‘No! Take a big bite! Biiiig bite!’ She cackles and beeps the car horn for no reason that I can tell. So I do. It’s delicious. Sharp, buttery, milky.

‘That’s lush, that is!’ I say, and Mola beams with pleasure.

‘You see, people who waking-dream without effort are very rare. Very rare! I would say they have a special gift! They are blessed. Outta my way – kyakpaa! Me, I manage it only sometimes. It is a great pleasure to meet a waking dreamer and see him eating my tu. Now, Dream-boy, you tell me what you dreamed of last night and I tell you mine!’

So, a bit reluctantly, I tell her about the Stone Age dream that I had, and how I had gone hunting with Kobi the Cave Boy. I miss out the bit about Seb actually sharing my dream because it still sounds too weird, but Mola hoots with delight and urges me to eat more cake.

I eat another piece, and I’m pretty full by the time we pull up near the school. I have my fingers on the door handle to get out when she says, ‘Wait! I have not told you mine yet!’ and I sit back. Mola turns off the engine, folds her hands in her lap and closes her eyes for a moment.

‘I dreamed of nothing,’ she says at last.

This puzzles me. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Bad luck.’

She turns to smile at me. ‘No. It is good.’ Then she closes her eyes again and that kind of closes the conversation as well. It’s embarrassing, but it only lasts a second or two.

‘You be careful, Dream-boy,’ she says when she opens her eyes again. She leans across from the driver’s seat and quickly taps me on the forehead with her wrinkled forefinger and giggles at my alarmed face. Then her expression changes again instantly in that way she has and she stares furiously into my eyes. ‘Inside your head is bigger than outside, Dream-boy. It is easy to get lost in there.’

Out of the car at last, and feeling a bit startled, I say to Susan, ‘What was all that about the inside of my head? And who wants to dream of nothing?’

She hooks a lock of her dark hair behind her ear as she looks upwards and thinks for a moment. ‘It is a Buddhist thing. Shun-yata, it’s called. It is one of the goals of meditation. It’s not so much “nothing” as “everything”. That is … I think.’

‘Huh,’ I say. ‘Sounds boring. I think I’d sooner be on a mammoth hunt.’

Susan nods in reply, managing to look as if she is both agreeing and disagreeing.

It’s a thing she has. It’s less annoying than you might think.

Chapter 25