I pack my Chronophone and lunchbox into my rucksack and Big Ben stands up. He’s so tall and Grandma’s so small, it’s like he’s twice her size. Grandma hugs me extra tight because she’s so proud I won the poetry competition and knows I’m nervous with excitement about reading my poem. She waves at Big Ben. As the two of us walk down the stairs, I hear her voice behind me.

‘Be strong and of a good courage,’ she says.

It’s the first day of Time-Travel Week when we’re off school timetable for five days. We won’t LITERALLY travel through time every day; sometimes it’s workshops where we think outside time and space. Big Ben and I reach school at 8:55 so we’re not late but everyone else attending the trip is already outside on the school field.

We’re the only two day-pupils; all the other children are boarders. Jake and Maria wave us over. Jake’s brown fringe is longer than ever and his freckles stand out more in the summer. Maria’s just had her long black hair cropped short so she doesn’t have to tie it up when she high jumps. We sit down with them on the grass, which is already dry. It’s going to be a very hot day.

I’m in Eighth Year at Intercalary International now. The whole class and three grown-ups are assembled: Mrs C Eckler, Mr C Eckler and Mrs Grayling. Mrs C Eckler, my form tutor, teaches Past, Present and Future (aka PPF) so she arranged the trip and I can tell she’s nervous because she keeps twiddling the flower in her pinned-up ginger hair; Mr C Eckler’s coming to help out, wearing his sunglasses as usual but at least it’s summer; and Mrs Grayling teaches maths, is tall and strong like a javelin thrower and loves the year 1752. She’s been there so many times she keeps bumping into different versions of herself. Which must hurt!

As we’re a large group and it’s sunny and dry, Mrs C Eckler says leaping from the school field is better than leaping from Block T. Block T’s the only school building you can leap from and to. The rest of the school is coated with Anti-Leap, a special material used for the prison and other important Leapling buildings to stop people breaking in or breaking out. It can be activated or deactivated like an alarm. Here it’s supposed to protect pupils from Leapling intruders at all times. It’s also supposed to stop pupils leaping away but I managed to do it last year by mistake!

Mrs C Eckler checks we all have a packed lunch then makes us stand to form a Chrono, a circle for leaping.

‘It’s summer solstice. We can pretend to be the standing stones of Stonehenge.’