‘The next forty-eight hours are critical,’ the doctor had told Dad, and that – or variations of it – are what Dad keeps repeating to me as we drive home from the hospital. Forty-eight hours, two days …

‘I know, Dad,’ I say, as gently as I can.

I haven’t seen my dad, apart from on FaceTime, for months. He’s ‘trying to get his life together,’ says Mam, who does her best not to be mean about him to me and Seb, but I know it upsets her as well.

He drove the hour from Middlesbrough, where he lives now, as soon as he heard that Seb was in hospital. His girlfriend Melanie isn’t with him, which I’m quite pleased about. I mean, she’s okay – I just prefer Dad without her. He’s got a beard now with grey bits in it, and new jeans and expensive glasses. (To be honest, they just look like ordinary glasses to me, but I heard Mam on the phone to Uncle Pete saying, ‘bloody designer glasses,’ so I guess they are.)

Mam has stayed with Seb in the hospital. The staff brought in a wheeled bed for her to sleep on tonight so she could be next to him.

Dad is changing the car’s gears with too much force, jamming the stick into place angrily. His mouth is clamped into a firm line like he’s trying his hardest not to cry. He used to cry a lot when he was living with us, but that’s when he was poorly. He’s a lot better now.

‘The worst thing is the not knowing,’ he says.

Not knowing is hard. Hard? It’s agony. I tried to explain everything about our dreams, about our adventures in the Stone Age, to Dr Nisha. It didn’t go well.

Dr Nisha had sat down next to me and put her pen and clipboard and iPad down as a sign that she was giving me all of her attention. She said to Mam and Dad, ‘I’d like a word with Malcolm alone, if I may?’ and they went to get something to eat.

We were in the beige room with the hard sofas and the Narnia mural, which I’d been staring at for ages and decided that I didn’t like.

‘So, Malcolm,’ she began, ‘you share a room with your brother, right?’

I nodded.

‘And you were the one that discovered that he would not wake?’

I nodded again.

‘Roughly what time was this?’

I had told her this before, but I repeated it. ‘About six o’clock. This morning.’

‘All right. And what were you doing immediately before this all happened?’ Her tone was soft and gentle. I looked at her eyes and they were large and trusting. Should I tell her? Should I bother?

I’s not like I hadn’t given this any thought. In fact, I had barely thought of anything else. What would I say? How about the truth?

The truth is the truth. The truth is what happened. Telling the truth might – might – help Seb. I don’t know what these doctors can do, do I? So I decided that I would tell her exactly what I was doing just before it all happened.

‘I was … I was trying to steal meat … And they were all waving their spears at us and –’ this sounds stupid, I know it – ‘at Kobi.’ I looked at Nisha and added, ‘I was dreaming.’

Her patient smile became a full one. ‘All right, Malky, I don’t mean …’

‘And Seb was there too. And he was captured by the big people, and …’

‘Yes, yes. It sounds like quite a dream.’

‘But we were in the same dream, do you understand?’ I waited to make sure I had her full attention, then I said, ‘And he’s still there. I think.’

Dr Nisha lowered her eyelids and looked at me sideways. ‘No, Malcolm. I’m not sure I do understand. But I hardly need to remind you that this is very important. I need you to be serious.’

I fought the urge to let my voice get higher and louder, in my agitated way. I took a deep breath.

‘I am being serious. Honestly. Seb and I can … we can share our dreams. That is, we … we experience the same dream at the same time. You see …’

‘Hang on – what?’ Dr Nisha had stopped leaning towards me and was sitting back, arms folded.

‘Our dreams. We agree beforehand: we read and watch stuff to make sure it’s right and then we fall asleep together under our Dreaminators and then …’

Mam and Dad came back in with baguettes from the shop downstairs. Mam’s eyes were red from crying and I stopped because I knew what Dad’s views are on the Dreaminator. Unfortunately, he heard the last of what I was saying.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, doctor. Is he on about that flamin’ dream thing again?’ He shook his head, angrily, like a dog dodging a wasp. ‘It’s a toy, for heaven’s sake. A child’s mobile that hangs above his bed and he reckons …’ He tailed off and turned to me, a pleading look on his tired face. ‘Malky, mate. Dr Nisha’s very busy and this is very serious. She’s got no time to listen to this.’

‘Dad!’ I protested, and this time my voice did actually go higher and louder. ‘I was there!’

‘Malky, if I hear one word …’

‘Mr Bell. Please.’ Dr Nisha stood up. ‘Malcolm has suffered quite an upset. This, this … “dreaminator” is not something I have ever heard of, and I certainly don’t think it’s possible for it to work as Malcolm describes. But …’

She paused. Her back was to me, so I couldn’t see her face. For all I know, she was doing that grown-up thing when your facial expression says something different to your words, by winking or something. I don’t know.

‘… why don’t you bring this device in for me to have a look at? I can examine it and determine whether or not it may have played a part in Sebastian’s condition. We are feeling our way in the dark a little here. Any help, any further information might be useful. And it might put Malcolm’s mind at rest. I think he feels as though this is somehow his fault.’

‘Because it is!’ I wailed.

It was like I had climbed to the top of a hill, then tumbled all the way back down again. For the first time ever, I had told someone the whole truth, and they hadn’t tried to shut me up. And then Mam and Dad came back in and … pushed me back down the hill.

It was also the first time in ages they’d actually agreed on something.

They’d agreed that I was talking nonsense. That’s a shame because right now I need people to believe me.