‘Thank you.’ The nurse lifted her skirts and dashed off in the indicated direction.

Alexander glanced down into his garden. ‘You can come out now,’ he called softly.

‘A policeman I could understand, but how does one end up being chased by a nurse?’

Benny patted his shoulder as he showed her in.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

Smith leaned back in his chair, his arms behind his head. His writing was getting better. He hadn’t wanted to go to bed when he came home. He was so full of emotion and energy. He felt reborn. He’d gone straight to his desk and started to scribble page after page of his children’s story. He was rather proud of it.

The Gallifreyans eventually made a wonderful world for themselves, with towers and cities, lords and ladies. The inventor watched over them and advised them on how best to make their world as civilized and law-abiding as the England that he’d left behind.

But as time went on, he became discontented with the place. The Gallifreyans had taken his ideas far too much to heart, and they’d become boring and stuck-in-the-mud. He invented a way for them to start another life when they died, and gave them another heart, hoping that this would make them joyful and happy. But they were just as dull, and now they lived longer. Worse than that, they no longer had children, so there was nobody noisy around the place to ask questions.

Finally, he could take no more of it. He took one of the police boxes and headed back to Earth. The Gallifreyans would chase him, he knew, because he’d broken one of the laws that he’d invented.

But he’d decided that being free was better than being in charge.

There came a clatter from the window. He hopped up and opened it, and was surprised to see an owl sitting on a low branch outside, regarding him with disdain.

‘Hello,’ said Smith. ‘And who are you?’

‘Woo,’ said the owl.

‘How do you do, Mr Woo?’

‘Who.’

‘Who? You, Woo.’

The owl, looking as flustered as an owl can get, opened its wings wide and flapped up into the air. Smith flinched and the bird flew past him through the window, settling on the mantelpiece of the cottage with a proprietorial air.

‘Oh no,’ Smith sighed. ‘You can’t stay here. There’s no room. Why do you want to stay in a house, anyway?’

The owl didn’t say anything. It just closed its eyes and turned its head away.

Smith looked at it for a few moments, wondering if he should try and lift it outside.

The claws looked rather fierce for that. Finally, he just spread some newspaper under the mantelpiece and left the owl to sleep.