Susan murmurs so that Kez can’t hear. ‘Remember. The dead cannot hurt you. Focus on your real purpose. Focus on Seb.’

‘Hang on. You said …’

‘I know. I am almost certain. But you know …’

Kez has unlocked the double doors and, when she opens them, a soft beeping starts. She turns to us. ‘Wait here. I have to disable the alarm.’ She slips in, and a few seconds later the beeping stops. Kez reappears and the three of us stand for a moment by the slightly opened double doors.

‘All right. Rules,’ says Kez. ‘Half an hour starting from now. No talking to people on the outside. Don’t turn the lights on or you’re disqualified. If it gets too much for you, bang on the door and say, “I’m a scaredy-cat, get me out of here!” Ready? Hand me your phone.’

‘Not giving it to you after last time. Susan can keep it.’

Kez frowns at us both. ‘Fair enough. Doesn’t matter to me. Now – have a look.’

I step forward to put my head through the gap in the doors. That’s when I feel a hard shove in my back as I’m pushed forward into the dark, followed by a loud clunk as the door slams behind me. It’s just like when this whole thing started, when Kez pushed me into Mr McKinley’s backyard.

‘Malky, are you all ri—’ begins Susan.

‘Shush. You’re breaking the rules.’

After that, silence. Even though I know that Kez and Susan are on the other side of the doors, I’m terrified. It would have been scary enough just sitting there with my back against them for thirty minutes. Instead, I have to prowl around in near total darkness, looking for a dead man’s Dreaminator.

The narrow windows just below ceiling height let in a tiny bit of light from outside, but it’s a dark night, anyway, and the only streetlight is broken. I blink hard to try to force my eyes to get used to the blackness and after a little while I work out where I am.

The room I’m in is bigger than it seemed from the outside. There are some lockers like at school, a rail with suits hanging from it, a shelf with top hats, and some low chairs. This must be some sort of changing area or staffroom. There are empty teacups on a little table and a sink in the corner. I start looking around for anything that might give me a clue as to where the Dreaminator is, and pretty soon I conclude that it’s not likely to be here. Not in this space, anyway. There are some head-height kitchen cupboards which I quickly look in, but it’s stuff like mugs and teabags.