Chapter 5

At the crack of dawn, the remainder of the marooned travelers had organized themselves into search parties to look for the missing Mr. Fitzhugh.

Mark and Dan headed East, Steve and Barry took the West, which left Valerie and Betty to search North. Nobody bothered with the Southern zone, for that was all swamp and quicksand. Each of them had learned through experience to avoid that area. Even Fitzhugh.

Fitzhugh woke suddenly to the rumbling sound of Giants scurrying about. In a panic he fell into a tepid puddle of water that had accumulated under his sleeping area. He got up sputtering water as he tried to get his bearings. Then he remembered where he was.

Getting lost in the woods, the drainpipe that led him here, and last night. Yes, most definitely, last night. The shower scene with all of those naked teens. But most especially the Giant Anguel. The one that was a Giant teenage twin of Valerie.

He calmed down after that. Looking around he could see that he was still safe inside the drainpipe. Then what was all of that stomping that woke him so suddenly.

He cautiously approached the drain grate and peered out. Nothing going on there. He poked his head and looked around.

There in the hallway were dozens of teenaged girls in school uniforms. They varied in age from about six to eighteen. And there just at the edge of the doorway was his Anguel.

"All right girls," he heard someone shout. "Today we have more studying and if some of you are lucky enough. New prospective parents."

'An orphanage, ' Fitzhugh thought. "It's an orphanage."

"All right seniors," the headmistress ordered. "Take your charges to their classrooms and then go help out where you're needed."

Fitzhugh looked on as the different groups were marched off to various classrooms. He saw that Anguel was leading her younger roommates to class.

'That must mean that she's one of the seniors, ' he surmised.

Knowing that nothing more would be accomplished by his staying any longer, Fitzhugh turned and made his way back to the outside world. He followed the drainpipe in the reverse direction that he had taken when he first sought shelter.

Within a few minutes he reached its edge. As always he looked around to make sure that the coast was clear. Seeing nobody, including animals, in the area he stepped into the sunlight and stretched his body awake with a loud yawn.

He decided that before he would make his way back to camp, he'd want to be able to find this place again. There was no way that he was going to forget about Anguel. He promised himself that he would return for seconds. And after being sexually satisfied for the first time in years, this was a promise that he was going to keep for himself.

He climbed up the steep valley wall, which was actually just a gully, and got his bearings.

"Ah! There is the orphanage," he said to himself. "Now where is the name?"

He looked along the face of the building in question for a name. Seeing none he looked along the wall surrounding the structure.

"There it is!" He exclaimed aloud. "GOVERNMENT JUVENILE RELOCATION CENTER. Ahrumph! Of course they would have an agency even to deal with orphans. These people are worst than the old communist regimes back home."

Satisfied that he knew what to look for in the future, he turned around and made his way back into the forest and headed for their camp.

The 'Spindrift' search parties had been scouring the forest for signs of Fitzhugh for over an hour already. Steve and Barry had had no luck. While Mark and Dan were momentarily trapped, by a curious dog that was sniffing, inside the hole that they hid in at its approach. They had to stay there for nearly an hour before the dog's owner finally showed up and leashed his wayward pet to take him home.

It would be Betty and Valerie that would eventually come across the trail left behind by the drunken Fitzhugh the night before. They followed the stumbling trail for over an hour before the incident happened.

A half-hour earlier, a teenaged Giant had set up snares to capture new specimens for his collection. He was hoping for a chipmunk type rodent, which frequented this particular part of the forest.

He was an awkward looking teen. At fourteen, he wasn't too athletic and had to wear glasses. He was an extremely shy lad. Every time a girl would talk to him, he would stutter to the laughter of everyone around at the time. What a lot of teasing teens back on Earth would call a geek. His name was Glivard, Glivard Simms.

Enthusiastic about finding Fitzhugh's trail, the two women of the group made the fatal mistake of letting their guard down. They weren't paying attention to the trail ahead, when suddenly the spring loaded net trapped them in its confines.

"Oh! Uh!!?" They both exclaimed in surprise as they found themselves tossed around as the trap closed around them like a bear trap.

They had never encountered this type of a trap before. It consisted of two half-hoops connected at the edge with a spring system. The mesh of the net was metallic, not fibrous. This would make it very difficult for the girls to cut their way out.

The fact that they had never seen this type before was understandable, for it was an invention of Glivard's. He may not be much around people, but around his draft board he could invent just about anything he put his mind to.

Because of his shyness he buried himself into his hobby which was biology. He planned to become a veterinarian when he grew up. To help him out in this, he would collect as many animals as he could for study.

When he was done with them he would release them unharmed in the wild where he had captured them. That was why he invented this humane snare. The same one that Betty and Valerie were now trapped in.