As they passed the last house on the street, a Victorian house with a roofed turret, Matthew saw the hill. It was high, covered in trees and was surrounded by a high fence.

'That is Maple Hill,' said John.

'It's quite steep, isn't it?' Matthew responded, gazing up. 'You race carts down the entire thing?'

'That's right,' said Norman. 'We start all the way at the top and finish at the bottom.'

When they entered Maple Hill Park, Matthew didn't need to be told where the race track was. There were no markers marking its boundaries, just a path of churned up soil, devoid of any vegetation, winding its way up the hill. It hugged huge boulders, dipped under gigantic gnarly tree roots, ran through a shallow stream and even disappeared inside the hill.

Seeing that there were hundreds of people inside the park, either taking their dogs for a walk or just having a stroll, Matthew wondered how it was possible to race without anyone noticing. He had been told nobody outside the street children community knew about the cart races and they wanted to keep it that way. 'If the authorities found out what we're doing they would definitely put an end to it,' John had told him.

He asked the others this riddle.

'At night,' answered Norman. 'The park's closed.'

'But if it's at night,' said Matthew, 'won't the drivers be unable to see?'

'The track's lit up,' said John.

'Really?' said Matthew, surprised.

'Really. Now . . . I think we have time to show you our carts.'

Matthew was led back out of Maple Hill Park and taken down a street with scruffy looking shops. They then turned into an alleyway between the back of a row of abandoned houses and a large mattress factory. Halfway down, they came to a halt beside a large image of a fox painted on the ground.

There looked to be no reason for why they stopped, but Matthew just followed the others' lead and dropped whatever was in his hands. Then, something happened that Matthew wouldn't have visioned in his wildest of dreams. Norman began climbing the back of one of the houses using holes in the brick work. Three quarters up he pushed on a patch of wall until it swung open as if it was on hinges.

'Ah, Slink,' Matthew heard Norman say in a surprised tone as he climbed through the wall. 'I didn't know you were going to be here this early.'

'Is that Slink?' John asked Norman.

Norman popped his head out. 'Yeah, it is. He thought he should get started drawing up some plans for some new carts.'

'Hey, Matthew,' said John, 'you first.'

Never having climbed up the side of a house before, it was a rather bizarre feeling for Matthew. And when he reached the hole, Norman helped him through and into a room that was full of tools. There was also some sort of crane against the wall, wheels, scraps of metal, and, of course, five carts, which looked magnificent. It was a garage.

Of the carts, there were two, one red and the other blue that looked like rockets. There was a white one shaped like a bumper car and a pink one that looked like a giant doorstop. The last was black and it reminded Matthew of an old train engine. Every cart had a windshield.

Slink was sitting on a desk at the other end of the room, pencils, pens, rulers, compasses, and pieces of paper scattered all over it. 'Welcome, Matthew, to everything carts.'

'This place is amazing,' replied Matthew, as John came through the hole.

'We build, repair and store our carts here,' said Slink.

'Slink's the main engineer and mechanic,' said John.

'This room used to be my old home before I joined up with these guys,' said Slink. 'I built it myself in the attic of this house after it was abandoned.'

'See that contraption, Matthew,' said John. He was pointing to the thing Matthew thought was a crane. It was. 'We use it to lower and lift the carts to and from the ground.'

'Brilliant.' Matthew then moved closer to the carts.

'I see you took the wheels off the carts,' Astrid said to Slink. 'Are you going to put different ones on?'

'No, I'm just going to put more grooves in the rubber tires for better traction,' replied Slink. 'I've been meaning to do it since our last practice. We were sliding around too much for my liking. I thought about putting plastic spikes on the tires but that might slow the carts down. There's a fine balance between traction and speed.'

Norman came over to Matthew and said to him, 'The red one is called Red Lightning, the blue . . . Blue Thunder, the white . . . White Hail, the black . . . Black Rain, and the pink is called Pink Tornado.'

'Speaking of cart names,' said John, 'I've come up with a name for my cart.'

'We haven't even built any yet,' said Slink.

'I know . . . I know,' said John. 'But when we do build my cart –'

'If we build you a cart,' said Norman.

'When we build my cart,' said John, 'I'm going to name it – keeping with the whole storm theme – Golden Wind.'

There was an awkward silence. By the look on John's face, that was far from the reaction he wanted.

Norman eventually said, 'Golden Wind sounds like a really expensive fart.'

At that word, Matthew and everyone else, except John, burst out laughing. Matthew wailed so much his stomach began to ache. It was the first time in ages he had laughed like that. It felt good.

'You guys can stick it,' John said angrily. 'I'm calling it Golden Wind.'

'Oh, boy, wait until everyone hears about this,' chuckled Slink, slapping the desk with his hand.

