A three-second pause. Big Ben often pauses if you ask him a question, like he’s translating it into English. It’s the autism. You need to give him time to process. ‘If you wanted to report a crime . . .’ He paused again. ‘An Anachronism. What number do we text?’

MC2 scrunched his eyebrows again. ‘2000,’ he said. ‘Easy to remember. But text me now, an’ your names, so you got Time Squad number on your memory. An’ I got yours.’ He took a massive silver phone out of his bag. ‘If you come next year, you’ll get a Chronophone. Can text past, present, future. Your TwentyTwenties should work normal.’

Mrs C Eckler gave him another mega smile. ‘It’s usually against school rules to use phones in lessons but this is a very special occasion. Please do as MC2 says.’

I took out my phone, which is white, and renamed it TwentyTwenty in my head because I liked the echo, typed Time Squad and the number 2000. Then my name, letter by letter: E L L E and pressed send.

I could see Big Ben wanted to ask another question but he didn’t put up his hand. He sounded like he was going to cough. But Mrs C Eckler could see as well and encouraged Big Ben to speak.

‘If you got a Predictive, will you die?’

Mrs C Eckler cleared her throat. MC2 stopped blinking and raised his eyebrows at Ben.

‘Leap’s done his homework,’ he said. ‘Predictives are rare, bro. VERY rare. You won’t die. Depends on context, not TEXT. Know what a Predictive is?’

There was a long pause before Big Ben answered.

‘When your phone sends a text before it happens.’

‘Close. But it’s not your phone. Someone types a text in the future to the past. Often a call for help. You get one, you gotta act on it.’

He looked at Big Ben for a long time before he nodded his head and smiled. Mrs C Eckler was looking at her watch.

‘MC2 is available to sign autographs afterwards and you’ll have the chance to ask him a question 1-2-1, if you didn’t get a chance just now.’

I didn’t get his autograph. And I definitely didn’t want to talk 1-2-1 with a criminal. It was noisy and I needed to go outside. Walking across the quad, I got out my phone and already there was a message from Time Squad:

MC2.

Chapter 04:00: Oops

Chapter 04:00

OOPS

It’s Thursday. I’m not going to school today. I’m tongue- tied.

Tongue-tied’s not the same as not talking. Tongue-tied feels like someone’s tied up your tongue so you can’t talk. Not talking’s when you could talk but choose to stay silent.

This might SOUND like talking but it’s thoughts in my head.

Sometimes I think like I talk and things make sense.