While Marlin did nothing but worry all day, Nemo was having the time of his life, making loads of new friends. When he came out of school at the end of the day his bright orange cast was covered in the names of half the kids in the school. Walking home, Nemo rambled on about all his new friends.

"…and they asked me to go play in the park after school, can I dad?"

"Yeah," said Marlin, "we'll go home and have some tea, then I'll take you to the park."

"I wanna go on my own, everyone else does!"

"I don't know about that…maybe when you're a bit older."

"Pearl's younger than me, she's allowed to go," Nemo complained, "and the park's only across the road, you can see it from the window!"

"Sorry, the answer's no."

Nemo sulked the rest of the way home.

Later on there was a knock on the door. Marlin answered, it was Tad, Pearl, Sheldon and a few other kids.

"Can Nemo come out?" asked Sheldon.

"No, sorry kids," he said, "Nemo can't come out today"

As soon as Marlin closed the door, Nemo stomped off to his room to sulk some more, as he muttered "I hate you" under his breath, loud enough for Marlin to hear. He closed his bedroom door and waited until he heard Marlin go into the bathroom. He stuffed his feet into his trainers, pulled on his coat and hat and crept out the front door, carefully closing it behind him.

He legged it along the balcony and down the stairs before his dad had a chance to notice he was gone, but as soon as he reached the bottom, he heard a door open upstairs, then his dad calling his name.

Nemo hesitated for a second, and then continued towards the park, where he could see his new friends playing a game of footie. One of the boys kicked the ball hard; it went over the fence and rolled down the road before it got stuck underneath a parked car with near Nemo.

"Nemo, you made it," called Tad, "Get the ball for us!"

"Ok!"

"Nemo!" he heard his dads voice again, which he ignored.

Nemo, not noticing there were three men sitting in the car, dislodged the ball and kicked it back over to them, just as he was about to cross the road he heard the car door open behind him. Before he could react someone's hand went over his mouth, gagging him, and then pulled him into the car. The door was quickly shut and the car sped off.

Nemo struggled against the stranger, another man in the passenger seat turned around to help restrain him, unknowingly swatting a piece of paper on the dashboard, which flew out the open window.

Later on, Simon arrived back at the flat just as two police officers were leaving.

"What's going on?" he asked them.

"There's no easy way to say this Si," one replied, "your nephew is missing…"

"I doubt it," said Simon, "Marlin freaks out if the kid's not within eyeshot of him, he's just overreacting like usual."

"No Simon," she replied, "he's been kidnapped, there were witnesses."

Simon swore, then ran into the flat, where he found Marlin sitting on Nemo's bed, just staring into space.

Simon, who was usually the biggest gob in the city, was tiptoeing on eggshells wondering what on earth to say.

"They'll find him…uh, there plenty of witnesses and I'll bet the CCTV cameras caught the license plate number."

"The cameras were broken by some stupid punk kids; none of the witnesses got the license plate number."

"Um…I'll bet they find the scumbags just by the car then…I mean how many people really drive a….?"

"Silver Ford Fiesta."

"Ohhh…"

"Anyway, since when have the police done anything right, they never caught the scumbags that killed…"

Marlin paused for a moment and took his hand out of his pocket, where he'd had a piece of paper he found on the ground, the same paper he saw fly out of the car window that afternoon. He'd stuffed it into his pocket and forgotten about it.

"What's that?"

"A letter, it flew out of the car earlier."

He took the letter out of the envelope, it was only a bank statement, but it had an address:

Phillip Sherman

42 St. David's Way

New Sydney

Monmouthshire

NP27 2AL

"Where's Mon…mouth….shire?" asked Simon

"In Wales….that's where I'm going."

"Marlin are you crazy? Just call the police!"

"What did I just say 30 seconds ago? The police couldn't find their own noses; I'll take care of this myself!"

Marlin grabbed his car keys and rushed out of the flat.

"Wait a minute then, I'm coming with you!" said Simon, shutting the door behind him.