Thea glanced around at the others near her, all of them with their little silver dots attached to their temples. She wondered how many hours each one of them had slept that night. One man called Richard with a scrawny neck and a thin-lipped tortoise head was already nodding off, his head dipping to a rhythm of its own. Head jerking too low, he woke himself up, caught Thea’s eye and gave her a sheepish smile.

‘We’re not even allowed coffee, y’know,’ Rosie stage-whispered again. ‘Well, they call it coffee, what they serve, but it’s made from mushrooms or something. Not magic ones either. Not that I’ve tried magic mushrooms, have you?’

Thea wasn’t sure Rosie was trying her best at the whole whispering thing.

‘Shush,’ Thea gently admonished, stifling a smile.

‘Sorry.’

‘And no. I haven’t tried magic mushrooms.’

Rosie took a look around at everyone else and then raised her voice just that little bit more. ‘Do you want to?’

Thea couldn’t help but laugh. Someone shushed them and that made her want to laugh even more. She didn’t think she’d ever been shushed in her entire life.

The lecturer coughed. ‘Luckily, you are here, at the heart of cutting-edge research into the science of sleep. But that is only a start. Wait until you find out the kind of learning the brain can do whilst you sleep – you will be astounded. And that will be the focus of our next lecture. Thank you for …’

A bell rang. Rosie gave a little fist pump. People began to move, gathering pads of paper and pens. The lecturer had to shout the end of his sentence.

‘… listening.’

‘So – I’ve decided. You’re going to be my friend during all of this. Sorry but you don’t get a choice, okay?’

Outside the lecture theatre, Rosie linked her arm through Thea’s and gave her a little lopsided smile.

‘What if I turn out to be a nightmare?’ Thea asked, trying to keep up with Rosie’s pace.

‘Well, the best friendships are those you have to work at – or some such bollocks. Don’t be a nightmare. Simple!’

Thea laughed. Rosie was wearing her cult top knotted at the middle and had tied a bright green ribbon around the waistband of her trousers. One of her pencils fell out of her hair and clattered to the floor. She rushed to rescue it. Thea tried to think of something to say, but luckily Rosie had enough to say for the both of them.