‘Thought you’d gone home,’ I said, and my tongue felt too big for my mouth.

He didn’t answer. A bird sang somewhere high above, all alone.

‘Sam. Go home.’

He turned to me. He looked like he wanted to kill me.

‘I’ll come with you if you want.’ I felt like crying too. ‘I can tell him what happened. How Tombard makes everyone do stuff.’

He stood and walked away without looking at me again. I didn’t know what to do, so I followed him, sick bubbles coming up from my churning stomach. He went out of the allotment and turned up Beggar’s Hill. I trailed after him, staying silent. He didn’t look back, but he knew I was there.

Didn’t think we’d ever get to Lilac Farm, but when we did, his grandad’s car was in the drive.

Inside, apart from our breathing, the house was quiet. In the kitchen, the fridge shuddered. Sam opened it and poured himself a drink of orange juice. The smell of the allotments was still hanging in my nose: a cabbagey smell with roses in it.

‘When we find your grandad,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell him it was my idea to go with them, and that you didn’t want to.’ I had to fill this silence, so went rabbiting on. ‘I should have said that straight away, but listen, if I explain it all now, it’ll be OK …’

Sam snorted. ‘It’s always OK for you, isn’t it?’ he said, walking between the fridge and the table, then back to the fridge. ‘But it’s always you. It’s everything you do.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘It’s always your idea and it’s always going to be fine, but it never is for anyone but you.’

My stomach felt as if the kitchen was tilting. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen …’

‘Not just today. You never wait and you never ask. You just plunge ahead, and you always come out of it OK. Nothing sticks to you – except the good bits. You get to meet Whizzy, and I get all the trouble. And I’m sick of it.’

I didn’t know what to do, but thought I’d better let him say it all. But when he’d finished and both of us were just standing there, the stillness in the house felt really strange, as if something had gone even more wrong.

‘Where’s your mum and Roan?’

He ignored me, went to the bottom of the stairs and roared, ‘GRANDAD!’

No answer. He went to the back door, which was already open.

‘Grandad!’ he screamed again. He waited for a moment, then looked at me. I bit my lip.

And then we shouted together, ‘GRANDAD!’

We shouted it in the sitting room, up the stairs and in the garden.