When we get to Mak’s, I get that door-knocking fear all over again. Mak and his family are hardcore preppers and experts at survival. They literally spend half their lives preparing for the end of the world, so that if the apocalypse comes they can handle themselves. If they’ve turned, we’ll be in trouble for sure. But time is ticking, so I step forward and knock.

180 Mak’s dad looks dead happy when he sees it’s us. ‘Kids, it has been a long time. You are welcome here, come in, come in.’

We follow him into the living room where Mak’s little sister Zuzie is watching TV and Mak’s mum is working on a computer. Their Christmas tree stands in the corner by the front window, looking brilliantly not like a Crater Lake tree. It’s thinner, and a different shade of green. ‘Lovely tree,’ Kat says, as Mak’s mum looks up and beams at us.

‘Thank you.’ Mak’s dad smiles. ‘We cut it down ourselves from place in mountains. Lithuanian tradition.’

‘Is Maksym here?’ I ask.

‘He is spending lot of time in annex,’ Mak’s mum says. ‘He’s, erm, hard work for weeks. But now you come, you cheer him, yes?’

‘We’ll try,’ Kat says. ‘Can we go over to the annex, please?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Mak’s dad smiles again. ‘I will let you out through back door. Go to end of garden, then follow path through trees, and there you will find it.’

‘There is food in kitchen there,’ says Mak’s mum. ‘You please to take what you want.’

181 ‘Thanks so much,’ I say. Mak’s parents are so nice, and not at all what you’d expect if you knew what they got up to every summer. I heard Mak’s mum can shoot a bird through the eyeball with an arrow from like a mile away.

We follow Mak’s dad to the back door and make our way across the garden. Mak’s house is so normal – semi-detached, three bedrooms, creaky stairs and a broken tap in the downstairs toilet that squirts boiling water at you if you touch it. But the annex is something else. I’ve only ever seen it from the outside, but it’s all glass and wood and automatic shutters. I’m excited to go inside. At the end of the garden is a black wooden gate that opens into the woods that run down the side of Straggler’s Fields. Mak’s family own a big chunk of land which is fenced off from the rest of the fields. It feels like you’re stepping into another world.