We both looked at her. She was coiled around the date at the top right of the screen, moving slowly, lazily, eyes looking out at us.

‘She looks sleepy,’ I said.

Sam put his finger over her gently, and tried to drag and drop her on to the Contacts icon. But Whizzy just brightened into a blinding white, then turned deep indigo. Beautiful, but moody. He couldn’t drag her, not even a millimetre. Suddenly, I realised something.

‘That’s the colour she goes when she’s cross, or getting ready for a fight,’ I said. ‘Normally she’s white-gold. She’s pink when she’s playing … but that colour –’ I shook my head – ‘she’s not gonna be tame any time soon. Not if she’s that colour.’

Sam chewed his lips. ‘You try,’ he said.

I did, and Whizzy shot to the opposite corner of the phone each time my finger landed on her. It was as if she knew.

Sam didn’t look at me.

We tried everything. We sent text after text to each other, but she scattered into pieces with each text now, and there was a popping, whistling sound before she went back to normal. I felt my face getting hotter and hotter.

‘Just scroll to my contact and call me anyway, even if she won’t come to start with,’ Sam said. ‘Once we’ve got her used to the sensation, we might be able to pass her backwards and forwards between us.’

I did. The Sam icon tilted and wobbled, and when he answered his phone, his voice boomed down from the sky so loud, it was like being clobbered around the ears.

(((HELLO)))

We gaped at each other, and then he punched End Call quickly, but kids came running across from the zip wire under the trees. My eardrums throbbed. It felt like they might snap.

Sam frowned at me. Something else was wrong. A heavy pressure had settled on the field. It pushed against the top of my head. The curious kids had stopped a few metres away from us and now just stared.

Sam stood up. He glanced across at the distant adult heads bobbing by the bowling green. ‘Come on, Alfie – we’ll just go to mine now.’

My phone was hot and getting hotter. I panicked and turned it off.

Bad idea. A blue flash zigzagged from the phone to the sky. Right up. It took a fraction of a second – too fast for most eyes – and it was completely silent. Not even a whoosh. My ears popped, but that was it.

She was out. And now the phone looked like a firework in my hand. Tubes of light twirled out of it like white-hot spaghetti.

‘Alfie, what …?’

My hand was burning, so I dropped it. Within a microsecond, the spaghetti-tube light caught hold of the hay and absolutely fried it. The whole place was so dry, it burst alight.