Had to endure the sight of Mum, Lily and Mr Clemm back out in the garden looking at the house. Lily looking super interested while Mr Clemm and Mum talked. Neither Mum nor Lily noticed Whizzy looping around the treetops, but I could tell Mr Clemm did.

Mr Clemm’s mouth talked, but his eyes still scanned our house, searching everywhere, which sent scary chills down my spine, because he’d know I was in here.

Call from Sam: ‘OK, I’m nearly at Usher’s Place. Get ready to move. Don’t let anyone see you, but wait till I text.’

I leaped into action and crept down to the kitchen in excellent stealth mode. Opened the back door almost silently, ducked under the window and along the wall perfectly … then jumped out of my skin at a loud voice behind me.

‘Oh, Alfie, you’re just so innocent, aren’t you?’ It was Lily. ‘I’m not sure how you even stand it. What exactly are you doing here?’

‘Get lost,’ I hissed.

‘He won’t bite, you know. He’s only asking about our electrics. He’s an expert.’ She said this last part so smugly that I could have dropped a fat, wriggly spider down her back. (If I’d had one.) ‘And that freak-show cat belongs to him! She’s called Julia. She’s meant to have hair, actually. It all fell out one day, or something. Doesn’t bother her, though.’

So Sam was right: the cat – Julia – had been electrified. Lily looked absolutely crazy-happy at her discovery.

‘Right then,’ she said, ‘I’m going to tell Mum that … let’s see … you’re inspecting the drains? Or you need emotional help?’

And then Sam did his supreme act of distraction.

At first, his voice came from far away. Then it grew closer and his words were clear enough for me to know this was my only chance to leg it – ‘There’s a massive animal loose on Halfway Lane! Quick!’ – and things got frantic. Everyone ran up the road to see what was happening, and … I made a dash for it.

The bottom of our garden seemed the safest exit. (Awkward – bins, fences and gravel piles round the back of these houses.) Had to travel like a bullet in case anyone saw me leaving – especially Mr Clemm. Criss-crossed scrubland, fields, and ended up taking an extreme bendy sideways route round the utter outskirts of Folding Ford.

I stopped once to make sure Whizzy was following, but only dared risk a few seconds. My teeth had been fizzy even before I left our garden, so I’d hoped Whizzy had stayed close, but it wasn’t until I reached the bottom of Beggar’s Hill that all the tiny hairs on my arms started to prickle and stand up straight like they’d been electrified. There was a smell of scorched rubber. Whizzy was definitely here. But where? And how about Sam?