‘What?’ he said. ‘You buffoon! You can’t touch it. You could’ve been electrocuted!’

‘It doesn’t mean any harm,’ I said. ‘I can tell.’

‘You clot! It might not mean to, but you’d be just as dead. Electricity will try to find earth – through you, if you’re the quickest way.’

And then something happened. It started in my half-empty water glass. A miniature whirlwind tumbled inside it, whipping the water into little peaks.

‘Alfie?’

‘Yeah, just a—’

Something bright shot past my bedroom window and I looked outside. Lily had gone out there in a mood earlier because it was her turn to take the washing off the line. But when I saw her my breath caught in my throat. She was dancing. She’d dumped the washing in the basket and turned her face up to the sky. Her arms were outstretched, her eyes closed, and she was turning slowly, swaying one way, then another. It took a moment for me to work out why the edges of her hair were glistening, and then I looked up at the sky. A stack of those freakish pancake clouds floated high above her, all by themselves. Lily stuck out her tongue and then I got it: she always sticks her tongue out in the rain. Those clouds were raining on her – fine, misty, almost-not-there rain. My heart started a panicky beat: if those clouds were made by Whizzy, then what would their rain do to Lily?

‘Hello?’ Sam said. ‘You still there?’

‘Yeah, wait. Something’s happening.’

A soft swirl of pale pink light now whirled in circles around Lily’s ankles. Hard to see unless you happened to be especially looking, and even then, it disappeared totally for ages at a time. I concentrated on it. Dad calls this ‘getting your eye in’. The light was so weak and as thin as a piece of sewing thread. No wonder Lily couldn’t feel it. But then she opened her eyes, stopped dancing and looked around. Quicker than a flash, Whizzy dived to the top of the tree and whizzed to a blur before cleverly vanishing. Lily didn’t see a thing. The tree had moths, though – flurries of them flew around the top of it in excited little balls, and Lily did see those and began jumping up and down and calling for Mum.

Why was Whizzy so interested in Lily? Was it something to do with her throwing that juice? I went cold at the thought … but Whizzy had looked more curious than angry just now—

‘Alfie?’

At exactly the same time as Sam spoke my name, Whizzy shot in through my open window, zoomed downstairs in a split second and was outside again before I could take a single breath.

‘Whizzy’s back,’ I told him. ‘Whizzy is happening.’

‘What, now?’ Sam said, almost squeaking. ‘Wait, I’ll bike down! Keep it there, can you? Till I get there?’

‘I’ll try.’