But before I can try it once more, the house starts to fade as I’m pulled back to the hospital. First the roof, then the walls, and finally the floor.

I feel my world start to crumble and I scream as I tumble down, down down, like Alice when she falls into the rabbit hole.

Chapter 14

A key.

That’s what I need to unlock the door to Mum’s room. I realize now that’s the purpose of these dreams, to get into that room.

I still don’t know what the cutscenes have to do with it all. And why did the dream make me watch the second cutscene again? Usually that only happens if you haven’t completed your mission. Maybe my mission is to unlock the door, and after that it’ll unlock the next cutscene and I can carry on visiting Aminah.

‘Your turn,’ Izzy says, interrupting my thoughts.

Izzy’s brought some make-up into school to try on each of us. We’re spending our lunch break hiding behind the stage in the hall – where the heaters are on full blast – playing with eyeshadow.

We’ve all picked our own colour, like we’re in a girl band. Mine’s purple.

I smile back at Izzy and crawl over to where she’s sitting.

‘Are you going to be brave?’ she asks, like a parent chastising a child. I refused to do it earlier until Izzy reminded me we would take it straight off for lessons.

‘Yes, Mum,’ I respond without thinking.

Izzy’s eyes widen, probably because she’s thinking about my mum.

‘Oops,’ I add a beat later, wondering if I’ve just said something really inappropriate.

I laugh nervously, and Izzy laughs with me, so I know it’s not awkward. Then she asks about Mum.

Elle hasn’t asked me about her recently, not since she started seeing Matty officially. They announced it online and the whole year commented on it like they were celebrities.

I tell Izzy about the hospital visits and how I’ve been going to Mum’s flat. The doctors gave us some good news this morning. Mum twitched her hand in the middle of the night while the nurse was checking up on her. They think it might have happened quite a few times over the last couple of days. Apparently that’s a sign that she’s getting better!

‘That’s amazing, Saff !’ Izzy says, hugging me, her long hair tickling my face. She always ties it up at school. Last year some of the boys used to pull off her hair bobble and throw it in the bin. Izzy never said anything, just quietly pulled another one out of her bag and tied her hair back up like it never happened. Eventually they gave up and picked on someone else, probably because that kind of thing doesn’t seem to bother Izzy.