‘But if we just do a little spy work from the road,’ I said, rolling my bike down the steps and hoping he’d follow. ‘It’ll be fine. Come on – he won’t even know.’

‘There was no Cloaked Strider when my trainers iced up,’ Sam said. ‘The cold was just suddenly there and I stepped right into it. I’d have seen him.’

‘That old guy made it sound like he does things from a distance. We might be able to see his long-range weather-warper machines through the hedge.’

Sam’s face went very still and he scanned the village below us, like he was connecting things in his head. Like bits of curiosity were sprouting in his brain. I could almost hear them glooping together.

‘We totally need to find out if that old guy’s on to something.’ I’d reached the road by now. ‘Need to find out what a miscreant is. Sounds like something worth seeing – probably a deformed monkey, or something.’

‘Nope. Not what it means. A miscreant is a kind of villain.’

‘Only you would know that,’ I said, but he pretended he hadn’t heard and let a long sigh bubble out through pressed-together duck lips.

‘A villain!’ I said. ‘Even better. Even more likely to be up to weather-warping business … especially if he’s breeding dodgy animal mixtures. Weird goes with weird. Maybe he’s planning to whip up a massive storm of mutant clouds that can push through doors and windows and suffocate everyone. Maybe he’s lacing them with chemicals. And there are spinal cords lying around up there and everything!’

‘Spinal cords? Where? How?’

I shrugged. ‘Could be anywhere.’

Sam rolled his bike chain forward and back. It didn’t need any fiddling, so I knew his brain was chewing through things. Then he bombed to the bottom step, did an excellent wheelie and skidded on to the road.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Are we going or not?’

4

Trespass

Soon we were out on Halfway Lane, where the sky is always enormous. Hardly any traffic goes through that way, so we rode side by side.

Sam braked. ‘There it is.’

Ash House. Big. White. On its own behind tall hedges with fields on every side and a jumble of barns at the bottom of its big long garden. There aren’t any other houses at this end of the lane, so it stands lonely. That’s all. Doesn’t sound like enough to make it creepy, but it is.

‘Where’s he keep the animals?’ I asked.

‘Mostly at the back in those barns,’ Sam said. ‘It goes way back.’

‘Come on, we need to get closer.’ Couldn’t stop thinking about those spinal cords, but I had to be cool. ‘Look at the wind. It’s only in the fir trees.’

Four gigantic trees swayed and strained near the side of Ash House, like guard dogs that might snap.

‘They’re not fir trees – they’re cypresses.’