A grinding noise started behind the hill. The fence hummed, as if it was joining in. Then the fence was struck. We all watched as the whole thing lit up at once with a crash and a crunch, and a blueish haze drifted sideways. Bits of lightning broke off the main fork. First one, then loads, like little sparks, and they dived down and spread along the fence. The smell of electrical burning was strong. The Mandeville Centre sent out a zillion reflections from all the windows, like a lethal firework display.

Then it stopped.

In the new silence, everyone realised at once. The fence was down. Everyone moved forward. We scattered like we were balls on a pool table and someone had broken us.

Thunder crashed. I ran forwards, sweating, hoping, and puffing like a steam train. Somewhere overhead a wire sizzled, and I thought about lightning strikes, but I didn’t care.

Other boys ran. Soon, the whole pack of us surged through a blueish haze of smoke and the Astroturf filled with noise again. There was shoving, people falling down, the beginnings of a monster panic, but we crushed through. My head was bashed against someone else’s. My ears rang. If there was an alarm, I didn’t hear it.

Then all my strength came back and I raced up the hillside away from the others, like a wolf. The sound of the chaos behind me was terrifying.

At the top of the hill I made for a little group of straggly trees whose spindly silhouettes I’ve often seen from my window. They looked like friends. They were the only things I liked about that place.

They were like the last trees on Earth. I wasn’t going to stop at first. Didn’t want to look behind in case the staff or the police were following, but … where was Whizzy? She’d busted me out of there – and not just me – but what now?

So I looked. The mass of boys had gone sideways instead of climbing uphill. They were heading for the woods at the other side of the main track, which was quite a good idea, really – if they made it. I could already hear sirens in the distance.

Then the sky changed. The storm cloud split, as if someone invisible was slicing it open. I saw a flash of silver, a darting, wriggly streak of blue light, and then a shape that stretched high into the sky, long and thin.

And then I ducked, because it looked like she was falling out of the sky straight at me. She’d torn the cloud behind her to shreds. In the last nanosecond I chickened out and crouched down with my hands over my head. She must have passed really close because I felt the air move next to my hands, almost as if she’d stroked me.