The story is so unbelievable I can scarcely take it in. And yet it is true. True as the sky is blue.

Blommie tells me that Priscilla’s real name is Kitty Hendriks. Three years ago – before Blommie ran away and joined The Unwanted – Priscilla, (or Kitty, or whatever her real name is), seduced the owner of the farm Blommie’s family worked on. They got engaged. The farm was called Goedehoop and they grew olives, and made olive oil.

“Olives like you, Olive,” interrupts Finkie, and I can’t help but smile at his sweetness.

My heart clamps shut like a trap when Finkie tells me how he knows Priscilla. Three years ago, his twin brother was killed by a dog. It was covered up by the farm owner’s family as an accident, yet Blommie saw it happen.

“It was a big black dog. With eyes like the devil. The horrible lady brought it to live with her and the baas.”

That’s it then. This is the truth. One woman, with a heart of black coal, and her killer dog that carries out her dirty work.

He tells me that after the incident, the press got too interested in her and she moved to P.E.

“We found out she changed her name there,” Blommie tells me. “So the police couldn’t find her. She killed my brother. She killed Joseph.” There are tears in his eyes.

I put my fist on the table. I have a passion rising in me like lava coming out of a volcano. This woman has to be stopped.

“We are going to get her back, get revenge,” I state with conviction. As soon as I say this, I know that it will happen. It feels like a promise, written in stone.

At lunchtime the rest of the crew are back. The cave is busy with sweeping, wet laundry being hung, fire making and cooking.

Black Cat walks in with Yster, who has a wooden pole across his shoulders. Hanging from it are two squirrels and three pigeons.

“Meat,” he declares, laying his bounty down on the floor by the table, and the boys raise their fists in the air, whooping and cheering. I find myself cheering along.

I’m not exactly sure I am ‘becoming one of them’, but there’s something about the way they support each other which pleases my heart. There’s love in this cave. Love, and trust. Those are two things that are really missing in my life right now.

Blommie and Engel serve us piping hot stew. We eat. The food is good – not as good as my mom’s, but a close second. I wolf it down hungrily.

Black Cat knocks his stick against the cave’s stone floor.

“Blommie tells me you know the whereabouts of Kitty Hendriks,” he says gravely. He looks at the other boys. When he speaks, they listen. He looks back to me, and his eyes glint with the ferocity of a wild cat.

“We have been looking for her for some time,” he informs me. “Tell me all about her. What is she doing at your house? What is she up to these days?”

He listens closely. Within fifteen minutes, he has drawn a plan with a stubby pencil on a piece of bleached newspaper. It is laid on the stone table and we all lean in to look at it. The plan involves all eight of us. I stare at the geometric scribblings, and the plan floats to the top of my mind like cream.

Yes. This is brilliant. “It’ll work,” I breathe.

“I know it will,” replies Black Cat, and his dark eyes flash.

We set off before daybreak, at 5 a.m. The eight of us form a straggly crew. We slip through the forest as nimbly as buck. Black Cat leads – he knows a shortcut. He knows the terrain like the back of his hand, he says, and I believe him without question.

It takes six hours to reach our farm. The sun is up, but it’s not a hot day. It’s overcast and humid. The sky is grey, with wisps of white. I’m sweating like a pig.

“Here,” says Black Cat, “drink. You need to keep hydrated.”

I take his canteen and sip. He’s right. I can’t afford to exhaust myself before we’ve even put our plan into action.

Black Cat walks in front with me, together with a boy I hadn’t met properly till this moment, called Modem. His real name is Timothius, but the boys call him modem because he is a technological whizz. He can hack phones, steal wifi, even defuse bombs I bet. He had a whole area of the cave full of tech stuff that he ran on batteries.

He can also do maths in his head like a calculator. He showed me. “2256,” he says casually, when I test him by asking what 16 times 141 is. He had answered correctly in the blink of an eye. I am impressed. This is a good person to take on a mission with you. My confidence grows.

We make base camp in an empty field that adjoins our farm, using a clump of oak trees as coverage. The boys blend into the grass and weeds with their beige and tan clothes. I myself have been decked out in similar gear – khaki coloured shorts and a brown vest. Finkie dyed the vest in a bucket of roots and leaves last night. We look like a little army.

Black Cat holds a small pair of binoculars up to his eyes. I’m sure they are stolen but I don’t care at this point.

“What time is she performing?” he asks.

“Midday.”

“Then we’d better hurry.”