One of the helicopters buzzed right in front of my head and I could see the cameraman training his camera on me, trying to get a good shot of my face. I had to fight off an urge to swat it away like a fly. Now the whole stupid episode of me dropping those girls would be on the news, it would be broadcast by TV companies all over the world and get a billion hits on YouTube . . .

I looked at Evan and he gave me a look with raised eyebrows and a downturned mouth, shrugging his shoulders, and I realized I was doing the same look myself, and the look meant, ‘What the heck are we doing here?’ Suddenly the idea of being on telly didn’t seem so brilliant, and stomping round the streets of town while being twenty metres tall didn’t seem big or clever any more. Well, it was big, obviously, but not clever.

I’m like, ‘Let’s get out of this.’

Evan nodded his colossal head.

I’m like, ‘I wish me and Evan were normal size again.’ And immediately, so immediately it made me feel giddy, we were standing on the pavement together, normal size like everyone else, and trees and buildings we’d looked down on a moment ago now towered over us. ‘And I wish those helicopters would buzz off. I wish everyone would just forget seeing us as giants. I wish the film in all the camera crews’ cameras turns out to be blank.’

The crowd lost interest in what you might call an abrupt manner. They streamed off in different directions. Maeve and her friends went off towards the shopping centre without another glance at us.

‘Now what?’ Evan said.

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘Tell you what – we’ve tried being giants. How about being tiny next? Just like Gulliver. That’d be a laugh.’

‘Yeah, I s’pose it would.’

I’d always been fascinated by the idea of being really teeny-tiny, so that ordinary objects were giant-sized – you know, like a pencil would be the size of a telegraph pole and a pea would be like a pumpkin and a caterpillar would be like a giant snake with legs.

But I didn’t want to go small here in the High Street. I didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves again, which would definitely happen if we suddenly disappeared. Also, we might get trodden on. Better to do this one indoors, at least to start with.

‘Let’s go to my house first.’

‘All right.’ He turned to start walking off.

‘What you doing? Walking’s a thing of the past, man!’

‘Oh yeah. Right.’

‘I wish me and Evan were in my bedroom.’

My bedroom walls appeared around us, and the bed materialized so suddenly behind me that I sat down on it.

Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

‘How small do you wanna go?’

Evan considered this. ‘About ten centimetres? For starters?’