Lewis shuffled over, trousers hanging down, scratching his head. He swung the big doorknocker three, four times.

They waited.

Lewis knocked again.

‘What if they’ve gone?’ said Ebenezer. ‘Tried to excape the grown-ups, or something?’

‘Where would they go?’ Ed asked. ‘A bunch of old people. Half of them demented.’

He went back over to the car. Leant in the door. Malik and Ella were the only two who hadn’t got out.

‘You want to stay there or come inside?’ he asked. Malik looked to Ella, the two of them inseparable.

‘As long as they’re not mean to Malik,’ said Ella.

‘They won’t be. They’re good people.’ Ed could hear Lewis and the others banging on the door and calling up at the windows. ‘If they can accept Trinity without a blink they’ll accept Malik.’

‘I just want to get back to the museum and see Sam,’ said Ella.

‘We will do. We have to pick up Trinity then we’ll go. The cars, the faster vehicles, can go on ahead. The rest of the kids can catch us up. We’ll be an hour on the road at the most.’

‘We’ll get out,’ said Ella, undoing her seat belt.

Brooke came back over from the house, smiled at Ella. Her face changed when she smiled, which wasn’t that often. The scar on her forehead almost disappeared and she looked younger and more carefree.

She put an arm round Ella and squeezed her.

‘You looking forward to seeing your brother again?’

Ella nodded but said nothing, too emotional to speak. She’d been completely hysterical when she’d realized that Sam wasn’t dead. That he was waiting for her back in London. Since then she’d hardly slept and had a perpetually anxious look on her thin little face. She was scared that something would happen to him before she got back there.

Kyle called over to Ed.

‘You want me to kick the door in?’

‘No, Kyle. I don’t.’

Ed strode up to the door. He was going to try himself. As if his knocking would be any different to Lewis’s. Just before he grabbed hold of the knocker, however, the door opened a crack.

And there was Trey. His face broke into the biggest, happiest smile Ed had ever seen and as the crack in the doorway widened it revealed Trio, also grinning like an idiot. They came running out and started hugging everyone, even Ella.

‘Don’t say it!’ shrieked Trio. ‘Don’t say it! I don’t believe it. Are you the famous Ella?’

Ella nodded, a little overwhelmed.

‘Too much,’ said Trio and they turned to Malik.

‘Is he with you?’ Trey asked. ‘Or should I be scared right now?’

‘Malik’s with me,’ said Ed. ‘He’s an old friend.’

Malik managed to somehow form his damaged face into something like a smile.