They’re motion-operated. You flutter your fingers to make them come on and push your hand up to make them stop, push your hands out to make them hotter and pull your hands in to make them colder. The lights are motion-operated too. And you can programme the walls so they look like a tropical rainforest or a scene with blue sky, green fields and mountains. It will take some getting used to. But Ama lives in 2048. It’s normal for her.

She’s still thinking about the spider, even though it’s gone away.

‘You were so brave, Elle.’

‘I’m only scared of things I can’t see.’

Like whether I’m going to be bullied or excluded. And Grandma not being able to get back up the stairs. And SOS L. Things are always worse when you can’t see them, when they MIGHT happen and you don’t know HOW they’ll happen and your mind thinks of a thousand horrible things that COULD happen. When they happen, I’m not scared any more.

We go back up to the lounge because the showers make me feel claustrophobic. I don’t like not having any windows, even though it’s clever to build showers underground that look like you’re outdoors and they’re very eco-friendly. Then I remember Ama wanted to tell me a secret. She looks out of the windows like she’s scared the spider will come back.

‘Elle. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘I’m here undercover.’

There’s silence in the room. Then I speak.

‘Are you a police officer?’

‘No, of course not. I’m only 14. No . . .’ She looks serious again. ‘I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to find my—’

GMT bursts through the door with her battered cream suitcase. Noon follows silently behind. Ama smiles at them.

‘You took your time. These chalets are wreckage!’ and she’s bounding up the stairs and we follow and she’s throwing clothes out of her suitcase onto her bed, leaving me standing in the middle of the room thinking if I don’t find out what she was going to say, I’ll die. If she doesn’t tell me soon, I’ll spend the whole day guessing what she was going to say until I get a headache or have to do running round the track or the woods or whatever.

Luckily, I happen to look down at the floor and see Noon’s beautiful pair of two-tone leather shoes and decide to talk to her instead.

I say, ‘Where did you buy your shoes?’

and she says, ‘Do you have a gramophone for the Charleston?’

at exactly the same time.