He sticks out his tongue and quickly puts it back into his mouth. It’s not a very good impersonation of a snake. He did the same thing on the introductory film, only faster. It was so fast you almost couldn’t see it. I play the film back in my head. The camera zooms in on the grass and the trees and shows a bald man chopping wood. Then the letters like flies make me dizzy again until they become the caption, ‘LE TEMPS, Eco-landscaper’, and then Le Temps is a talking head. He says, ‘I plan the land.’ And something’s not quite right, something’s out of synch, but I don’t know what it is. It reminds me of something. I have that feeling again. I play the film over and over till my head aches.

Le Temps skins the hare, cooks it on a campfire and offers it around. What Le Temps did was bad but the hare smells nice. Most of the children don’t eat it but Big Ben does. So do Jake and Martin Aston. Typical. If Big Ben knew Le Temps was a witchcraft I don’t think he’d eat it, but I can’t tell him anything at the moment about Le Temps or the infinity signs or the film. There’s too much going on in my head.

I don’t eat much lunch, although Season’s made yam fritters. Her mouth goes into a minus sign. But everyone’s being different today. GMT’s still angry Le Temps killed the rabbit that was a hare so she’s not speaking to anyone. Ama’s not speaking to GMT because GMT called MC2 ‘brother’. Noon is pretending to have a stomach ache and I’m cross with Big Ben for eating the hare so I’m not speaking to him. I don’t want to sit in The Beanstalk any more.

There’s half an hour before the afternoon workshop begins with MC2. I go back to Hive 1 to dry my hair. It was a bit damp outside and my hair never dries on its own. Afro hair’s like that. After drying it, I go upstairs for my comb. Noon’s sitting up in front of the mirror. I look at her reflection, not at her. She looks ever so slightly different. Everyone looks different in the mirror. No one’s totally symmetrical. She turns round to face me and I stare. I know what’s changed. Her face looks thinner, you can see her cheekbones. She wouldn’t have got thinner overnight.