Mr Clemm was so busy making sure Mrs Gillespie was OK that when I said I had to go home, neither of them really noticed. But when I got to the top of Raven’s Rise, I looked back over my shoulder. Mrs Gillespie was standing in the doorway, watching me go.

Then a voice, gruff and cross, came from the bottom of the hill – ‘You again! What’s happening up there?’ – and Mr Lombard huffed across the road. ‘Don’t forget – three strikes and you’re out!’

I shrugged and tried to head for home, but he stopped walking and fixed his eyes on me as I passed. (He still looked like he had a cold, so maybe he didn’t have one. Maybe that watery soreness is just his look.)

‘Cleona?’ he shouted. ‘Cleona? Is that smoke? What’s going on? Trouble and this lad are never far apart.’

My head pounded as much as if he’d screamed it in my face. Walking on was horrible, but down the other side of the rise a deep purple zigzag flashed in front of me, really close, like a piece of dark lightning, and I nearly fell off the kerb.

I knew exactly who it was. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I shouted at her, ‘GO AWAY!’

Even before I opened my eyes, I felt bad about it. And when I did open them, Whizzy had gone, and Tombard was hoofing it up the road towards me.

‘Yo,’ he barked. ‘Talking to yourself now? Freaky!’

He must have been looking for his grandad. Didn’t give him time to say more. I just ran.

6.05 p.m.

Made a few drawings of Whizzy, but none of them are any good.

Phoned Sam, but he won’t pick up.

11.40 p.m.

Just had a nightmare. I was trapped upstairs in Ash House inches from a moth with no mouth, which was crawling towards my face and I couldn’t move. Mr Lombard’s footsteps were coming up the stairs – he was seconds away from finding me – and Sam was laughing at home in his bedroom.

Then it turned into Whizzy making it rain more than it’s ever rained before, and the whole village was swept away in a flash flood. Then when everyone was rescued, just when they’d finished drying their houses out, she made everything freeze so hard the whole village cracked and shattered, even the people. And it was all my fault.

No way am I going to Ash House. Too scary. Not worth it. Completely sure, now, that I’m just going to stay indoors forever. Mr Clemm can sort this whole thing out. Nothing good happens when me and Whizzy hit this village.

9th August, 10.15 a.m.

I have to go to Ash House. I just don’t know what else to do. I’m too tangled in this whole mess now, and I have to make sure Mr Clemm helps, because this just happened: