… The croc is getting nearer – like much nearer. The wall of the canyon stretches upwards and I try again to scramble up it without success. I turn back to Cuthbert, and I can see the glint of his teeth.

‘STOP!’ I shout. ‘Stop! Oh man – please just stop!’

Cuthbert darts his long head forward, his jaws clamping down on my foot with agonising force as he starts to pull me towards the water. ‘No! NO!’

From further up the bank, Mola is running to help, shouting, ‘Get off him! Get off him!’

I’m wriggling and twisting, but the more I try to pull my foot out of the croc’s mouth, the harder he grips me, and I kick my other leg and it can’t move properly, because it is tangled up in the duvet …

And I’m sweating in bed, my foot is burning with pain, there’s a book resting on my face, which is dislodged when I move my head, the Dreaminator glows above me and I realise with a sob of frustration and a surge of despair that I have woken up.

‘No!’ I thump my head back on my sweat-damp pillow.

Chapter 74

Even in my semi-wakeful state, wrapped in my tangled duvet, I know that if I close my eyes I can re-enter the dream I was in. I’ll be back asleep. And a crocodile’s teeth will be tearing into my foot, and I’ll wake up again …

The thought of it all makes me wake up more, and a few seconds later there is no going back. I’m wide awake. I can see Seb’s empty bed, the moonlight coming through the thin horse-pattern curtains, the blue circle of Kenneth’s Dreaminator shimmering above me, the digits on my phone saying …

04:28

My mind’s still fuzzy. I can’t remember exactly when I fell asleep, but it wasn’t all that long ago. I was reading Kobi the Cave Boy and I drifted off.

I’ve missed my chance, haven’t I?

Even though I am exhausted to the point of feeling sick, I’m not confident I’ll get to sleep again. And, if I do, then what? It doesn’t seem as though my dream-controlling is working at all any more. I lift my aching foot out from under the duvet. It feels wet from sweat … only wetter than that. It is also a bit sticky, but it’s too dark to see anything so I turn my bedside light on and let out a gasp of horror.

Blood is oozing from three deep, triangular puncture wounds in my ankle, exactly matching where Cuthbert bit me. The blood is dripping down my leg and on to the sheet, so I get up and limp to the bathroom.