It looked like it had fallen from the tree. The thing was hard and shiny, a shine that couldn’t be scratched. It looked very like a cricket ball, actually, except there was no seam, no indication of how such a thing might have been made.

He always kept it with him now, because it made him feel a little better. It was like he had a secret, something that made him special. The sphere seemed to tell him things, sometimes, in that a thought came into his mind that he couldn’t possibly have thought. The thoughts were always brave and noble.

Perhaps he was a prince, secretly in charge of some foreign land, and this was one of the crown jewels of that place. Just seeing it caused him to remember his true destiny.

‘Captain Bug! Are you listening to me, Captain Bug?’ Hutchinson was standing over him. ‘Our wonderful form master has taken the new balls away with him. Give us that.’ He snatched the red sphere from Tim.

Tim stared after the boy as he walked off, idly tossing the sphere in one hand. He took up position distantly then ran in fast to bowl at the small boy who’d taken up his stance in front of the wicket.

Tim jumped to his feet. ‘No!’ he shouted, and ran forward.

Hutchinson bowled. Disturbed by the shout, the batsman skewed the ball high in the air, right above Tim.

The young boy stared up at it, silhouetted against the bright sky. He began to shiver terribly.

The ball was whistling as it came down, and the sky had turned dark and ruddy. He heard Hutchinson shouting something.

He raised his hands in a gesture of prayer. The explosion engulfed them, their whites turning to cinder and their faces jerking back in frozen expressions of pain and sudden surrender.

And then Tim was just standing there, holding the ball.

The other boys weren’t screaming, they were laughing. The batsman was staring at him incredulously.

‘Is it possible to get one of your own side out?’ laughed Hutchinson. ‘Just the sort of leadership we need, Captain Bug!’

In the distance, bells began to ring. The boys picked up their kit bags, and started to file towards the school for prep.

But Tim stayed, looking at the sphere, for a long time.

‘But there was something there you needed to see! You have to believe me!’ Benny walked quickly after Smith back towards the school. ‘Your real name is the Doctor, you’re not from this planet. Try and remember!’

Smith glared at her with a mixture of anger and disturbed pity. ‘If I’m not from this planet, why do I look and sound like a Scottish schoolteacher?’

‘I… I don’t know why; you’ve looked and sounded like a number of Englishmen too.’

‘Now I know you’re making this up.’