I look at Big Ben. He’s obviously going to go for B. But I can’t be E for Elle. That letter’s already taken. Then I have an idea.

‘Could I be L?’ I say. ‘Cos it’s a homophone of Elle?’

MC2 looks pleased. ‘Maestro! And it’ll remind Leaps you brought down Le Temps with SOS L. You’ll go down in PPF.’

‘And I’m B for Ben,’ says Big Ben, and MC2 gives him a high-five.

Then the eight of us hold hands to form the infinity sign, in silence, according to tradition. I’m desperate to ask lots of questions but know it will spoil the ceremony and Ama will roll her eyes anticlockwise and we’ll have to start all over again. I’m glad Ama’s at the ceremony, though, because she likes Leaplings when she’s not angry with us. She’s an honorary Leapling, like Bob Beamon.

After the ceremony, Kwesi draws an imaginary infinity sign on our left hands, over and over, till it feels like it will never go away. GMT smiles.

‘You and Big Ben are Level 1 Infinites. You passed the first test. Initiation.’

Big Ben says, ‘Are there infinite tests?’

and I say, ‘What’s the second test?’

at exactly the same time.

‘There’s four in all: Initiate, Intermediate and Infinite. Me, Kwesi and MC are Infinites. You don’t know what it is till it happens.’

‘That’s only three,’ says Big Ben.

GMT looks at Kwesi, Kwesi looks at MC2, MC2 looks at GMT like they’re passing the baton in a permanent relay.

‘Only one person’s ever passed the fourth. And lived,’ she says.

‘Who’s that?’ I say, but I think I know.

‘Infinity.’

That name again. Who is it? Who is it?

‘Where’s Infinity?’

‘Anywhere and everywhere,’ says MC2, popping up all over the place so quickly I think there’s ten of him. GMT gives him the bull’s-eye and he stops.

‘We ain’t met her. She just kinda gives orders. We obey.’

Kwesi and GMT nod their heads. I do what-big-eyes. How can you take orders from someone you never met? And how do they know Infinity’s a woman if they never met her? I meant to ask him WHO’S Infinity but I think he answered my question.

I look around at my circle of friends. This is the happiest I’ve ever been in three leap years. At 2 p.m. I won’t say goodbye. I’ll say au revoir, which means until I see you again. I know the criminal Le Temps said it to Millennia, but I’ll say it for a good reason. I might not see Ama as easily, though, because she’s an Annual. She can’t leap back to 2020 to see me. This makes me sad.

‘I don’t want to go home. I may never see you again.’