I expected the others to disappear, but instead they did the opposite and all joined us. The truant officer looked a bit nervous with so many children surrounding him, but the policewoman, who was a lot younger, kept her cool.

"If you are with a teacher, then there shouldn't be any trouble," she said.

Aurora started babbling something in very rapid Russian, waving her arms around a lot. Ruth quickly joined in. My Russian wasn't up to spec, but Melissa caught on quickly enough.

"I am sorry about this," she said in English, with a very thick Russian accent. "They are both worried that you are English secret police and they will be tortured."

"We aren't like that," said the Educational Welfare Officer, horrified that someone would think that of him. "I just want to make sure that people get the education they should."

"Well, we aren't even being allowed to finish our meal," I said, pointing to my half-eaten pancake.

"We'll sit over there and let you finish your meal," said the policewoman. "Do you promise not to run off?"

"Of course," I said, indignantly.

Until now, I'd not had chance to look at my PDA and see what Jill had sent. I discretely looked at it and saw that she had copied Stacy and Brenda. As I struggled to finish off the pancake, which I'd only purchased to keep Helen happy, I looked at what was happening. The people who I thought were Hayfield Hall security were happily having another cup of coffee and were making no attempt to assist. The Policewoman was keeping an eye on us, while the Educational Welfare Officer was busy on his mobile phone.

"Sorry, I can't eat any more," I sighed, putting down my folk and spoon.

"It was very kind of you to have a dessert with me," thanked Helen, swapping my dish with her empty one. I couldn't believe that she had the room to finish mine.

When Helen had finished off my leftovers, we started collecting our things, getting ready to leave. I'd been hoping the delay of finishing our meal would have given enough time for Stacy and Brenda to appear, but there was still no sign of them. The truancy cop and policewoman obviously saw us gathering our items together and approached.

"Are you going to arrest us all?" I asked.

"Er, well, we wouldn't arrest you."

"I saw you on your mobile phone earlier," I continued. Wanting this to all be over with, I wasn't dancing around the issues as gently as I might, or possibly should, have. "Have any schools reported a whole class of Russian speaking students missing?"

"Ah, no, nobody hast," he said, slightly embarrassed. "But you shouldn't be wandering around the shopping centre without your teacher?"

"Oh, and do children aged thirteen and fourteen not go shopping here on their own?" asked Melissa.

"Well I suppose so," he conceded. The policewoman was very quiet, apart from a little snigger.

"If we'd gone to the shops as one group, with our teachers, it would have made a very big group. Wouldn't that have made the shopkeepers very nervous?" added Wesley.

"Ah, here they are now," I said, spotting Stacy and Brenda arriving.

The two officers disappeared, after getting confirmation that we were who we said we were.

"You handled the situation very well," praised Stacy. "Now have fun with the rest of the time we have here. If you'll all meet us at two where we got off the busses, we have a little trip to somewhere else planned for you."

Now I knew what I was purchasing, it didn't take long to find what I wanted. Helen also had a moment of inspiration and we managed to have everything purchased in time for the minibus. The Americans were great and helped carry the items. It mustn't have been the most exciting day for them.

When we arrived at the shopping centre exit, three minibuses were waiting. The third driver was Mr Hobson.

"Okay, in the back of the third minibus, you will find ten labelled boxes. Find yours and place your presents in it. That way, they won't be mixed up when I unload them. Any questions?"

There weren't any, and the loading began. It was great that the gifts would be taken back to Hayfield and therefore we didn't have to worry about them going astray during our extra stop. The only one who had trouble was Emma.

"Wow Emma, that dolls house is huge," gaped Sam.

"It's for my niece. Her mother isn't very well off, and I know how much she likes dolls."

"Don't worry about it," said Mr Hobson, with a tender smile on his face. "I'll make sure that it is well looked after. I'm sure Naomi will love it."

As Mr Hobson drove off, we climbed into our minibuses. Everyone was chatting away about what we'd seen and how scary it had been with the Welfare Officer. It wasn't until we'd moved off that the conversation died down and things began to sink in.

"So your niece is called Naomi?" Paula asked Emma. "Is that Sarah's daughter?"

"Yes," Emma replied slowly, her face frowning in deep thought.

"What's up?"

"I've never mentioned my niece to anybody at school, though I have had a few letters from Sarah. I'm sure I've never mentioned what my niece was called. Yet Mr Hobson not only knew I had a niece, but also her name."

From my initial interview, I'd found out that they had done intensive research into my family. Therefore, it really wasn't a shock to me that they knew about Emma's. What was a surprise was that Emma didn't know how intensive the background search was and that Mr Hobson had remembered at least one seemingly remote family member.

