You think he stole the money don't you..?"

Tyler shrugged but I knew him too well. They'd both been arguing a lot the last few days, and I knew Alex wasn't exactly the easiest guy to get along with. Still, he was hurting.

In the days after the fire, everyone at the Dumping Ground stayed a little wary of me. It was the small things: putting away their phones, moving to a different room and even just plain ignoring me.

Tyler tried to defend me, of course, but I knew that it'd take some time to win back their trust. Alex was just going through the same thing.

The police came in and I saw Alex go into the office. Something wasn't right. As I went to check it out, Umbleby arrived. Apparently 'someone' (Umbleby) had reported Alex as being the thief to the police.

How low could you get? As Alex got taken away, Umbleby loitered in the hall with a smug grin on his face.

"So how do I put this? There are grave concerns about the management of this establishment. The council want to extricate themselves asap..."

"Do you wanna say that in English?" Johnny asked from the doorway.

"We're moving the sale forward..." Umbleby smirked, "New contracts will be drawn up tomorrow.."

Tomorrow? We wouldn't have enough time. How could he be so cruel?

Tyler looked at him defiantly, "You're only doing this to stop us, cos you know we'll win..."

"Boo hoo!"

As he slammed the door behind him, I tried to hold my nerve. We had less than 24 hours. What could we possibly do now?