Angela's car drove along the roads speedily. The journey seemed to go on for hours, though in reality it took twenty minutes: the journey to Elm Tree House.
At the hospital, Gemma the nurse had been adamant that I could not leave the hospital until the 19th, and it was pure torture having to wait until then, with nothing to say or do but think about Elm Tree. And I was surprised at the revelation that Oscar, Cara, Evie and Viva were coming with me to Elm Tree – I thought I'd got rid of Viva. In fact, she was sitting next to me in the car. Angela had been happy to see me in one piece, and decided to drive me to Elm Tree.
As we drove closer and closer to the house, I recognised some of the roads from the trip out to the beach, and from when I escaped on my first night. Then, we drove through the iron gates, and reached Elm Tree House.
The house was looking even better than it had before: it must have been recently painted. It had been over nine months since I saw Elm Tree House, and it looked splendid. The car drove up to the front of the house and I got out, gathering my things from the boot of the car. Mike, Gina and Tracy came outside, Gina in a floral patterned dress, Mike in his normal blue shirt, and Tracy in her standard black leather jacket. I had never been so pleased to see a careworker.
"Demon!" cried Tracy.
"Welcome back!" cried Gina.
"We're very glad to have you back at Elm Tree House," said Mike. I smiled.
"It's like I never left," I told him.
"We've kept your room completely as it is, apart from one thing. You'll see it when you go in there," said Tracy.
"And you must be the kids from Icehill," said Gina.
"Viva, Oscar, Evie and... Cara," Tracy said.
They nodded.
Then Mike said, "Well we're happy to have you at Elm Tree. We'll sort your rooms out in a minute".
I gathered up my things as Angela had a brief talk with Mike. They went into the office and I ran up the stairs, noticing all the things that had been there nine months ago, like Gus' piano. I walked down the corridors to my room, and dumped my stuff on the bed. Then I noticed that it was black.
I looked up. The whole room was black: the bed, wardrobe, desk. Everything was black. And hanging down from the ceiling were blindingly white LED lights. This was exactly as I had envisaged my room when I wanted to paint it. This was awesome. It was exactly what I wanted! I smiled and ran downstairs.
"Thank you!" I yelled.
"No problem," said Mike modestly. It probably was a bit of a problem, because all the black paint would cost quite a bit of money, but it was a nice gesture.
"Where is everyone?" I asked. Even Gina and Tracy had disappeared. Me, Viva, Oscar, Cara and Evie were the only people around. Everything was quiet.
"In the lounge," he explained.
"Thanks. This way, guys," I explained to the Icehill kids. We walked to the lounge and pushed open the door...
… to a huge "SURPRISE!", blowings of several hooter thingies, and balloons in the face – a surprise party! Everybody was there, looking even better than before: even Kitty had ventured out of her room. There was one girl who I didn't recognise with light brown curls: she must be Lorna. Carmen was wearing pink – surprise, surprise – and Tracy and Gina were there too. There was a huge banner reading "WELCOME TO ELM TREE HOUSE", and food everywhere: cakes, biscuits, everything!
"Woah!" exclaimed Evie.
"Welcome to Elm Tree House, Icehill kids!" shouted Tyler.
"And welcome back Demon," said Lily, who I'd just noticed. She was looking amazing! She was in a purple dress.
"You threw a party just for five kids?" asked Cara.
"Four special kids who've recently experienced a traumatising fire-" started Siren.
"And one extra-special kid who decided to put his life at risk to save a seven-year-old's life," finished Lily.
"Well, enough of the sob stories," said Johnny. "Let's get this party started! By the way, I still hate you for the orange juice, and the photograph, and the assaulting attacking thingy, you know that, right?"
"I threw a chair at you, of course you still hate me," I replied. Gina turned the music on and everybody started dancing and generally having a fun time. We all ate the food, and played games, and it was pretty nice. Everybody came up to me and told me how brave I was (I wasn't really listening) and Viva got on everybody's nerves, and Evie asked why there was no jam on toast, and generally it was amazing.
After the celebrations, which went on from 11am to 2pm, all us kids went off to play. The Icehill kids got talking to the Elm Tree kids, and I went up all the stairs to my new room. The two bedrooms nearest mine were Lorna's and Rick's rooms. I walked into my amazing black room, and flopped down on the bed. All my stuff was on the bed, where I'd put it three hours ago. I opened my suitcase and examined the contents: clothes mainly. Most of my clothes were my favourite colours: black, and dark blue. I'd heard that all Johnny's clothes were blue, and Gus only had 7 pairs of beige trousers and 7 navy polo shirts. At least I had some variation in my clothes. I picked up the dark blue shirt on the top, and put it on one of the black hangers in my black wardrobe. I hated hanging things up, but if I didn't do this, I'd be unable to see the black carpet in my new black room.
