It’s just a little one: not a huge comedy WWWWACHOOO! More of a cute panda-sneeze: ichhha!

It is definitely a sneeze, though.

Tommy Knight just stands there. I have no idea what else he’s doing, because I’m in a crouched position behind the coffee table and I dare not look up.

I know, I know: it makes no sense really. He can’t see me, so why shouldn’t I move my head from being curled up? I think it’s just ingrained in us, an instinctive thing: if you feel threatened or unsafe, then you curl up, kind of defensively, and that is what I do.

At first, anyway.

After a few seconds, I realise the silliness of what I am doing, and I lift my head. My nose is tickling again.

Tommy Knight is still standing there, head cocked, very alert and suspicious.

Then it comes again, another sneeze, and I have held this one in so hard that it explodes, not so much as a sneeze sound but as a splutter, and a fine spray of spit lands on the laptop, becoming visible immediately.

Cautiously, Tommy Knight steps over and picks up the laptop and looks at it. It’s still whirring while it deletes everything. Holding it in one hand, with the other he draws his fingers across the spray on the cover. He rubs his fingers, sniffs them. Slowly replacing the laptop on the coffee table, he backs out of the double doors, through to the kitchen, where I hear him fiddling with the chain to let the dog in.

I take my chance and scuttle out to the hallway, closing the door behind me, just as Maggie barrels through the other doors, with Tommy behind him, saying, ‘What is it, Maggie? Go seek, girl. Go seek!’

I can hear the shower upstairs. Jesmond’s in the bathroom, and his phone will be in his bedroom. Now’s my chance and I run upstairs, not caring about my feet thumping on the thick stair carpet.

I open the bedroom door. It’s the smell that hits me first. It’s not exactly dirty. It is a combination of things. Cologne of some sort, for sure. Lynx? Something more expensive, probably. But there is something else going on there as well. Something more … earthy. Animal-y.

I quickly scan the room to see if Jesmond has left his phone on the bed or the desk.

He hasn’t.

He has a big double bed jutting out from the wall, and I go round to the other side, and that’s when I see the source of the animal smell.

An animal.

I don’t see the dog at first, just the small carry-cage it’s locked up in. Then it comes to the front of the carrier, and I see it. A little Yorkshire terrier.

With a missing leg.

Mrs Abercrombie’s Geoffrey. No doubt about it at all.

He gives a little whine. Can he smell me? It’s a sad whimper, and the result is a whole new sensation for me: feeling sorry for the loathsome Geoffrey.

How can the twins’ dad not know? I guess smuggling a puppy carrier in and out of a house isn’t so hard and I don’t suppose either of the twins’ parents actually go into their rooms much. The smell would be enough to put me off. Although, given the conversation in the living room, their dad clearly suspects something.

But enough of the dog. That’s not why I’m here.

It’s his phone, his phone, his phone. Where is it?

Jesmond’s jeans are lying discarded on the bed, and I start to go through the pockets. Nope, not there.

And then I hear from the landing the lock on the bathroom door click open and before I can make it out the door, he’s there, in the bedroom, towel round his waist, another one being used to dry his hair, while with the other hand he’s holding his phone and talking. The strong Geordie accent has returned.

‘As I predicted, my friend, as I predicted. All you’ve gorra do is go round there with it tomorrah, hand it over, collect the reward an’ you’ll get y’ ten quid finder’s fee. First thing in the mornin’ – it cannit stay here, cos we’re on the school trip. How’s that? … Aye … Sweet as! … See ya, Mynt.’

Mynt? Aramynta Fell? How’s she caught up in this?

He throws the phone onto the bed.

I’m on the other side of the room being as still as I can and dreading what’s coming next, and …

OHMIGOD! He’s dropped the towel from round his waist and I’m staring at Jesmond Knight’s white, naked bottom and this is just so embarrassing. I can’t close my eyes, so I turn my head and …

OHMIGOD, that’s even worse! I’m looking straight at a mirror and I get a full-frontal of Jesmond.

Inside my head I’m screaming, ‘Put some clothes on!’

He struts up and down the room, then he stops in front of the mirror and flexes his arm muscles. Then he goes into that sort of gorilla pose that bodybuilders do: curled arms pointing downwards, chest expanded, and the whole thing is just so appalling that I have to turn my head, while watching his movement from the corner of my eye so that I can dodge if he comes close.

I think I’m safe. I’ve found a little position near the curtains in the corner, which is out of the way, and it’s a pretty big room. I just do not want to see any more of a naked Jesmond Knight especially when – aaaghh! – he bends over to pull a pair of shorts from under his bed.

Somehow, through my disgust, I still manage to piece together what I will do next. It’s a long shot but it’s my only shot. I’m going to wait for Jesmond to fall asleep, then take his phone and leg it out the back door. Or the front door – I don’t really care at this point. To be honest, I think I’d try leaping from the window if it meant I didn’t have to see Jesmond Knight’s buttocks any more.

Then I hear Geoffrey whine in his pet carrier and I feel this rage boil up inside me. How dare they do that? Kidnapping pets for the reward money? Seriously?

Jesmond sniffs the air.

‘Jeez, mutt,’ he says, peering down at the pet carrier. ‘You don’t ’alf stink.’ Then his tone softens slightly. ‘Wanna come out?’

Oh no. Please no. I tense as Jesmond opens the front gate of the cage, but when Geoffrey trots out on his three little legs, he ignores me, and snuffles around the bed instead.

Eventually – to my huge relief – Jesmond gets his pyjama shorts on. I haven’t noticed that I’m standing on the end of his pyjama top, splayed out on the carpet. He stoops to grab it and, because I’m standing on a sleeve, he has to tug it out from under the weight of my foot, and that is odd. I suppose it looks a bit like the arm of his pyjamas was stuck to the floor with chewing gum or something.

He has the same puzzled look on his face as his dad did a few minutes ago when he heard me sneeze.

I know that there is no reason for Jesmond to think I am in his room, invisible. But, unlike his dad, Jesmond at least knows that invisibility is possible.

He stands in the middle of his room, holding his pyjama top, staring at the floor where it had appeared to ‘stick’ to the carpet.

I follow his gaze down to the floor, and I see what he is staring at.

There, imprinted in the thick pile of the carpet, are two perfect footprints where I am standing.