I swing my phone slowly and carefully back and forth around where that whatever-it-was caught my eye, and it doesn’t take long for me to see it: the glint of something shiny, tucked, half 116 hidden, in the roots of a huge tree. So of course I think someone must have dropped something down there, and I use my hands to dig it out.

It takes me a moment to work out what it is. It’s dirty and torn and obviously the light’s not great. And then it clicks into place, and my mind is racing at a million miles a second. I pelt back to Kat and Karim and skid into the hollow.

‘What is it?’ Kat says. ‘Is someone coming?’

I shake my head and hold out the tiny shiny thing that’s changed everything. She takes it and peers at it. Karim sits up and leans over it, too.

‘Isn’t that a WWE card?’ he says. ‘Am I totally missing something here?’

‘It’s a limited-edition John Cena WWE wrestling card,’ I say.

‘Oh,’ Kat says. ‘Jordan at Montmorency had one of these, do you remember? He was so sad when he lost it…’

‘At Crater Lake,’ I finish for her.

‘Where did you find it?’ Karim asks.

‘It was in the trees,’ I say. ‘Guys: it’s the trees.’

10

The Bells

It makes sense when we think it through. The slopes of the crater were covered in woodland, and I remember there being loads of pine trees.

‘So, they were growing in the crater and were surrounded by spores,’ I say. ‘Is it possible the trees absorbed them somehow?’

‘The aliens had lots of similarities with parasitic wasps. I’m sure I’ve seen somewhere that some wasps use trees to implant their larvae and it does abnormal stuff to the trees.’ Kat takes a sip of water.

‘Yes,’ I say, remembering how we all tried to learn loads about wasps when we got back from Crater Lake, just in case. ‘I can’t remember what they were called, but there were some pictures of deformed acorns that looked like exploding brains.’

‘So the trees could be releasing the spores,’ 118Karim gasps. ‘I have one in my house, guys. This is so bad.’

‘That’s right, you do,’ I say. ‘But you’ve not gone buggy.’

‘Is your tree one of these, Lance?’ Kat asks.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘A big one.’

‘Maybe Karim’s is too small,’ says Kat.

‘Or maybe I’m immune – it could be my secondary superpower.’

‘Or maybe I’ve got this completely wrong. There’s more than one John Cena card in the world.’ I feel so frustrated. I need to know for sure.

‘But it is limited edition,’ says Kat. ‘There aren’t that many. I think you’re right, I really do. We’re just still missing something.’