Season has made lots of vegetarian options, some ‘Real’, like vegetable kebabs, which are different vegetables on sticks. She colour-coded them so one has things like yellow peppers, yellow courgettes, sweetcorn and golden tofu; one has aubergine, red onions and red peppers; and one has a lumpy green vegetable I don’t recognise and green peppers. And some ‘Substitutes’, like beancon and soysages. Season says it’s better to eat ‘Real’ food, but if you like meat you should eat the substitutes. There are all kinds of colourful dips set up to look like a painter’s palette in small, circular bowls. There’s a sign over the dips saying Pique Your Palate, which means taste. I like the homophones ‘palette’ and ‘palate’.

I’m enjoying being outside, even though it’s noisy with people talking over the music. This track’s a weird instrumental from 2048. It has fast drums like a heartbeat, frogs croaking and birdsong. The 2048 pupils are swaying to it, nodding their heads, and Ama’s twitching her body like a sparrow on a birdbath. Her jacket’s gone glossy black. She doesn’t look human! Then I realise they must be playing music from different leap years. When I first came outside, they were playing a song called ‘Crosstown Traffic’ by Jimi Hendrix, which came out in 1968. He was a black rock star from America, so maybe he knew Bob Beamon.

On the side of the main building is a large canopy so all the food and people can stay dry. It’s still murgy after the storm. Murgy is a mixture of muggy and murky.

I love the smell of the food on the barbecues, even though everything smells a bit burnt. I hope Mange-Tout and Season don’t completely burn the food. Further away from the building is a small fire where one of the Triple M teachers is cooking jacket potatoes. I decide that’s what I’m going to eat, with one of Season’s white dips, followed by birthday cake.

All the pupils and tutors are here. Everyone has dressed up because it’s a VERY SPECIAL OCCASION, even people who hate clothes. I’m wearing a white jumpsuit that glows in the dark. I packed it specially because we were going to the future and it looked like a spacesuit. It’s also waterproof so very practical for damp future weather. Even Big Ben is dressed up. He’s wearing some black skinny jeans that make his legs look even longer than they are, a red jumper and, would you believe, the red hat we found in the undergrowth! He hasn’t even bothered to take out the twigs and it still has mud on it. Classic Big Ben!