The basic back-to-school stuff is the same every year.

To be honest, I’m still not really paying much attention to any of it because I’ve already decided I’m definitely in trouble. I’m simply waiting for the call to Mrs Farroukh’s office, where there will be (I’m guessing) Valerie the counsellor, plus the policeman who comes to talk to us about drugs and online safety and stuff, and the woman who chased me down the lane last night. They’ll bring Mam in, and Mam will tell Dad, and he’ll take back my phone because it was sort of given to me on condition I stay out of trouble …

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.

Mason’s already looking over my shoulder for someone else to talk to when I say, ‘Listen, man. I was doing all of this stuff in my dream. I was in control. I knew I was in the dream!’ I haven’t even got to the bit about Seb yet.

He steps back, kind of dramatically, looking at me through half-closed eyes.

‘You what? You “controlled” a dream?’ he says, making air quotes with his fingers. ‘How does that work then?’

‘I … I don’t really know. It’s like I was asleep but awake at the same time?’

He repeats this back to me, and I feel so relieved that at last someone understands that I laugh. ‘Yes, man! Yes! That’s exactly what happened. I tell you …’

‘Crazy, you are! That’s just not possible. You were asleep, Malky, man. You can’t be awake and asleep at the same time.’

‘But it’s true, Mason! I was there. And my brother was too!’

‘You had a dream about your brother? Big deal!’

‘No! I mean my brother …’

I am about to tell him that Seb had the same dream as me at the same time. That Seb was sharing my dream. But, as the words form in my mouth, I realise that people have turned to listen, and that it’s going to make me sound even crazier.

‘… Yeah. You’re right,’ I say after a moment, and I fall silent.

‘Honestly, Bell. Summer holiday’s sent you soft in the head.’ He squeezes his way down the queue past a group of Year Fives. It seems as though he’s trying to get away from me, but he’s probably just hungry. Still, it looks like I’m going to be sitting on my own for lunch on the first day of term.

Seb had the same dream as me.

‘They are called “waking dreams”, Malky,’ says a voice behind me. ‘And I believe you.’