I hug him back. “Don’t go near any icy water without me,” I say. “And give Ronaldo some apples if you see her.” I admitted that I’d given my unicorn a name when Win told me his was called Penguin.

Win insists on sending Mister Flambaygo ahead of us into the tunnel to light our way.

Mister Flambaygo does light our way. The ball of fire is so dazzling we can barely open our eyes as we crawl toward Home. It also makes the rock red hot to touch so it’s a relief when we reach the mattress and the globe fizzles out and vanishes from sight. We tumble onto the attic floor, me first, and then Rose, and for a moment we just sit there, dazed.

Grandad is on the sofa waiting for us. He’s got a cup of coffee in his hand and he’s wearing his slippers and his usual shorts. A newspaper is open on his lap. It’s a brilliantly normal sight.

He grins. “You cut it a bit fine. Did you have fun?”

“I think we had our best adventure ever,” I say.

He takes in our bruised and dirty faces, and our tatty clothes. Rose pokes a finger through a burn hole in her onesie.

“Excellent!” he says.

Chapter 56

We just have time to have a shower and to get our stories straight before Mum and Dad arrive to pick us up. This time we don’t blame our cuts and bruises on a bike accident, but on an epic cleanup at the community garden.

“I told them to watch out for those brambles, but there was no stopping them,” says Grandad.

Back at home Rose tells me more about Harriet. She shows me her phone and all the screenshots she’s saved from Instagram and Snapchat. On one, hattie_scottie has posted a picture of a dead fish floating in a rock pool and written:

reminds me of rosietrout.x.xo_x lol

rebel1234_x you mean . . . but true!!

sophiedreamz wat if she sees it

hattie_scottie truth hurts!!! only joking tho

There are lots more like this.

A spotty dog with an ugly face with hi Fish written below it; a selfie Rose took on the beach captioned couldn’t be happier! which is then followed by a string of sarcastic comments from Harriet—stunning! #instamodel—and a picture of Rose’s friends all drinking milkshakes with Harriet in the center, with the comment ooops forgot to invite the Fish!!!

Nearly every one of these picture and comments starts with Harriet. No, not Harriet, Hattie. It makes me furious. I want to show Mum and Dad and our teachers. I want to join Instagram and write cruel comments below every single one of Harriet’s selfies. I can’t do this, though. For one thing, I don’t have a phone, but more importantly Rose doesn’t want me to.