Three hours later, Dad veers off onto an exit. ‘Nearly there,’ he says. ‘I’ve been thinking, Tuls. Even if we find Sylvie, and even if she knows what to do, it might be too late.’ He glances at me. ‘Do you remember Thelma saying Merry had only twenty-four hours to get back? Well, twenty-four hours clicked over at midnight last night.’

‘Thelma didn’t exactly sound certain about that,’ I say. Please let it not be too late.

We reach Pacific Fair shopping centre mid-morning and step inside to discover something like a small city, with cheery music burbling overhead and people wandering around with bags of shopping.

Dad marches us to the management office where a young woman sits behind a desk. ‘Hello,’ he says. ‘We’re looking for someone called Sylvie who … we think works somewhere in this shopping centre.’

The young woman laughs. ‘Sorry, but we don’t know the name of everyone who works here. This is the biggest shopping centre in the state!’

But a woman sitting at a nearby desk says, ‘Sylvie …?’

Dad and I say, ‘Yes,’ at the same moment.

The woman takes off her glasses. ‘Is she the lady with the red hair?’ She swirls one hand above her head to indicate some kind of fancy hairdo.

‘Sounds about right,’ says Dad.

I don’t breathe while the woman nods and looks at her watch. ‘If it’s her, she does some kind of magic show down on the main stage. You might catch her now, if you hurry.’

Dad and I sprint, dodging shoppers and benches and bins. We step onto a long escalator and get stuck behind a man with a pram.

Dad takes a sharp breath in. He’s looking below us, at a woman in a sparkly purple suit and top hat striding about on a stage in front of a dozen or so people.

‘Sylvie,’ he says quietly.

My face burns with relief and excitement. It’s you, I think. At last we meet. My long-lost grandmother, the rebel and rule-breaker who Mum won’t talk about. She’s back, more glamorous and razzledazzle than I expected, and with a voice eerily like Mum’s.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she says, waving her hand in a familiar flourish. Like Mum, she uses a microphone that hooks over her ear and sits in front of her mouth. ‘If the kind sir in the yellow shirt will look in the pocket of his shorts, he will find his missing watch.’

As the escalator lowers us at a sloth’s pace, the man in the yellow shirt holds up a watch, his face lit with amazement. Everyone claps.

I wonder if she will bring Mum back right here, in the shopping centre?