I went back there today. Sam called for me.

He stood on my doorstep and held out his hand. I just blinked at him stupidly for a moment, and then I realised: he wanted to shake hands.

‘Sorry,’ he said, and it was awkward and odd, so I grinned and nodded, and that was awkward and odd too. But within seconds we were biking to Ash House without even telling each other that’s where we’d go.

There was no sign of Whizzy.

‘They say I dreamed that ride in the sky,’ I said to him.

Sam looked all serious, and shot little worried glances at me like I might explode. ‘Your mum told mine you were completely out of it for hours.’

I nodded.

‘In the paper it said it took them three days to round up the boys they caught.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Five boys are still loose, thanks to Whizzy.’ I wonder if Olly’s one of them. Or Lenny.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

‘Hey, after they took you away, people on Usher’s Place got electronic howling down their phone lines!’

‘Ha!’

‘Someone said she heated the whole landline system,’ he said. ‘Condensation on the wires started boiling and evaporating in full whizz-bang style. Maybe she was looking for you.’

When we got to Ash House, the green velvet chair from Mr Clemm’s workroom was sitting in the garden. It still has the dent where he sat. The sides are grey with fallen ash, but it’s all in one piece. Sam saw me looking at it and bit his lip.

I imagined the flames. The windows blowing out, the stairs collapsing. The black smoke, the curtains flaring.

Sam looked worried again, so I tried to smile.

‘That’s his chair, but I’m OK about it,’ I said.

‘It’s too much.’

I shook my head. ‘Not when you’ve been locked up for something you haven’t even done.’

Sam let out a long whistling breath. ‘OK.’

A little while later, he said, ‘Wish I’d been braver sooner.’

I didn’t know what to say.

26th September

This is the day I’ll remember all my life, out of all the crazy days there’ve been.

Sam and I biked to Ash House again, and things started out ordinary. We’ve got used to the whole garden now. We know where the stone path crosses the boggy sunken patch and dips down, and how to avoid the trippy, sticking-up parts. We found the pond together. Dark green gloop glimmered on the surface like jelly, and it smelt of cabbages and wet soil. Scum floated around the edges today, but nothing moved, even though we kept still for ages.

‘Still no spitting frogs,’ Sam said.

‘Unless they’re lying low.’