It’s midnight and I’m still awake. I didn’t sleep at all last night, so I am exhausted. Truly drained. But I still can’t sleep.

What is happening?

What is Hellyann doing at the bike rental shop?

How will I get Tammy back?

Sleep doesn’t come till about five in the morning and when I awake, the room is so cold that my breath makes clouds, but at least the stink has gone.

A weak light, the colour of milky tea, struggles through the glass, and when I look out, it’s snowing again. Outside, Dad is scraping ice from the windscreen of our car, and beyond the car park I can just make out the shapes of the hills through the whiteout. I can also see the roof of Mad Mick’s Mental Rentals, and I wonder – as I’ve been wondering all night – how Hellyann is coping.

‘Ah, you’re up – great!’ Gran stands in the doorway. ‘Busy day – remember?’

I do remember, and I nod.

It’s not even eight o’clock and I’m exhausted.

A few minutes later, Dad comes into the kitchen beating his hands together from the cold. ‘Wow! It’s flippin’ Baltic out there.’ He puts his hands on Gran’s cheeks and she squeals, then he ruffles my hair and says, ‘A’reet, champ?’ It’s Dad’s way of saying there are no hard feelings but I know from experience that he’ll not want the subject of Iggy or alien spaceships brought up again.

Gran hands him a flask of tea and a packet of sandwiches.

‘Is your phone charged?’

‘Yes, Mam.’

‘Have you packed a shovel?’

‘Yes, Mam.’

‘Don’t drive into a snowdrift, all right?’

‘I’ll try not to, Mam.’ He puts a hand on my shoulder and says, ‘Your mam’s going to be fine’, then he heads out of the front door.

As soon as the door slams, Gran puts another fried egg on to my plate and folds her arms.

‘Where is it, then?’ asks Gran. ‘This alien of yours?’

‘It’s a her, not an it,’ I say through a mouthful of egg.

She shrugs off this detail. ‘Is that what the smell is in your room? Alien? It reminds me of when your dad and Uncle Alan kept a dead frog in their room for a fortnight and—’

‘It’s not so bad,’ I interrupt. I’m becoming a bit defensive about Hellyann’s smell, I find.

‘It’s better now that you’ve hung it out of the window.’

‘How do you know that?’

Gran gives me a pitying look, just like Tammy used to. It’s amazing how my gran can sometimes seem like a quarter of her age. ‘Because I looked, clever clogs. Now eat up and let’s go.’