For the next five minutes, I kept hanging my clothes up. Then, the door was flung open and Johnny ran in.
"I take it the 'knock before you enter' rule has been abolished," I said.
"Sorry," came his reply. He shut the door and knocked.
"Come in," I said. He entered the room.
"Unpacking?" he asked.
"Obviously".
"You dived into a wall of fire? Twice?"
"Yes. I had to. There was a trapped seven-year-old".
"Right..."
"You know we're still going to be complete rivals, right?"
"Yeah". He left, and I continued unpacking. Two minutes later came another knock at the door.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"Viva".
"Oh Jesus... come in!" I yelled, and Viva entered the room.
"This place is pretty nice. It's better than Icehill".
"You bet," I said, "it's Icehill without the orange-and-purple design, and with a lot more fun".
"Great. There's a kid called Lily who seems to like you".
"Well, I don't like her," I lied. She left, and I finished hanging up the clothes. After I'd done that, I moved onto my rucksack, which contained some books and some of my other things. I put those in my black wardrobe too.
Then, I decided to get my iPod out and listen to music for a while. I needed to relax in my new room. I selected 'Music', 'Artists', 'Michael Jackson', 'All Songs' and 'Shuffle'. The first song that was selected at random was 'Bad'. The music started playing, and I relaxed.
After about ten songs, ranging from 'Jam' to 'Sunset Driver' to 'Another Part of Me', I decided to go downstairs. Glancing at the clock, which read 15:20, I left the room to find Kitty outside.
"Welcome back, Demon," she said softly.
"I'm really happy to see you," I replied, and I walked down a corridor, where I bumped into Elektra: exactly who I wanted to see.
"Lex, do you want to look at everybody's files and find something embarrassing in there, to embarrass them with?"
"Yeah," she replied.
"Me too. I've got a plan. Gina's in the garden now, and Mike's out. I'll ask Tracy if she needs to know anything about the Icehill lot. Whilst me and Tracy are in the office, you come in, and say that Rick's escaped, and he's running away. She'll run after him, and we can look at the files".
"Good plan. Let's do this".
We knuckle-punched, and I went downstairs to the kitchen, where Tracy was preparing mid-afternoon snacks for everybody: biscuits and drinks. She was busy pouring orange squash into plastic cups when I came down.
"Hi, Demon! Enjoying it back at the Dumping Ground?" she asked.
"Yeah. Thanks for the party".
"Tracy?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you need any information about the Icehill kids. It's just that the files you got given were written about three years ago, and I know practically everything about them".
"Yeah, okay. Come on, we'll go to the office now".
We walked to the office, and Tracy sat down in her desk, preparing to write what I said, on the computer. She brought up a blank template for a file, and I opened my mouth, ready to tell her about Evie, Oscar, Cara and Diva-er, Viva- when-
"Tracy!" said Elektra, panting.
"What?"
"It's Rick. He ran away, like, five minutes ago".
"Holy pants!" she shouted. "I'll be right back!" She grabbed her coat, and ran out of the room.
"Biscuit?" asked Elektra, a biscuit in her hand. She must have got it from the kitchen, where Tracy had left a plate of biscuits unattended.
I took the biscuit, and she ate hers, as I grabbed the filing cabinet keys, and unlocked the filing cabinet, finding my two files: history and monitoring. I wanted to check some things over.
"Lex, I'm taking mine, putting them in my room. I'll check them over, get rid of anything I don't like, put the file back".
"I'm doing that too," she agreed, grabbing her file.
"Right, now, other people's files".
"We've gotta be quick," she said.
"Don't panic," I said, grabbing Johnny's blue file at random. I couldn't believe what I read.
"What is it?" asked Elektra.
"Look at this about Johnny," I said, sniggering. She saw it too, and started laughing madly.
We left the office with our files, putting Johnny's back, and putting the keys on the desk, still laughing about what we saw in Johnny's file.
"Can you believe it?" asked Elektra.
"No," I replied, "Johnny still sleeps with his 'blankie', and he sucks his thumb!" We carried on laughing, waiting for a way to tease Johnny about this.
I was back at Elm Tree House, and boy, this was going to be fun.