'I think Golden Gail would be better, John' said Stacy.

'Yeah, that sounds good,' said Norman. 'It has a nice ring to it.'

'No!' John said in an unyielding manner.

While the others took all the chimney sweeping equipment back home, Matthew stayed at the garage to help Slink with the tires. He wanted to learn more about the carts.

Screwing a bicycle wheel onto Pink Tornado, using a homemade wrench Slink had made, Matthew asked, 'What made you leave this place to join up with the others?'

'I got into a little bit of trouble with the Mongraw Gang,' replied Slink, rummaging through a glass jar full of bolts. 'Terry, the leader, accused me of pointing him out to a cop while he was pickpocketing someone. I was there, but I didn't rat him out. The Mongraw Gang came after me, looking everywhere in the Free Territory. After that I asked the others if I could live with them -- safer to be amongst friends. And obviously -- being the good friends they are -- they said yes. That's when I found out about their crusade against Mr Sterling.'

After a pause, Matthew asked, 'Are the Mongraw Gang still after you?'

'Not really sure about that. If I see any of them I tend to hide.'

'You must run into them at Maple Hill Park when there's a race. Surely you would know if they're still after you.'

'I do run into them, but they wouldn't do anything there. Well, they haven't done anything yet, either to me or anyone else. From what we know, the Mongraw Gang and the Westies have some sort of an agreement with one another that bad feelings towards each other or other children shouldn't interfere with the races. At race time, Maple Hill Park becomes a sort of sanctuary. Don't get me wrong, the Mongraw Gang do try to run me off the track, try to take me out of the race, but they do that to everyone.'

Slink gave Matthew a pat of appreciation and a thanks when all the wheels had been put back onto the carts. Then, using the crane, he lifted up Blue Thunder to show Matthew the under workings of their carts. The steering and the braking looked incredibly complex.

'Braking systems, like steering, do vary amongst carts,' said Slink. 'I've even seen Free Territory children use their shoes as brakes. There was one kid who did that once and his shoes just disintegrated. His feet got shredded to pieces . Talk about minced meat.'

Matthew gasped, scrunching up his face. 'Nasty.'

'I can't recall who it was,' said Slink, 'but we patched them up.'

On their return to the Harrower, Matthew and Slink found Chloe, Jennifer, Norman and John sitting around the table. They were in deep conversation.

'What's wrong?' Slink said, looking concerned.

Chloe held up a phonebook. 'We were just looking up the addresses of all the Greys.'

'Why?' asked Ted. 'Who's this Grey?'

'Mrs Grey,' answered Matthew. 'Miss Thorn's sister.'

'If we find out where she lives,' said John, 'she could lead us to children, to Matthew's friends from Bordash Manor.'

'So, how many Greys are there?' asked Matthew.

'About three hundred,' said Jennifer.

Matthew whistled through his teeth.

'Thankfully most of the Greys live in the Free Territory,' added Jennifer.

'Do you know Mrs Grey's first name?' asked Ted, 'because that would help.'

'No kidding, Sherlock,' said John. 'We've already asked Matthew that.'

'Miss Thorn called her Sis all the time when she visited Bordash Manor,' said Matthew, 'and we had to call her Mrs Grey.'

'Shame you're the only one, Matthew, who knows what Mrs Grey looks like because we could split up,' started Chloe.

'I don't mind checking them all out,' said Matthew.

'Well, you'll have us for company,' said Chloe. 'We'll start tomorrow.'

Sitting down at the table, after cleaning himself up, Matthew thought about something. Why not follow Mr Sterling. He could lead them to children too. They didn't control Long Street, so they couldn't follow him right from his home, but surely he travelled into the Free Territory. They could wait for him and when he did, they could follow him. Matthew told everyone what he was thinking.

'We tried that once, following his car with ours – he doesn't walk anywhere – but things didn't work out as we hoped. You see, whenever Mr Sterling goes out, he always takes with him bodyguards, smart bodyguards who carry guns.'

'My word. What happened?' asked Matthew.

Slink answered. 'We don't know exactly when his bodyguards knew we were tailing them, but they took us somewhere out of the way on purpose. Next thing we knew, bullets were flying. We were so lucky to get outta there alive.'

'Wow,' said Matthew.

'You should have seen our car,' said Norman. 'We had to replace the engine – we bought one at a junk yard across the city – and it took us forever to fill in all the bullet holes. Talk about Swiss cheese.'

'We had to paint it a different color as well, to what it is now,' said John, 'just in case Mr Sterling came looking for it in Spring Heights. Before, it was a beautiful cherry red.'

Matthew knew that rescuing children from Mr Sterling was going to be a dangerous business, but that didn't mean he couldn't be scared by what he had just heard.