I slump down into a plastic chair and take a few deep breaths (through my mouth, obviously). Harv shakes his head as he watches me gulping desperately for air.

‘Mate, will you chill out,’ he laughs. ‘You’ll be fine. It’s not like you’re the main part. What’ve you got, like, three lines?’

I’m barely listening to him. There’s a Nuts magazine calendar hanging over the pasta-sauce-spattered microwave. Just above Michelle Marsh’s partially exposed breasts is the confirmation I’m looking for, the confirmation I’ve been dreading:

DECEMBER 2005.

I’ve come back fifteen years.

Harv plonks a can of lager on the table in front of me. He’s now talking into a little electric-blue flip phone. God, I remember that phone. He thought it made him look like someone out of The Wire. ‘Yo, Marek,’ he says. ‘It’s all right, relax, I’ve found him … Yeah, he’s fine. Just a bit nervous … I know, three lines, that’s what I told him. Anyway, we’re on our way now, so don’t panic … Cool. In a bit.’

He snaps the phone shut with a satisfying click. He used to love doing that. ‘Well, Marek’s officially losing his mind,’ he announces. ‘He thought you’d bottled it. Apparently the girl doing the props has also dropped out last minute. He’s calling everyone he knows to find a replacement.’

I can’t get my head around this. I know I should probably be crying or screaming or checking myself into an asylum, but all my brain seems capable of doing is compiling a list of every time-travel film I’ve ever seen. 12 Monkeys, The Terminator, Timecop: they all involve people being sent back to kill somebody significant. Is that what this is? Does Geordie Claire turn out to be the next Hitler or something? She is vegetarian.

But then there’s also Bill & Ted, Back to the Future, Groundhog Day …

‘Harv …’ I stare up at him blankly. ‘What happens in Groundhog Day? I mean, like, why does he go back in time?’

If Harv finds this question at all random, he doesn’t show it. He simply taps his can of lager against his teeth, thoughtfully. ‘Er … isn’t he, like, a weatherman, who’s sort of pissed off with everything? And so he keeps reliving the same day over and over until eventually he … shags Andie MacDowell? Isn’t that basically it?’

I nod dumbly.

He grins at me. ‘Hey, d’you reckon we can name every Bill Murray film from Groundhog Day on?’ He glances up at the clock. ‘Nah, best not, actually. Marek would murder me.’

He downs his beer and pulls me up by the shoulder. ‘Come on, man, let’s go.’

Chapter Seven

As we tear across campus, I am hit by wave after wave of déjà vu.