Then we carried on, still heading towards the top of the hill. But my sense of where we were was all messed up somehow, just from that short mad run, along with the diversion down to the gate before it. And the greyness closed in until it felt like the sky was down here, all around us.

And then the snow came again, harder, so you could hear the sound of it tutting as it hit your jacket. We’d got a sweat on from our mad sprint from the gytrash, but that turned to a clammy chill on our backs. The three of us, with Tina back inside my jacket, were soon shivering.

“I h‑hate it here,” Kenny stuttered.

“We’ll soon be out of it,” I said, and I forced myself to grin at him. “Triple chips!”

“Don’t want bloody chips!” Kenny snapped. “Want to go home. Want to go home NOW.”

And then Kenny started running again, not from the gytrash but towards the promise of warmth and safety.

“Hold on, Kenny,” I called out. “Stop it. I can’t … I’ve got Tina!”

I scrambled after him, but it was impossible to keep up. His long legs ate up the ground, and I kept stumbling because I couldn’t put out my hands to balance.

“Wait, Kenny. Wait,” I shouted again, but the snow and the cold grey sky swallowed my voice.

I ran on, ever higher, until my thigh muscles burned with the effort and my breath came in agonised gasps. I stopped and yelled again, or tried to, but I was knackered. All that came out was a croaky wheeze that turned into a hacking cough.

I put Tina down and then collapsed on my knees. I’d got another sweat on from the run, but, like before, the sweat soon turned as cold as death. I knew that Polar explorers fear sweat more than anything. It wets you from the inside out, and then your clothes don’t keep out the cold, and you die. I climbed back to my feet and looked around.

“Kenny!” I screamed as loud as I could. Again, it was as if the sound couldn’t get past the cold air and the blowing snow. It was like I was shouting into a pillow.

I started to panic. What if I couldn’t find Kenny? What if he was lost on this stupid hill, wandering around? I looked at my watch. It was nearly four. It was growing darker all the time. Kenny, alone and lost, in the dark. I screamed again, “Kenny! Kenny!”

“No need to bloody shout.”

It was Kenny. He was just there, right next to me. I grabbed him in a hug that was also meant to be a punishment.

“Kenny,” I said. “If you eff off again like that, I’m having all your chips for the rest of your life.”