‘So on balance?’ Lee asked.

‘I don’t think we should call,’ I said sadly.

‘I agree,’ Homer said.

‘Me too,’ Lee said.

‘Then it’s Corrie’s turn,’ Homer said. ‘And Kevin’s. I don’t even know where Robyn lives.’

‘Just outside town,’ I said.

‘Well, I guess geographically Corrie and Kevin come first.’ He looked at Lee, who nodded without speaking. He’d already figured out who was last.

The seven of us came together in the kitchen, with almost perfect timing Corrie carrying a bucket of milk. The milk stank. It looked like pale scrambled eggs. Kevin was with her. They were gripping each other’s hands, hanging on tight I poured some of the milk into a salad bowl and gave it to Millie, who at last started to show some enthusiasm. She sniffed it, then lapped it eagerly.

Kevin said to Homer, ‘Do you mind if we go to our places? We’ll go on our own if we can have a vehicle or ...’ he looked at me, ‘... the Landrover.’

‘Dad said I was the only ...’ I started, then stopped, realising how weak it sounded. But I’d done enough logical thinking in the Yannos’ office.

Robyn took over. ‘We’ve got to think, guys. I know we all want to rush off, but this is one time we can’t afford to give in to feelings. There could be a lot at stake here. Lives even. We’ve got to assume that something really bad is happening, something quite evil. If we’re wrong, then we can laugh about it later, but we’ve got to assume that they’re not down the pub or gone on a holiday.’

‘Of course it’s bad,’ I yelled at her. ‘Do you think my dad would leave his dogs to die like that? Do you think I’ll be having a good laugh about that tomorrow?’ I was screaming and crying at the same time. There was a pause, then suddenly everyone lost control. Robyn started crying, and yelling ‘I didn’t mean it that way Ellie, you know I didn’t!’; Corrie was shouting ‘Shut up! Everyone shut up!’; Kevin was rubbing his fingers through his hair, going ‘Oh God, oh God, what’s going on?’; Fi had her hand in her mouth and looked like she wanted to eat it. She was so white I thought she was about to faint. Suddenly Homer, madly, said, ‘Fi, I’ve heard of biting your nails, but that’s ridiculous’. We all looked at Fi and a moment later we were all laughing. Hysterical laughter, but it was laughter. Lee had had tears pouring down his face, but now he wiped them away and said quickly, ‘Let’s listen to Robyn. Come on everyone.’

‘I’m sorry Robyn,’ I said. ‘I know you didn’t mean ...’

‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘It was a bad choice of words.’ She took a deep breath and clenched her fists. You could see her calming herself, like she did at netball sometimes.

At last she continued. ‘Look everyone, I didn’t want to say much. Just that we’ve got to be careful. If we go rushing around the countryside, to seven different houses, well, it mightn’t be such a bright thing to do, that’s all. We should decide some things, like whether to stick together, or break into small groups, like Kevin and Corrie want to do. Whether we should use the vehicles. Whether we should go any further in daylight. It’s almost dark now. For a start I suggest no one goes on from here until it is dark, and that when they do go they don’t use lights.’

‘What do you think’s happened?’ I asked. ‘Do you think the same as Lee?’

‘Well,’ said Robyn. ‘There’s no sign of anyone leaving in a hurry, like in an emergency. They left some days ago. And they expected to come back some days ago. Now, what’s something that everyone would have gone off to some days ago, expecting to come back? We all know the answer to that.’

‘Commemoration Day,’ said Corrie. ‘The Show.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Homer,’ I said, ‘is there some way you can tell if your parents came back from the Show? I mean, if I’d thought of it before, I could have looked for a couple of our bulls that I know Dad was showing, that he wouldn’t have sold for any price. And he wouldn’t have come back from the Show without them. I mean, he would have kept those bulls in the bedroom if Mum had let him.’

Homer thought for a minute.

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Mum’s needlepoint. She enters a new piece every year, then win lose or draw she brings it back and hangs it on her Honour Wall. She gets a big thrill putting it up there. Hang on a sec.’

He ran out, and we waited in silence. He was back a moment later. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s not there.’

‘OK,’ Robyn said. ‘Let’s assume that a lot of people went to the Show and didn’t come back. And let’s assume that since Commem Day all power and phones have been cut, all radio stations are off the air, and there have been a number of fires. And the people who went to the Show wanted to come back but couldn’t. Where does that get us?’

‘And there’s the other thing,’ Lee said.

Robyn looked at him. ‘Yes,’ she said.

Lee continued, ‘The night of the Show those hundreds of aircraft, maybe even more than hundreds, that came in over the coast, flying low and at high speed.’

‘And without lights,’ I added, realising that critical point for the first time.

‘Without lights?’ Kevin said. ‘You didn’t tell us that.’

‘It didn’t strike me,’ I said. ‘You know how you notice something, but not consciously? That’s what it was like.’

‘Let’s assume something else,’ Fi said. She sounded, and looked, angry. ‘Let’s assume that what you’re saying is absolutely ridiculous.’ She sounded like me, in this same room, not very many minutes earlier. Hadn’t I said ‘absolutely ridiculous’? But now I was starting to come round to Lee and Robyn’s way of thinking. That little point about the lights had made a difference to me. No legitimate aircraft, no aircraft on a legitimate mission, would have been flying without lights. I should have registered it at the time, and I was annoyed at myself that I hadn’t.

But Fi continued, ‘There are dozens more likely theories. Dozens! I don’t know why you won’t consider them.’

‘OK Fi, fire away,’ said Kevin. ‘But fire quickly.’ The strain was really showing in Kevin’s face.

‘All right,’ said Fi. ‘Number one. They’re sick. They went to the Show and got food poisoning or something. They’re in hospital.’

‘Then the neighbours would have been here, looking after the place,’ Homer said.

‘They got sick too,’ said Fi.

‘That doesn’t explain why all the radio stations are off the air,’ said Corrie.

‘Everyone’s sick then,’ said Fi. ‘There’s a national problem, with some illness or disease.’

‘That doesn’t explain the planes,’ Robyn said.

‘They were just coming back from Commem Day, like we said.’

‘Without lights? And so many of them? Fi, I don’t know if we even have that many planes. I don’t know if our Air Force is that big.’

‘OK,’ said Fi. ‘There is some national emergency, and everyone’s had to go and help.’

‘And the planes?’

‘It’s the Air Force, going to help. And maybe other countries’ air forces too, all helping.’

‘Then why would they have no lights?’ Robyn was shouting now, getting mad, like she did on the netball court.

‘We don’t know that for sure.’ Fi was shouting too. Fi shouting? First time for everything, I thought. Fi continued, ‘Ellie might have been wrong. It was the middle of the night. She would have been half asleep. I mean she only just thought to mention it now. She couldn’t be that certain.’

‘I saw them Fi,’ I said. ‘I’m certain. It didn’t strike me at the time. My eyes were working. It’s just that my brain wasn’t. Anyway, Robyn saw them, and Lee. Ask them.’

‘We didn’t see them,’ Robyn snapped. ‘We only heard them.’

‘Everyone calm down,’ Homer interrupted. ‘Stay calm, or we’ll get nowhere. Come on Fi, what else?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just think they’ve rushed off somewhere to help. Maybe some whales got stranded.’

‘So two lots of parents rush off without even leaving notes?’ Kevin asked.