I’m raging inside at Susan for being so keen to leave. I hear a growl coming from down the corridor, and old Dennis’s claws clicking unevenly on the tiled floor as he limps towards me. Andi’s behind him, calling, ‘Dennis! Dennis! No!’ She grabs hold of his collar and starts to drag him back towards the kitchen as he lets off another gas attack that sounds like a bicycle puncture. ‘Oh, Dennis, that’s foul. Can you see yourselves out, kids? I’ve got to deal with this dog.’

Andi drags Dennis down the hall and back into the kitchen. She has left the tray of tea things on a hall table and I remember I was going to take the leftover butter cake back for Sebastian. A few weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have bothered, but he’s been okay recently.

‘Wait for me,’ I say to Susan. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’

I turn back and the front door bangs shut behind me. I’m on my own. Well, not exactly on my own, only that Kenneth is on the phone to his son in the living room, while Andi has turned on a noisy blender in the kitchen. No one knows I’m here and it’s a slightly odd feeling.

A long, tiled hallway stretches to the back of the house where the tea tray is, and it takes me past a room on the left with the door slightly ajar.

Don’t judge me. I just want to have a look inside. Just a peep, you understand. It’s not as if the door is shut, either, so it can’t exactly be super-private, can it?

No one knows I am here. I push the door and it makes a soft shushing noise as it scrapes over the thick carpet in the room. I can see the bottom corner of a bed. I poke my head round the door and take in the rest. It’s just an old man’s bedroom. There are slippers on the floor, a pair of trousers folded over a chair, a dressing table with a hairbrush and comb. And there, twisting above the bed in the slight breeze from the open window, is a Dreaminator.

It’s bigger than the ones in our bedroom, but there’s no mistaking what it is. I walk closer to get a better look and my eyes widen.

Kenneth McKinley’s Dreaminator is a thing of wonder, and as different from mine as a Rolls Royce is from Mola’s beaten-up old SUV. Where mine has a hollow plastic hoop, and a cheap-looking pyramid ‘roof’, with wires and strings attached, this is made of pale, weathered bamboo, bent into shape with no visible joins. Set into the wood are tiny flakes of glittering pyrite. There are little carved eagles, flowers, mysterious symbols and writing of a kind I don’t recognise.

And there, on one of the pyramid’s sides, three letters: URI.

Wasn’t that the name he said when he answered the phone? His son?

Inside the hoop, fine threads that look like pure gold are woven in a tight, intricate formation of circles repeated again and again, with beads and jewels sewn into the mesh. Hanging down are long strings, wound round with more gold thread, some with fine black feathers attached, and with large bluish crystals at the end. Even the battery housing is carved and inlaid with more stones.

It really might be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

‘Can I help you?’

I yelp and spin round to see Andi in the doorway.

‘Is this a habit of yours?’ she asks.

My mouth flaps but no sound passes my throat, which has suddenly become desert-dry.