Chapter 1

It wasn't really anyone's fault that we ended captured in that place. What I was relieved about was that so few of the kids were interested in the sinister fairy dip under the fairy tree at the school fete.

Mum had spent weeks baking and sewing and charging around collecting donations for the school fete. Now at long last it was over.

"Ewen," Mum had nagged when she realized the twins weren't around. "We're ready to leave. Go and find your sisters."

"Like where?" I complained.

"Use your initiative. They're were watching the jumping castle being deflated."

Mum hardly let my sisters out of her sight, even if it was the school fete. They hadn't been missing that long and she was nervous already. Except that she never found out that this time that she really had something to panic about.

"A very successful day," Mum said to Dad as they stacked flattened boxes back in the station wagon.

I didn't think so, but I didn't bother to say anything. School fetes were no fun when you were on the receiving end of having to help. I had spent two hours on the ice-cream stall and the rest of the day as ticket taker for the various rides.

The sun was setting. The school yard was getting that creepy look that it got when it was almost deserted. Parents, kids and teachers had mostly drifted off. The amusements and rides were being collapsed and loaded on to trucks. The sound of hammering drifted around from the stalls still being dismantled.

The jumping castle looked like a deflating blimp. Two men were busy folding stuff. There was no sign of my younger twin sisters Felicia and Mandy. Only Perry stood there scowling.

"Hi Useless," Perry said.

My name is actually Ewen Euston but guess what I get?

"Seen the twins?" I asked.

Perry shook his head. "Mum sent me to collect the littlies."

Although Perry and his five brothers lived next to me I had trouble remembering the names of his little brothers. The nasty names they were called by the rest of the district weren't their proper names. "Billy and Jamie and um..."

"Toddles," Perry said. "Mum sent Terry down and he didn't come back."

"They were here earlier, pinching ice-creams from the ice-cream stall," I volunteered.

"Then she sent Derren and he didn't come back either." Perry continued gloomily.

Derren was the next brother down from Perry, and almost responsible. The school yard wasn't that big. With the stalls dismantled and the rides gone, there was not that many places to hide.

We jogged around the schoolyard, past the sports oval and the basketball courts. Old Jansen, the caretaker was sweeping up litter. We ran past the playground with its climbing bars and slides and across to the other side of the sports oval. There were no five Packington brothers or any sign of my twin sisters around.

"There's Will!" Perry said.

"Seen the twins?" I asked.

"Seen my brothers?" Perry asked.

Will looked worried, although he usually looked worried. Will was our class brain, but not too bright about ordinary things. Not that we held it against him.

"Janey's gone missing."

Janey is Will's little sister and mostly a brat. She was pretty bright like Will, but lets everyone know it, all the time.

"Might have gone off with the other kids," Perry suggested.

"She and Mandy and Felicia are pretty thick. Do you reckon they would be together?" I asked.

"Together where?" Will asked. "Janey wouldn't go anywhere without letting me know."

"The littlies could be anywhere," Perry admitted. "But Derren is like a bloodhound at tracking them down and he hasn't come back."

"Nor did Terry," I reminded him.

"Eight kids suddenly gone missing," Will said. "Something's wrong!"

"We'll let our parents know and they can get the police," I said.

My little brothers don't like cops," Perry grumbled.

"We'll do one more circuit of the school grounds," Will suggested. "Then we tell the parents we can't find them."

We actually did two circuits. By then everyone was gone except for my parents waiting by their loaded station wagon and a few more adults talking outside the school gate.

I was stuck with checking the girls' toilets. "If you two ever dare mention this," I threatened.

"This is an emergency," Will said. "Hurry up."

I checked all the cubicles. They were empty.

"Not in the boys' toilets either," Perry said with a scowl.

Old Jansen was emptying litter into the incinerator.

"Seen my sisters or Will's sister or Perry's little brothers?" I asked.

"Seen everyone in the district today," he muttered. "Even ex-students from years ago."

"Janey was over by the jumping castle," Will said.

"Some of the smaller kids were around the fairy tree for a while," Jansen told us. "Although it didn't seem that popular. Suppose the modern kids don't believe in fairies and all that junk these days."

"They put the lucky dip under it and called it the fairy dip," I remembered.

"We'll check it out," Will said.

We ran across to the barrier of trees by the school fence. The old gum had a gnarled enough trunk. With a lot of imagination it might look like a figure with wings. The lucky dip was gone. There was no sign of any of the missing children. There was just trampled rubbish around the tree.

"Not the sort of thing that interested my little brothers," Perry said.

"The twins are very into fairies and lucky dips," I said.

Perry prowled around the back of the tree. "Girls are so stupid," he grumbled. "My little brothers wouldn't have come here."

"Unless they were teasing the girls," I suggested.

"Might at that," Perry admitted.

"So, the twins might have been here, but they aren't here now," I said with a sigh.

"So we go back and tell our parents that they have definitely all gone missing," Will decided.

"Ouch!" Perry yelled suddenly.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

He didn't answer. Will and I stepped around the tree. Perry was gone!