Step one is the worst part – waiting. We need as many of the Straybridge sporelings as possible to be here at the annex and thinking that we’ve given up and are planning to stay holed up. Waiting for something scary is always worse than the scary thing itself, cos once it happens you can deal with it. While you’re waiting, there’s nothing you can really do, so the scary thing builds in your mind until it seems impossible to overcome. Keeping a lid on your fear – that’s the hardest part.

We lower the shutters to the annex so we can’t 257see what’s going on outside, and we use the time to talk, and to laugh, throwing out a few bits of false information every now and then, to throw Chets (and Trent) off the scent.

The noises outside start just before the final curfew bells ring out. There’s a slight rattling of the shutters as though they’re being pushed and pulled to test for weaknesses.

‘They’ll hold for a while.’ Mak sounds reassuringly unworried. ‘They were made to withstand intruders.’

‘Even super-strong ones?’ Kat says.

‘Don’t worry. They’ll keep us safe for long enough.’

‘Long enough for what?’ Chets says. ‘Do you think someone is coming to rescue you? Straybridge is cut off from the rest of the world. Nobody knows what’s happening here. No help is coming.’

‘You don’t know everything, Chets,’ I say.

‘I have the wisdom of the hive mind. I know more than you.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘They’re on the roof,’ Ade says as the peeling Velcro sound rips across the ceiling high above us. 258We sit and listen, as the scratching and dragging of sporeling hands and feet grows around us, and a few bristled palms become several, and then loads. We can’t see through the metal shutters, and I wonder if my mum is out there among the bugs.

‘How many do you think?’ Karim says.

‘More than thirty,’ Mak says with absolute certainty. ‘I’d say up to fifty.’

‘A swarm,’ Ade says.

‘It’s time,’ I nod. ‘Ready?’

‘Always,’ Mak says.

‘Born ready,’ Kat smiles.

‘Wait,’ Ade says. ‘Just a second.’ She turns to Mak. ‘I think it’s time we lost the earrings. Let’s face it, mine mean I’m more likely to get my ear lobes ripped off, and yours just looks ridiculous.’

Mak laughs. ‘I will if you will.’

Kat gasps and grabs my arm. ‘This is such a moment, guys.’

Ade pulls out her giant gold hoops and hands them to Kat. ‘You can have the honour of throwing them away.’

Mak removes his bling and flicks it across the room, and then they sit grinning at each other, like the earring removal was symbolic of something 259 else, and I’m not sure where it’s going but I’m so freaking happy that we’re all friends again.