We sneak off to the magical room.

It’s Basti’s favourite room in the building. It’s a risk. It’s dark, the worms are asleep.

‘We need them to know we’re here,’ I whisper. ‘They glow when they get a fright.’

‘But we’ve got to be quiet,’ Bert protests.

I throw up my hands in despair. What to do?

Pin grins wildly. He’s got it. He runs crazily around the room, arms flapping wildly, looking a right dill; we’re try to stop laughing but it’s hard and then wonderfully, magnificently the walls and the ceiling suddenly come alive, with light. Brighter and brighter, an incandescent glow.

It’s worked!

I take out the yellow pages, exactly like our dad’s last note. Hold them up to the wall, one by one, and gaze through them.

First one, nothing.

Second one, nothing.

Third – ever so faint – something written on it, can’t make it out.

‘I need a pencil!’ I whisper urgently. We all scrabble in pockets. Nothing.

‘Hang on, around my neck!’ Bert’s wearing a silver chain that has a beautifully engraved cylinder on the end of it. ‘It might be . . .’

I twist the top of it and slowly, slowly emerges a sliver of a tiny, ingenious, pencil. Trembling, I rub it across the centre of the paper. Trembling, hold it up to the light.

Dad’s note. His very words. His writing. That convinced us to be here. My heart thuds, my mouth goes dry. But . . . how? What? Who? Is it his hand? Is it forged? Was he at the Reptilarium? I blink back tears, nodding to all of them, yes, yes, it’s Dad’s; the note came from here, England, from Basti’s room.

‘But I don’t know what it means,’ I wail. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Is he here?’

‘Did Daddy really write it?’

‘Did Basti? Do they have the same writing . . . brothers and all?’

‘Is it a trick?’

‘What’s going on? Are we safe?’

‘Tell us, Kicky, tell us what’s happening!’

‘I can’t work it out.’ I stare at three expectant, bewildered faces. Have never felt so helpless in my life.

‘Well then,’ Scruff says firmly, ‘we’ll just have to get to the bottom of this.’

I nod. ‘But not alert Basti in the process. He’s not going to help us.’

‘How then?’ Bert asks.

‘We have to get out of here. Find a way back to Dinda. Ask her some more questions. And Charlie Boo. He could be the key to all this.’

We spend a restless, sleepless night scouring hidden crooks and crannies, trying to find something – anything – in the way of more clues. But nothing. Operation Desert Tracker has to widen its scope. First things first: we have to escape. But how?

I toss and turn on the couch in the library, too much in my head. And we have to act fast. Dad could be anywhere. Trapped, needing our help.

The crack of dawn. Scruff in full battle mode: armour, sword, American Indian feathered hat, war paint in stripes across cheeks (lipstick from Bert’s bedroom).

‘You are staring at a tactical genius here,’ he announces, waking me up. ‘Dad’s going to be so proud of me. Just you wait.’

He rests his piece of papyrus on an old book, dips a feathered pen into an inkwell, and begins to write. ‘Oh Miss K, oh Miss Kicky K,’ he chuckles. ‘We have to escape from here, right? I’ve been working on this all night.’

When he’s finished he hands the papyrus across with a flourish. ‘Madam, the order of the day.’

I take it with a grin, shaking my head. ‘Scruff to the rescue, eh?’ I murmur in doubt.

I smile, nod. Dad’s favourite.

Because Charlie Boo has told us there are constant rumours some will be arriving in England soon, after several long years of banana-drought, and the entire country’s waiting with bated breath.

No escaping that one. This is Scruff after all.

I look up. ‘My masterstoke,’ Scruff smiles. ‘It’ll get us out. I think I know Charlie Boo, I really do. It’s a man hunch.’

‘Well, boy hero, it’s worth a try.’

We race downstairs and leave the order on the kitchen table. Scruff scrawls as an afterthought:

Thinks, actually, that’s a bit forward for an old butler – I agree, far too obvious. He goes to scrub it out, then decides hang on, why not? In fact, scribbles something else:

‘The genius-ness! Adulation please,’ Scruff commands. ‘We’ll be out of here in no time.’

‘When we’ve got to the bottom of this. And what makes you think Charlie Boo will agree to it? He might just hand over some snakes as our new mates.’

‘He hasn’t dealt with the Scruffter yet.’ He turns to the sheet of papyrus and adds just one thing –

We go back to the library and wait.

And wait.

Charlie Boo must have started work by now.

We hear nothing.

The hours pass . . . the morning firms into day . . . pacing . . . wondering . . . despairing . . . nup, it hasn’t worked.

DONG!

The enormous sound of a Chinese gong, summoning us downstairs.

We run.