Everyone knows now. We sit around the kitchen table: me, Jessica, Dad, Clem, and Ramzy. In the middle of the table is yet another chunk of engine—Dad’s pickup truck this time, which has been acting up. On top of that is a long, narrow test tube, like a pencil, filled with Mr. Mash’s blood that Jessica has just extracted with a syringe.

We’ve told Dad everything about stealing Mr. Mash.

If I was expecting a huge telling-off, and grounding, and allowance-canceling, and calls to Ramzy’s dad, and the vicar, and the police, and all of that, well…it just didn’t happen.

(In fact, I could swear that Dad was smirking when I told him about the policeman falling into the poo pit. He was trying not to, and was turning pink with the effort till Jessica kicked him under the table. I think. Jessica certainly wasn’t smiling, but then that isn’t new.)

I point at the glass tube of blood on the table. “Now it can all end. Can’t it?”

Jessica sighs. She’s got her patient and slow voice on, like a teacher. “Listen, Georgina. This is all new—all new to everyone. Even if it turns out that Mr. Mash has recovered from CBE—which is very unlikely, impossible even—then…”

“We know he has!” I say. “You saw him!”

“It’s far too early to say. He may be having a period of remission, when the symptoms diminish temporarily.” She looks pensive. “Though I haven’t heard of that happening.” She shakes her head. “Anyway. It does not mean he’s cured. We don’t even know for certain that he had CBE. He was never tested. It could be…I don’t know, something similar.”

“Something similar?” I get up from the table so quickly that I knock the chair backward. “It was exactly the same! Everything!”

“Well, it’s a shame I didn’t see it,” Jessica says drily. “It’s a shame there are no witnesses. But…” She trails off and then picks up the test tube, holding it to the light.

“But what?”

She breathes in through her nose and puts the test tube down. “There is something. It’s only a theory at the moment, but it’s something I’ve been working on. You see—until now, there has simply been no way that you can extract the relevant T-cell anti-pathogen from blood with immunity and re-create it to make a cure, but if Mr. Mash has recovered, then…”

And she’s off, her face becoming more animated than I’ve ever seen it as she tells us what might—possibly—be the route to a cure. To be honest, I don’t understand a word and am relieved when, after about half a minute, she ends with: “It’s a theory. We’ve never been able to test it until now, and it’ll take months anyway, but, well…we’re desperate.”

“Months?” says Ramzy, who till now has been pretty quiet.

Jessica nods sadly. “It’s possible that Mr. Mash’s mixed-breed DNA holds the secret. So many dogs these days are highly bred to be perfect examples of their type. But we have no idea what dogs there are in Mashie’s DNA makeup. If it’s not exactly unique, it could at least be very unusual. But without proof that he definitely had CBE, I’m going to have to do this on my own. It’s going to take time, and I’m going to have to pull in some favors from the nanotech people, and—”

“How long?”

Jessica sucks her teeth. “Three months? Four? You have to first grow a culture of pathogens, and apply the…”

She’s off again. I feel as though my stomach has dropped to the floor. “Too late then. Like you said.”

She looks out the kitchen window for a long time before answering.

“Too late for the dogs. And too late for lots of people. But it will save some of us. I mean, if my theory is correct. Four months, max, and there’ll be a cure. I hope.”

“How many will die before that?” says Ramzy.

She doesn’t answer.

Dad gets up from the table and switches on the kettle for another cup of tea. “If only, Georgie!” he says in a fake, jolly tone. “If only that mad old lady with her future thingamajig had been real, eh? We could see how this would all pan out, eh?”

Yeah. If only…