But now I was safe. I wasn’t going to wish for anything stupid aloud, was I? To calm my jangled nerves, I wished for a little tiny orchestra to appear on top of the million-pound pile of twenties and play me some soothing music. And they appeared immediately, musicians the size of Action Men and Barbie dolls, the men in black suits, the women in long gowns and the conductor in tails and a white bow tie, and they started tuning up.

And I lay back, thinking of all the things I could wish for, but not doing anything about it yet, just luxuriating in the possibilities like a bubble bath. All my life, you see, ever since I was a really little kid, I’ve always wanted something magical to happen. When Mum used to read me stories, about witches and elves and unicorns and stuff, or the Narnia books, or later when I read the Harry Potter books for myself, I used to think what a pity it was, what a shame, that none of that magic stuff was actually true. That life just went on in the same old boring way, with the Earth spinning round at a fixed rate and gravity doing its job 24-7, and nobody could fly or go invisible or transmogrify. But now – now anything was possible. The miniature orchestra played a beautiful miniature melody, all tiny and tinkly like it came out of a music box, and I lay there thinking of being able to make myself as small as them, or as big as a mountain, or to be able to breathe underwater and swim as fast as a shark, or travel to outer space on a rocket-powered bicycle . . . I couldn’t stop grinning.

At seven thirty the alarm went off again. The parallelogram of sunlight was back on the wall at the end of my bed. I wished the musicians would go back to wherever they came from, and I wished the million quid was stashed in the suitcase on top of my wardrobe.

And then my mum shouted up the stairs. ‘Sam! Are you up yet?’

I gazed at my face in the bathroom mirror as I was cleaning my teeth. I looked surprisingly normal. My eyes were bright and I kept smiling, but apart from that you’d have said this was the face of an ordinary eleven-year-old boy, with ginger hair and a few freckles. Not someone who could have anything in the world he wanted just by asking for it. And then I thought, This is true, isn’t it? I’m not just dreaming or insane?

I wanted to ask the meteor, or whatever it was, that had given me the wishes. And then I realized I could make that happen any time I wanted.