‘Here, let me see.’ Sam took the phone and scrolled around. ‘Look! She’s in your Contacts.’

Whizzy was weaving in and out of all the letters in Dad’s name. Then I opened Sam’s text properly, and instead of words, there was an image. It looked like an inside-out snowflake from a kaleidoscope – everything was backwards.

‘Unreal!’ Sam said. ‘Now you text me!’

I scrolled back to Sam’s contact. Whizzy followed me. I typed awesome, and as it started to send, there was a burst of white light, like she’d loaded the phone with stars.

Mr Mason’s voice boomed across from the football pitch. ‘Sam Irwin! Alfie Bradley! Come on – we’re all waiting.’

Sam’s cheeks turned red as fast as if someone had swiped them with a paintbrush. ‘Right, better put her away for now. Leave your bag here, yah?’ he said bossily, but his eyes said something else.

The battle was won. He loved Whizzy now.

In the end, we left the phone in the hay, well covered up, and took my bag back to the touchline. It was murder having to go through a whole football tournament when all we wanted to do was see Whizzy, but it felt so good to be back with Sam. And if we could keep Whizzy safely in the phone, I could start to relax and enjoy myself. Maybe my phone had even saved the village!

When camp finished, we dived back to our mini hayfield and concentrated on Whizzy. The recreation field was filling up with kids and parents.

‘Look,’ he said, as we crouched down together, ‘she’s horizontal.’

‘She’s done that nearly every time I’ve met her. I thought there must be something in the ground she needed, but that can’t be right if she’s doing it in the phone.’

‘Maybe she’s finding electricity in there,’ Sam said, ‘or something magnetic. There’s gold in phones, and rare elements and stuff. Maybe she can use those if she gets flat enough.’

‘Or maybe she’s got gas,’ I said, grinning. ‘As soon as I get horizontal, I want to fart.’

We spent about a minute laughing at that before Sam realised gases probably do come with Whizzy somehow and got deadly serious again.

‘I know,’ he said, his voice getting louder and squeakier. ‘Try leading her on to my contact and then call me – see if she comes across into my phone with the call! Then I could take her home with me.’

‘But … maybe you could just come to my house for the night instead.’

‘No,’ he said, lining his phone up against mine. ‘I want to see if this works. I want to be alone with her, for once.’

‘OK,’ I said, but I had an uneasy feeling. Did I want Sam to take Whizzy home? No. Not really.