I glanced at Helen, who had a look of understanding in her eyes. She shook her head slightly, to indicate I shouldn't say anything. I smiled and gave a slight nod to show my understanding. This wouldn't be a good subject to bring up now and probably not in the short term.

"So where are we going?" I asked.

"Are we nearly there yet?" crowed some of the other passengers sarcastically, reminiscing of when they were younger.

"No, not yet," laughed Brenda, a certain something in her voice. I recognised what it was and sat back to watch her wind someone up.

We were well out of central Milton Keynes, heading south. There wasn't much to see as the housing had been deliberately kept away from the main routes, with trees or big bushes blocking the road noise. I tried to picture where we were based on the map of Milton Keynes I'd studied last night. According to the grid structure, we were near the southern end, near Bletchley.

Brenda, who had been following Stacy, suddenly accelerated and overtook her partner. I looked around and saw a few had looks of surprise on their faces. After going round three more roundabouts, she took a right.

"We're going to Tesco's?" asked a shocked Paula, not really believing they would be going food shopping.

"Just kidding," said Brenda, laughing at their faces. "I didn't think you'd fall for that one. Why would we go food shopping when all food is so lovingly cooked at Hayfield. Even Stacy's cooking yesterday lunchtime seems to have gone without a hitch. Nobody in the dining room complained."

"Why would Stacy be cooking?" enquired Emma.

"Because the school doesn't like us to go out without the skills we need to survive," I replied, as Brenda neatly avoided a BMW crashing into us. The BMW hadn't been watching and tried to enter the lane of the road we were in.

Brenda continued, "If we'd been at home, we would have been taught how to cook by our parents, well except maybe for Jayne. Here we have to rely on the school. Anyway, this wasn't her first time cooking, but at least this time she didn't set off the fire alarms."

"Yikes, I'd have hated being taught by my parents," I lamented. "They were the worst cooks in the world."

"So where are we going?" demanded Paula.

"Tut, tut," laughed Brenda. "Such a demanding girl this afternoon, aren't we?"

"Brenda!" I warned, thinking the teasing had gone on long enough.

"We're just going round the corner," said Brenda, with a small laugh. She glanced across at the mini-bus that Stacy was driving. Stacy gave a big grin and a thumbs-up. It looked like similar teasing had been going on there too. "Oh, and you have permission to speak English for the duration of the next visit."

Brenda was correct, it was just round the corner and we entered the grounds of Bletchley Park. This meant nothing to me, but Jill started getting very excited, so I presumed this was something to do with computers. Computers were good at what they did, but I saw nothing to get excited about. Apparently I was wrong, this place was not what it seemed.

"Who's heard of Bletchley Park?" asked Harry, our tour guide.

Jill was the only one to raise her hand. "It is the place that had of one of the world's first computers," she explained, after being asked to explain.

"Do you know anything else about it?"

"No, not really," she admitted. "Just that the machine was called Colossus. My Dad used to go on a lot about computer history."

"Yes, it was called Colossus. Okay, have you all heard of World War Two?"

Everyone muttered in their own way that they had.

"Well that is a good start. During World War Two, both Germany and Japan developed several codes. Bletchley Park was set up to crack those codes, so we would know what they were doing. Its whole existence was kept secret, even after the war. It was only talked about for the first time in the 1970's. Many people who worked here still refuse to discuss what happened."

"Why?" asked Susan, puzzled.

"Because if it was known that we'd broken their code, they would have changed it. The whole idea was to shorten the war. Great lengths were taken to protect what we knew. In fact it led to one of the hardest decisions that the government had to make during the war. The code crackers found out that there was going to be big bombing on Coventry. If Coventry had been evacuated, the Germans would have known that the code was broken. However, if nothing was done, many thousands would die."

"What happened?" encouraged Stacy.

"The secret was kept. Coventry was bombed as intelligence said it would. Things were done to lessen the impact, but many still died."

"Wasn't that wrong?" said Emma, sounding horrified. "Shouldn't the government have got everyone out?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm not here to moralise, but teach you what happened."

"What if the codes had been changed and the war had dragged on for many more years?" Stacy asked. "Wouldn't that have led to more deaths? More suffering with the food shortages? More bombings?"

"That's just a guess!" exclaimed Paula.

"True, it is," admitted Stacy. "However, because it never happened, that is all we can do. Psychohistory isn't a developed science."

"Psycho what?"

"Psychohistory," smiled Wesley. "It's an idea in a series of science fiction books by Isaac Asimov. The ability to predict the future based on past events and mathematical equations."

