Mr Wetheral went away with Melissa, leaving us with two Jeds and no antibiotics whatsoever.

OK. If I couldn’t get the medicine right now, I was going to have to refocus. On food.

The back door was open. Dad and Trig were outside getting the vegetables for dinner. Mum was feeding up the digester. The Real Jed was hanging on the wall in the sitting room and the other one was nowhere to be seen.

I crept through the kitchen.

It was cool and dark in the larder cupboard. It smelled of cheese and lavender and hard-boiled eggs. The cold tiles felt good under my feet. I unhooked a cloth bag from the back of the door. If I just took a little bit of each thing, no one’d notice. I cut off chunks of cheddar, beetroot cake, homity pie. A handful of walnuts, a scoopful of oats. Two bread rolls. And four pieces of Dad’s shortbread. Tucked it all into the bag. I slid out, through the kitchen, into the hallway, clutching the bag in front of me.

I pushed my feet into my shoes, then opened the front door carefully, so no one would hear the click. I closed it behind me, just as soft.

I headed for the cemetery.

CHAPTER 8

I walked at first, so as not to draw attention. Down Frog Alley, through the strawberries, past the caravans. There was no one around. Just Elsie, pulling weeds. I took a wide path round her.

I got a bit faster. Swung the bag by my side.

Maggie Cruise.

Wanderer catcher.

Hero.

I ran across the mud ridges, towards Anderson’s field.

My feet squidged into the earth where last night’s rain had softened the ground. The whole world felt a bit less solid.

I sat down on William Whittington. He wouldn’t mind. He was long dead. I put the bag down next to me.

A breeze shuffled the leaves.

Crickets chirped in the long, tickly grass.

The clank, clank, clunk of Mr Gebby hammering horseshoes rang out from the town.

Clank, clunk, clank.

Clunk, clank, clank.

This was stupid. This was really stupid.

This was the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my whole life. What if it wasn’t just Una with her sick dad? What if there was a whole army of wanderers out there? She could have been lying. Probably was, now I thought about it.

I should go home. I should put everything back into the larder and—

“Hey!”

My heart gadumped.

“Over here!”

She sidled out from behind the tree – the same one Lindi had fallen from yesterday. Had she been there all the time?

“You alone?” she said.

I nodded.

She smiled her gappy smile. “I knew you’d come back. I knew you would.”