And my phone has a cracked screen caused by Kez Becker.

The whole-school assembly’s outside in the big playground this year. I’m trying to pay attention, but every time Mrs Farroukh, who is up on the platform, scans the crowd, I imagine she’s already received a complaint about last night and is trying to identify a ‘medium-height boy, hair like a haystack’ and I hunch down, making myself invisible.

Some hope.

‘Follow Your Dreams’ is the speech Mrs Farroukh’s giving.

‘Dream big, children of Marden Middle School!’ she says into the crackly school PA system. ‘And you too can be like these people who had world-changing dreams.’

The big video screen behind her has pictures we can’t see very well because of the strong sunlight, but she reads out the names and what they’ve done.

‘Martin Luther King dreamed of an end to racism … Albert Einstein was inspired by his dreams to create the Theory of Relativity … Paul McCartney of the Beatles wrote “Let It Be” after he dreamed about his mother coming to comfort him in troubled times …’

I’m trying to listen, but I have just seen Kez Becker at the end of the row of Year Eights.

Do I mention my cracked phone? Is there any point at all? She’ll just deny it.

Then Mrs Farroukh says, ‘Let us welcome a new student in Year Seven. Susan Tenzin, please stand up,’ and there she is in the middle of the row in front. She stands still, hands clasped in front of her, and turns her head, smiling serenely at the whole school, chin held high.

Mason Todd nudges me. ‘Flippin’ teacher’s pet, I reckon: written all over her,’ he snorts. I say nothing. I’m not really concentrating. ‘What’s up with you?’ whispers Mason. ‘Are you even here? You look like you’re still on holiday.’

Seb had the same dream as me.

‘What? No, I’m, erm … I’m fine. Yeah – teacher’s erm …’

Mason gives me a funny look. When I first came to the school, I thought Mason and I would be best friends, but – according to Kez Becker – his mam thinks I’m ‘rough’.

By lunchtime, I’m a total nervous wreck waiting to discover if I have been reported.

I’m in the lunch queue and I try telling Mason about my dream. It’s not easy. That is, it’s hard to make it sound interesting. As far as Mason is concerned, all I am doing is telling him about this strange dream I had and – as everyone knows from about the age of six – no one’s that interested in your dreams.

I don’t mention the Dreaminators, obviously, because of how I obtained them. That is definitely something I am keeping to myself, at the very least until I know I have got away with it.