"Let's move on and look at an Enigma machine, a Turing Bombe and Colossus ," announced Harry, before anything more could be said.

"I thought Colossus was destroyed and the Enigma machine stolen?" said Jill, puzzled.

"They were," agreed Harry. "However, there is an ongoing project to try and rebuild Colossus. The Enigma machine was returned in a surprising way - it was shipped to Jeremy Paxman at the BBC. So there is nothing from stopping you seeing both."

"Wasn't the Enigma machine the thing that the American's managed to steal from a German u-boat?" asked Melissa.

"Ah, no," said Harry, with a slight grimace. "That was just Hollywood changing the facts for a film. It was actually a British submarine that got a copy of the Enigma machine. If people make films about historic events, I wish they would do it accurately. Two brave people, Anthony Fasson and Collin Grazier, died when the u-boat sank. It would have been less hurtful if Hollywood had honoured them."

Colossus looked nothing like a modern computer. Its large structures and valves made it look dated, but as we were told, it was very efficient at what it did. It could crack the German Lorenz codes as quickly as a modern computer could, but that's all it could do. It was a machine for a task, not a machine for general purposes.

None of us were stupid. We realised we were being shown what it was like to have to keep a secret from everyone for a long time. People who worked there couldn't even discuss what they did with others on site. Even the development of Colossus was a secret and handled by different teams at what would become British Telecom. The blue prints were destroyed after the war.

"All of this was possible due to a highly dedicated team. A team which kept things secret and most were never awarded for their duty. In fact one of the main people which saved Britain, was cruelly treated after the war. Alan Turing was asked to help finish a project in Manchester called Mark 1, which was nicknamed Baby. In 1952, Alan Turing's house was broken into and items were stolen. He reported it to the police and while they were investigating, Alan admitted that the other man in the house was his partner. Alan was arrested and found guilty for homosexuality. The government washed their hands of him. He was given an option to avoid jail; he could take hormone therapy to make him impotent. He took the therapy. In June 1954 he was found dead from cyanide poisoning."

We stood there shocked. Someone who had done so much for Britain, someone that had saved so many lives and nothing was done to help him. Homosexuality was no longer a crime, but it was the first time we'd come across how being different could impact someone so much.

Even though it had been a day off schoolwork, it was not a day without learning. Jessica, however, seemed a lot happier, even though she'd had to spend most of the day speaking Russian. By the time we were back at the school, the sadness had mostly faded and we were remembering the good times.

"Ah, did you have fun?" welcomed Mr Hobson, as we alighted from the mini-busses.

"Yes thanks, Sir," we chorused.

"When you have settled in and Jayne has checked in your travel PDA's, would it be possible to come and speak with you all?"

Helen, Melissa, Aurora and I exchanged a quick glance and all nodded. "How about twenty minutes?" I asked.

"Twenty minutes it is," Mr Hobson agreed.

It didn't take that long to sort out the travel PDA's. One by one, I switched control back from the travel PDA to their school version. It was a two person task. The person needed to sign out of the travel PDA, where all user data created would automatically be uploaded to the master server. I would then switch control to their in-house school PDA and they would then login to that PDA. The only student PDA's that were difficult were Stacy's and Kriss's internal and travel PDA's. Not only did they have extra functionality, but they were also secured in more intricate ways.

"Jessica, as the expert in Russian, how are we doing?" asked Melissa, as I worked on the PDA's.

"How do you want me to answer that?"

"Truthfully," Helen said. "It is the only way we will learn."

"Generally The Manor students are a lot better than Hayfield," she said, not daring to look at anybody. "The difference is the accents. Hayfield students need a bit more polishing, but that will come over the next few weeks. I suppose I didn't help. The biggest issue is that you are all speaking too formally. No Russian would phrase sentences like you're doing."

"Can you help?" I queried, taking Jill's travel PDA.

"I don't know," Jessica muttered.

"JESSICA!" fumed Sam. "You aren't abandoning us again, are you?"

"Calm down," Helen ordered. "Let Jessica continue."

"I didn't say I wouldn't," Jessica said, defending herself. "I'm not sure how to. I've never tried to teach and have no idea how to do it."

"I can help," offered Anna. "I did it when we went to France, so I can give you some hints."

"Can you also liaise with Wesley?" Melissa asked. "He is our Russian expert."

"Sure," Jessica said hesitantly.

Sam whispered something to Jessica, to which Jessica responded.

"Jessica, Wesley will not be offended," said Ruth. "We've had longer to work together and realise that we are a team and we just want the best for everyone. Now are you going to tell everyone, or do I have to."

