I have so many questions I want to ask. Where is this? Who are the other people in the scene? How did they get there?

At that exact moment, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I look at the screen: Mam. I think for a second about letting it ring through to voicemail, but … she’s in hospital.

I put my finger to my lips to tell the others to be quiet and swipe to answer the call.

‘Hi, Mam.’ I am trying so hard to sound normal, but even those two syllables sound as though they’re trembling.

‘Hi, sweetheart. How are you?’ Mam’s voice sounds … like it usually does. That is, not drugged or slow or any of the things I was expecting, and I am so relieved I find myself grinning just at the sound of her voice.

‘I’m OK. What about you?’

She tells me she is feeling better, but still sad and worried, and that the doctors have recommended rest and some more treatment, and I’m listening and distracted at the same time because Hellyann and Iggy are watching me take this call.

‘Where are you?’ Mam asks.

‘I … erm … I’m at Iggy’s,’ I lie and I hate myself immediately for lying to my mum who’s in hospital. ‘I’m just heading home in a minute.’

There’s a pause. ‘You’re at Iggy’s? But your dad’s been trying to get you. He’s called Iggy’s mum …’

I look at the screen of my phone: two missed calls from Dad.

‘My phone’s been acting weird. I got it wet.’ At least that’s the truth. ‘And … erm, we were out the back, in Iggy’s, erm … shed.’

His shed? Where did that come from? I don’t think Iggy even has a shed …

‘So you’re on your way back? OK, I’ll tell your dad. I … I miss you, Ethan, love …’ Her voice trails off, and I think she moves her phone away from her face and I hear a little sob.

There is a lump in my throat that feels like a golf ball because I know Mam is trying to ‘be brave’ with me on the phone. I want to say, ‘It’s all right, Mam, you can cry’, but I don’t because she is talking – talking quite quickly, so she can get off the phone and cry.

‘I’ll be back home soon, Ethan, love. Be a good lad. I love you. Bye.’

She has gone before I can even say ‘bye’ in response.

I put my phone in my pocket and Hellyann approaches me, sniffing deeply. ‘You lie very effectively,’ she says. ‘When we lie, we can smell it instantly. You do not smell at all. Not of lying, anyway.’

‘Erm … thanks. I suppose. Listen, my dad’s been asking for me. I have to go, but …’ I look over at Iggy.

‘What do we do?’ he says. He looks first at Hellyann and then at me, pleading with his eyes for an answer.

‘We will pring her pack,’ says Hellyann evenly. ‘But you must tell no one. No one at all. It will threaten the whole plan.’

‘You have a plan?’ I say, and I know I sound pleading and desperate but I just don’t care.

‘Oh yes. I haf a plan. It requires total secrecy.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Whatever,’ I say, but it comes out too easily.

Hellyann blinks slowly. ‘You may not actually smell when you deliver falsehoots,’ she says, ‘but sometimes it is obvious.’ She points at me. ‘You are thinking of telling your father as soon as you get pack, are you not?’

‘No, I—’

‘Stop it. You were. Of course you were. Humans are dependent on their parents. Only, if you do that, he will inform the police, and the police will inform your military, and I will be unaple to leaf, and Philip will be discovered, which will haf—’

‘Hang on. Who’s Philip?’

‘Philip is what you would call an Artificial Intelligence bot. Right now, though, it – he – is repairing my craft. He is so powerful that were he to fall into the hants of Earth people, it would have a deffastating effect …’ Hellyann closes her eyes for a moment as if thinking hard. ‘You haf to trust me.’

We say nothing.

Can I trust her? Do I have a choice?

‘One more thing,’ she says. ‘My stick – I haf mislait it. I dropped it by the tree when that dock attacked me. I must ket it pack.’

‘That may be difficult,’ I say, and I tell her that I saw the younger Geoff holding it.

‘That is a proplem then that we must solve tomorrow. I cannot leaf it here.’ She says it all so calmly and matter of fact. I mean, Dad just has to lose his keys and he’s swearing and slamming doors – this is much more important and Hellyann hasn’t even raised her voice. It’s like she doesn’t even know how to panic.

Iggy points out the bed platform above the sales desk. ‘Bed’s up there. Toilet at the back. You’ll find drinking water there as well. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be back at eight tomorrow morning.’

Hellyann shakes her head uncomprehendingly and Iggy sighs. There’s a clock mounted on the wall by the till. ‘Look, when the long hand is pointing straight up and the little hand … Oh, forget it. It’ll be shortly after it gets light. All right?’

I grab my jacket and leg it back down the hill while Iggy locks the big front doors of Mad Mick’s Mental Rentals.

She has a plan, I think.

It’s only a tiny bit of hope, but a tiny bit of hope is better than no hope at all.