Grandma likes singing my name. Tonight, she’s happy. I know she’s happy because she’s singing whilst plaiting my hair AND she doesn’t have to work hard to pull it tight when she’s tired after a day of cleaning because it only has to last till the morning. I’m happy too because it won’t feel like a facelift and I’ll be able to close my eyes in bed.

But when I get into bed and close my eyes I don’t sleep, I worry.

I worry Mrs C Eckler was so offended I ran away from her she’ll stop being nice to me in school and won’t be my favourite teacher any more.

I worry someone will find out about the illegal leap and arrest me and send me to a Young Offenders Unit, which is prison for teens, though I’m not 3-leap yet.

But most of all I worry about the bad thing that happened at school.

I open my eyes wide to make the bad thoughts go away but it doesn’t make any difference. My mind plays back today like a film on a loop. Each time I see it, it’s exactly the same as the first time. Every sight, every sound, every smell. It’s bad because, even though I now know it’s going to happen, I don’t know what it means.

Today I got a text from the future!

Chapter 02:00: The Predictive

Chapter 02:00

THE PREDICTIVE

My school is called Intercalary International because it’s a boarding school for Leaplings who have The Gift. It only has two classes with a four-year gap in between and goes up to Fourteenth Year. It looks like a country mansion and you have to go up a drive with lots of tall trees to get to it. There’s no sign outside apart from ‘Private’ because it’s top secret. Locals think an eccentric billionaire lives there. It’s the only one in the world and some of the pupils come from places like India and Brazil.

I’m a day pupil because I live close by. Very occasionally, an Annual will attend as a day pupil if they’re the right age and can’t fit into another local school, like Pete LMS. His real name is Peter Wolf and he’s a bully. He goes to athletics club, but Mr Branch never picks him for the team. He went to my primary school. In Second Year, he was addicted to the computer, wanted everyone to ‘Like My Status’ on Facebook = HIS status, not mine. I never go on Facebook because of trolls. I nicknamed him Pete LMS and the name stuck. EVERYONE calls him Pete LMS. He’s still addicted to social media. I never call him Pete LMS to his face. I wouldn’t want to get close to his face anyway.

His breath smells of raw meat.