The three remaining members of The Reading Group loudly arrived back at the orphanage entrance in a red-faced cacophony of running feet, especially Lucas who was holding his side in a useless attempt to ease the pain of the massive stitch he had been carrying for the last fifty yards. He looked at the stairs and shook his head and hand. “I… can’t.” Casper’s lungs were on fire and Lucas’ lament gave him the excuse he was looking for to rest. “’s’okay… we… can wait… I… suppose.” He hadn’t even finished the sentence before Onetooth and Lucas flopped down on the worn concrete bottom step. Once they had recovered, they stamped their way upstairs, earning a frown from a member of staff coming from the opposite direction. She pointed to one of the many notices that lined the walls of the stairwell all the way to the top floor. “No running, boys.” The three boys immediately slowed to a walking pace and stayed that way for the next flight of stairs, by which time the staffer had disappeared. They arrived at the first floor at a dead run. Casper pointed to the right and sent Onetooth and Lucas off to up to the next floor to look in the ablutions, presently being cleaned by two girls on jankers. Casper turned left and burst through the double doors into the boys’ dormitory. A quick look towards Micky’s bed and a cursory glance around the dorm showed no sign of their bespectacled quarry. Casper turned on his heal and followed the other two upstairs. He met them at the junction. However, it wasn’t until they’d reached the top floor that they found Micky quietly reading at an empty table in the dining hall, oblivious to the resentful muttering of another jankered orphan scrubbing the next table along. Onetooth and Lucas plonked down either side of the surprised Micky while Casper sat opposite. This was the tactic of bullies so Micky immediately snatched his glasses off to protect them. So it was with blurry squinting that he only then identified Casper. The Reading Group might be gangsters, but they weren’t bullies… Finny would never allow that sort of thing. Micky closed his book, using his finger as a bookmark. “Hi?” Casper spent the minimum time on a greeting before getting to the point. “Hey Micky. You was a Borough kid wasn’t you?” Micky looked suspicious. Asking questions about ‘before’ was frowned upon among the inmates. “Ummmm. Yes… so?” Quite a few of the orphans had been rescued by the Union from The Borough, not as any magnanimous gesture of goodwill to the plight of the children in there, though. It was more as a response to the decent citizens of New Flagstaff demanding something be done about the rampant thievery being practised by the pint-sized pick-pockets. Micky hadn’t been one of those and didn’t like being taken for one. “Will you show us where to go… and how to get in?” Micky hadn’t been expecting that. For a moment, the first seven years of his life flashed before his eyes in a horrible cliché. “No.” He opened his book again, carefully levered the wire loops of his glasses back around his ears and bowed his head to pick up from where had left off. Casper hadn’t been expecting that from Micky either. For a moment, his just stared at the top of Micky’s head with his mouth open… until he noticed Onetooth and Lucas urging him with side nods towards Micky to try again. Casper got his mouth restarted. “I think Finny’s bin took in there.” It wasn’t so much Casper’s words, it was the crack in his voice as he spoke them. He closed the book with a loud sigh but without bothering to bookmark it this time. “Fine.” The three grins from Casper and co would have lit up the room, but that’s just another cliché and we’ve already had one. Four heads huddled together over the table. Probably because of the James Bond novel now laying ignored between them, Mick raised his head and dramatically scoured the other tables for SMERSH agents. The kid on jankers, who wasn’t a SMERSH agent, got the hint anyway and took his bucket and scrubbing brush to another table. Satisfied, Plastic Micky lowered his head again. “We’re gonna need disguises.” Casper curled a lip. “What like false beards and stuff?” Micky thought about what he meant for a moment. “No, I mean like tatty old clothes… and dirt, lots of dirt.” The next half hour saw all four boys back down on the ground floor and searching through the hamper of miscellaneous clothing donated by the good people of New Flagstaff. There wasn’t much to choose from. All new donations were quickly picked apart in the hope of finding something to wear other than the orphanage issue blue dresses, tee-shirts or shorts. Lucas had been an inmate for nearly a month now and was still wearing the tee-shirt, shorts and mismatched shoes he had been issued with on arrival. So anything decent, or even wearable was gone almost immediately after arrival. The rest; the blood-stained, the gusset-less, the shredded and the inappropriate, like sequinned knickers and tasselled bras was left to accumulate at the bottom of the hamper until that’s all there was room for. Then the whole lot was transferred to sacks and given to the rag and bone man. Pickings were sparse then, but eventually each boy had an armful of odorous clothing which they carried off to the dorm to change into. Each boy except Micky that was. When queried about this on their way up the stairs, Micky just shoved his glasses up his nose in a disdainful gesture. “I don’t need a disguise because I’m real.” Casper, Onetooth and Lucas looked at each other. Casper shrugged. “Fair enough.” Once changed into their ‘disguises’ the boys reassembled in the entrance hall. The few members of staff that saw them there either walked away shaking their heads or assumed this was some new game that they hoped wasn’t going to catch on. Micky inspected his troops. “Thought so. We’re all too clean.” Onetooth jumped up and down, grinning. “I can fix that!” His arm shot up. “To the dump! Hoaaaaaaaa!” The dump was the playground of the younger kids, the ones whose imaginations could still turn a hastily built mish-mash of bent rebar and broken pallets into a mighty fortress to be defended against the combined assaults of monsters and mutants. The staff didn’t mind them playing there, even if they were technically trespassing and were often chased out by a cranky watchman. But it was close-by and relatively safe and it was easy enough to see from an upper window who was there; which was a huge advantage because two thirds of the inmates were pre-teens… and we all know what they’re like. Once at the dump and in the company of all the noisy orphans happily defending today’s forts, Onetooth suggested the best way to get dirty was just to play capture the flag with the others. Casper vetoed that immediately. “We don’t have time. We gotta get there, find Finny, rescue her from the baddies and get back again before curfew.” Micky scrunched his glasses back up his nose. “You mean by dinner. I’m not missing my dinner.” Lucas and Onetooth were nodding their heads. Casper gave in. Dinner was a whole hour before curfew, when the front doors were locked. “Okay, fine, by dinner time then.” Casper, of course, had no intention of leaving without Finny, no matter how long it took. Lucas almost raised his hand. “What we gonna do to get dirty then?” But Onetooth was already doing it. “Pretty much that I suppose.” Casper said, joining Onetooth rolling around in the dust and oil and hopefully not hidden dog poo. It didn’t take long. Children are dirt magnets anyway and can get filthy just standing still. The results of their efforts ran off towards the empty ammo factory where only Taiyoko, the head overseer, was present to apologise to irate customers. Casper gathered his army. “Right, are we all ready?” Heads nodded. “Okay, let’s go… For Finny!” Onetooth was the only one to join in the war-cry whole heartedly. Lucas kinda raised his hand and went ‘yay’ in an embarrassed way and Micky muttered something to himself that sounded more like: “For dinner.” Whatever, they were on their way. The Finny Stories In chronological order: 000 Finny Intro 001 The Locket 002 Rats 003 A Christmas Finny 004 The Secret Adventurer’s Club 005 The Secret Adventurer’s Club: Second Adventure 006 Finny’s Birthday 007 Union Candy 008 Then There Were Three 009 Then There Were Four Again – Sort Of (WIP)