"How did you know what I said to Sam?"

"I can read lips," she smiled. "It is quite a useful skill."

"Phil is better at Russian than Wesley. He listened to my Russian and picked up a lot of the phrasing. Sorry Wesley."

"Don't be," said Wesley. "If Phil is better then why would you hide that? We want to be passable enough with the language and you have highlighted a weakness."

"What about the other years?" Aurora asked.

"I'm not sure how many others have spent time in Russia, apart from my sister," Jessica said, still worried about being pressured into revealing the truth.

"I know it is important for the others to learn how to speak less formally, but I'm not having Jessica's health put at risk. Jessica has just told us how stressed she was and she needs to relax," I warned.

"I'll be okay to help others here," said Jessica, after a moment's thought. "I'm sure that stopping the other lessons will help. I have a chat scheduled with Tracy after tonight's meal, so don't worry if I'm not here."

"Thanks for the update," I said warmly. "Mr Hobson will be here in a few minutes, so anything else before he appears?"

"Are you going to tell Mr Hobson about the language issue?" panicked Jessica.

"Not now, but I will need to tell him. First, I'm going to have a word with Wendy, but that will probably mean explaining to Tim, their year leader, what's happening. It would be nice if she could help since she doesn't appear to have any stress issues."

"Sorry," sighed Jessica. "I feel I'm letting everyone down."

"Stop saying sorry," Helen almost screamed.

"Sor-", started Jessica and then realised what she was about to say and shut her mouth only to give a nervous giggle when Helen glanced across.

There wasn't time for any other discussions as there was a knock on the door and Susan, who was sitting closest to the door, let Mr Hobson in.

"From a discussion with Stacy, it seems you had a nice trip to Tesco. Sounds like you had a thrilling afternoon," said Mr Hobson, taking the offered seat.

"It might have been less exciting if we'd actually gone into the store," I retorted and got an elbow in my ribs from Helen.

"Were you okay with the extra surprise trip?"

"It was interesting," said Elaine. "It seems that some people had to make some very hard decisions."

"Such as?" Mr Hobson enquired, his face showing genuine interest at what we thought.

"Not being able to tell others about what they did during the war," murmured Martha.

"Coventry incident," added Brian.

"It was a hard time and sometimes people have to make choices they don't like. You are the first year we have done this trip with. Do you think it's worth it?"

"It certainly shows us that others have had to keep secrets, including from their families," I said, just in case any of the others hadn't got the message. From the looks of 'Duh!', I think it hadn't needed to be spelt out.

"Anything else?"

"War is never a pretty thing," sighed Monica, who never really said much, but when she did she was always someone worth listening too. "I lost an Uncle in Vietnam and a Grandparent in World War 2. If things can be done to shorten a war, or prevent it from occurring, then it's a good thing."

I thought Monica had finished, but she wasn't as she took a deep breath and continued, "However, sometimes I think that governments try to keep too much control over people after the event. They keep laws in place, just on the chance that it might occur again. They take away peoples freedoms in the name of security."

There was a stunned silence after Monica's little speech.

"Do you see the school like that," eventually asked Mr Hobson.

"In some ways yes," she replied, shaking a bit. "We've been given a safe place to live, provided with an excellent education and food. Yet for that, we have restrictions placed upon us, not just now while we're in school, but also after we leave school."

"First off, calm down. I'm not going to bite. I can see how Monica, and others, might think that. I think Monica was very brave to say what she did. As I tell everyone when they join Hayfield, I expect you to behave, but never be afraid to ask questions. I expect you to use your brain and understand when a question is appropriate to be asked, at a year level, like now, at a school level, such as before or after a meal, or one-to-one. Monica's point is valid and I think things need to be explained in more detail. I also think it would be polite if I ask Mr Moore to join us, since you are one of his students. Is everyone okay with that?"

There were nods of agreement, and Mr Hobson made a call to ask Mr Moore to join us.

"While we wait for Mr Moore, I just want to let you know that the card shop is now open. For the Hayfield students, the gifts you have purchased are available to wrap when you want between now and December 20th. They will be hand delivered to your family's houses from then till Christmas Eve."

There was a knock on the door. It wasn't an unknown knock, but a knock I'd heard a few times.

"Did you invite Rachel?" I asked Mr Hobson, signalling Susan to stay seated.

"No, but I'm sure Mr Moore asked her and Ellen to come along, just in case they were needed."

I glanced at the others. There were a few shakes of heads, some others shrugged.

"Sorry, but do you think they will be offended if we only allowed Mr Moore in?" I asked Mr Hobson.

