‘What did you mean?’ Trent whispered, sitting down beside her.

‘About what?’ Laurie asked, getting up on one elbow.

‘You said it hadn’t finished growing in your room. What did you mean?’

‘Come on, Trent – you’re not dumb.’

‘No, I’m not,’ he agreed without conceit. ‘Maybe I just want to hear you say it, Sprat.’

‘If you call me that, you never will.’

‘Okay. Laurie, Laurie, Laurie. You satisfied?’ ’Yes. That stuff’s growing all over the house.’ She paused. ‘No, that’s not right. It’s growing under the house.’

‘That’s not right, either.’

Laurie thought about it, then sighed. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘It’s growing in the house. It’s stealing the house. Is that good enough, Mr. Smarty?’

‘Stealing the house…’ Trent sat quietly beside her on the bed, looking at her poster of Chrissie Hynde and seeming to taste the phrase she had used. At last he nodded and flashed the smile she loved. ‘Yes – that’s good enough.’

‘Whatever you call it, it acts like it’s alive.’

Trent nodded. He had already thought of this. He had no idea how metal could be alive, but he was damned if he saw any way around her conclusion, at least for the present. ‘But that isn’t the worst.’

‘What is?’

‘It’s sneaking.’ Her eyes, fixed solemnly on his, were big and frightened. ‘That’s the part I really don’t like. I don’t know what started it or what it means, and I don’t really care. But it’s sneaking.’

She ran her fingers into her heavy blonde hair and pushed it back from her temples. It was a fretful, unconscious gesture that reminded Trent achingly of his dad, whose hair had been that exact same shade.

‘I feel like something’s going to happen, Trent, only I don’t know what, and it’s like being in a nightmare you can’t get all the way out of. Does it feel like that to you sometimes?’ ‘A little, yeah. But I know something’s going to happen. I might even know what.’