This is my dream, I’ve been here before, and I’m furious and scared.

Furious because this is not meant to be happening, and scared because it is. It’s Sebastian’s fault, of course. Why does he keep doing this?

Even I could tell that things were getting better. Seb and I hadn’t fought in weeks. Mam was happy. I had made friends at school. (Well, a friend, sort of, but still … You’ll meet her.) Dad had called for the first time in ages.

I stand in the mouth of the cave, wondering what to do. A massive seagull circles high above me in the cold blue sky. In the distance, down by the shore, the same pair of woolly mammoths as before munch lazily on the same oversized birthday cake.

I tut and think: Why does Seb have to ruin everything?

I could just wake up. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going—

‘Oi, Dog-breath!’

I turn round to see my brother standing behind me, in the cool shade of the cave, wearing his green goalkeeper’s top.

‘What’s going on?’ I snap at him. ‘I turned the Dreaminators off.’

‘I know. Why did you do that?’ he whines. ‘I turned them on again cos I couldn’t fall asleep. My sleep rhythms are out of sync with yours.’

My thleep rhythmth are out of thync with yourth. I know it’s tricky to speak properly when you’re missing three front baby teeth, but he doesn’t even try. Anyway, I’m not going to write it out like that every time he says something, so you’ll just have to imagine that he speaks like a dog’s squeaky toy.

‘Seb, man,’ I say, trying not to shout straight away, ‘it isn’t safe. There’s something not right and I think we should …’

‘Not right with what?’

‘Not right with the Dreaminators. With … with everything …’

‘Come on, Malky. You said we could. You promised!’

I didn’t, actually, but he’s getting more whiny. I hate it when he gets whiny.

‘Seb … I’m telling you, something is wrong.’

He’s not listening. ‘Where are the others?’ he asks. I shake my head. I am still thinking about stopping the whole thing right there. Seb starts sniffing. ‘They’ve been here. Not long gone, in fact.’ He points to a fire smoking in a pit. The sharp wind outside the cave rattles the bunches of seaweed, hanging in long strings like little grey-green flags, that are drying by the cave mouth.

‘They have gone to steal food,’ I say, a bit grumpily. ‘You know how it goes.’

One last dream together? A short one. No more after that.

‘What, without us?’ says Seb. ‘That’s not fair. Come on, Malk. We’ll just wake up if we need to.’

From somewhere – my conscious mind, wherever that is right now? – drifts a warning. How did it go? Inside your mind is bigger than the outside, Malky …

‘Malky!’ shouts Seb. ‘Come ooooon!’

I give in. He’s right on one thing: we can wake up and come out of the dream whenever we want. That bit I can still control, at least. And the minute the crocodile appears we’re out of here.

I have never made a bigger mistake.

‘All right,’ I say, quickly, before I can change my mind. ‘We can catch them up. They won’t have got further than the lake. And promise me: when I say we quit, we quit, okay?’

‘Promise,’ says Seb. But I’m not sure he’s really listening.