"It is your year room," said Mr Hobson. "I don't think anybody has ever been refused entry before, but I don't think it will be an issue. However, if you are refusing them entry, then you must tell them yourself."

"We'll do it as joint year leaders," said Melissa standing up, pulling Aurora up as well.

The four of us went to the door and after taking a deep breath, Helen opened the door and we stepped into the hall. As predicted, there were three people at the door.

I felt a few prods in my back, indicating the others wanted me to do the speaking. "Sorry for the delay," I started, wondering how to say this without upsetting people. "Mr Moore was asked to discuss something. I'm sorry but you Dr Ruiz and Dr Hansen were not invited. I'm only authorised to allow Mr Moore in and no one else for this discussion."

Ellen and Rachel glanced at each other, quite surprised. They'd never been refused access to a year room before.

"Ellen and Rachel, I'm sorry for asking you to come with me. As Jayne said, they have the right to choose who comes into their room. I was rather presumptuous, as I don't know the subject."

I gave an apologetic shrug. Rachel smiled, saying, "Its okay. We were just a bit surprised, as it is the first time someone has ever exercised that right. Jayne, Helen, Melissa and Aurora, if you find you do need us in this chat, don't hesitate to let us know."

"Yes Miss," we chorused. Helen opened the door and we followed Mr Moore into the room.

Mr Hobson filled in Mr Moore on what Monica had said. Mr Moore nodded and said, "Sounds like a reasonable question. It's something which we don't normally get asked by students so young."

"Indeed," agreed Mr Hobson. "So, you're probably all wondering what would happen if you did approach your families after leaving school?"

There were quite a few nods.

"Nothing," he said simply.

"Nothing?" I asked, surprised.

"What could we do?" Mr Hobson asked. "It is a school rule, but you will have left school. There is no national or international law, and therefore you wouldn't be arrested or anything like that."

"So what stops someone doing it then?"

"Personal restraint," explained Mr Moore. "When a student leaves the school, they understand the impact that seeing their family will have. They don't want to cause any possibility that the school would no longer be able to help others. Does that help?"

"I suppose, but what about now? Aren't we restricted now?" thought Monica.

"No more than most students who are at boarding school. The school is responsible for you and most schools would be upset if the students left the school grounds without permission."

"No," disagreed Jessica. "Most other students are allowed to go home at holiday times, such as the summer holidays, Christmas and Easter. Here we aren't."

"Very true," agreed Mr Hobson. "But you were all told that you couldn't go home at holidays before you agreed to join the school, even though one of you did try to run away."

"Never again," muttered Jessica, not wanting others to know what Helen and I knew, that it wasn't a true attempt to leave the school.

"Mr Moore, wouldn't that be, well, like a major breach of security?" Ruth asked.

"Yes," he replied, looking quite surprised. Mr Hobson hadn't told him about Jessica's attempt to run away.

"Like what happened with Gregory?" queried Emma, her mind thinking about what they had been told over the last few days.

"Yes Emma, it would be handled the same way," Mr. Hobson answered rather plainly and unemotionally.

"You mean that Hayfield would-" Jessica started.

"Hayfield Hall would have to be abandoned," Mr Hobson finished.

"What about us?" Sam said, sounding very worried.

"I don't know how long it would take to find another place. It might take a year or more. The US school was very lucky to locate the facility they did, so quickly," replied Mr Hobson. He paused to let it all sink in and then asked, "So, getting back to my original question about Bletchley Park. Do you think it would be worth others visiting there in future years?"

"It might be a good preparation before students are told about never seeing their parents again," thought Paula out loud.

"I suppose for us it was reinforcement and told us that we aren't the only people that have had to keep a secret," said Wesley. "Perhaps it would be good for older years too."

"Thank you for acting as guinea pigs," smiled Mr Hobson. "Are there any other questions?" There was no answer. "Great, we'll see you in twenty minutes for your evening meal. Tomorrow is a special day, so make sure you all have a good sleep."

Mr Moore turned and looked towards Monica and paused for a moment, as if he was trying to decide if he should say something. "Your Uncle Frank died protecting hundreds of people, including my older brother, from an attack on a MASH unit. Your Grandfather, Gerry, died in Pearl Harbour after pulling six people to safety. You should be proud of your family."

"Oh, I am," muttered a stunned Monica. Nobody had ever told her before how her Uncle had died.

As the two head teachers walked out of the year room, we all grabbed our PDA's to look at tomorrows, Tuesday 13th December, schedule. Nothing was there, apart from orchestra practice in the afternoon.