Next, we’re given our Chronophones. Le Temps says he’s happy to look after our normal phones but I don’t hand mine in because I don’t know Le Temps and I don’t like other people touching my phone, except Big Ben, who uses it to time my runs. My Chronophone is black and larger than I expected. Maybe they have to be big to send messages to the past, present and future. Or so people don’t lose them. When technology gets sophisticated, they make everything too small and it’s counterproductive. Grandma’s always losing her phone.

I barely look at it before I put it in my bag. Big Ben seems quite excited about his and starts researching Futuristic Ferraris and how they operate. Ama’s excited too, until GMT explains Annuals need extra training to send messages across time, though they can send across space. Then Ama looks sad again, which makes me feel sad. I decide I like Ama even though I hardly know her. Even if she turns out to hate athletics. She has an even better name than Noon.

But the best name of all, even better than Ama, is Le Temps. When I hear it in my head, it’s Millennia’s voice sounding French; when I SEE it, it’s capital letters flying all over a screen like flies, till they form words, a caption:

LE TEMPS.

Chapter 08:00: Undercover

Chapter 08:00

UNDERCOVER

The Hives are modelled on beehives! They look like upside-down straw baskets made of wood. I’m staying in Hive 1. You go through the door and there’s a round lounge with lots of yellow beanbags at the edges and a hexagonal rug in the middle that’s woven from straw. The windows are hexagons too! Then you go up wooden stairs that curve around the outside wall to the bedroom, which has two sets of bunk beds and fitted wardrobes and another rug. The perfect treehouse for human bees!

We’ve come back to our chalets to unpack. Le Temps had to help me with my suitcase. He complained it wasn’t on wheels but the only ones on wheels were black and I wanted a white one.

‘What are you carrying in there, Elle, dead bodies?’

‘No. Yams,’ I said.

I don’t know why he was smiling. It wasn’t a very good joke.

Ama and I are here first, as the others had to register. Mrs C Eckler has come across to help me get unpacked. I get upset when she opens my suitcase. There’s a blanket I don’t recognise and some white bras.

‘They’re not my clothes.’

Mrs C Eckler pulls out a white cotton jumper a few layers down. ‘This is definitely yours, I’ve seen you wearing it.’