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…’
    Amelia listened. She heard it, too.
    Curiously, they got to their feet and opened the entrance doors of the hotel. And there was Mr Snavely – Control’s infamous ‘health inspector’ – his pinched little face even more disgusted than usual as he drove up in a cheery pink and white ice-cream van.

    Actually, it was far simpler than that. Ms Rosby had arranged an extremely nice exchange for the Walkers: Mr Snavely would empty the truck’s supply of ice-cream, sorbet, gelato and frozen yoghurt into the hotel’s freezer, and in return the Control agents would transfer the sixteen containers of frozen Frrshalla to the truck.
    Trktka was another matter, though.
    First Mary had to coax all the guests into the library, promising them a special historical reel-to-reel film of Forgotten Bay – ‘and choc-tops!’ she promised – as an excuse to keep them all inside with the curtains drawn. Once the library doors were closed, two broad-shouldered Control agents bundled Trktka out under a blanket while she struggled and gnashed at them.
    ‘Thanks for coming, lovely to meet you!’ Charlie called as the group crossed the lobby.
    Amelia elbowed him in the side.
    ‘What?’
    She smiled and shook her head at him. ‘Does nothing bother you?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Amelia shrugged, heading for the stairs up to her room. ‘I just … After all that, I don’t know how you can feel like provoking her.’
    ‘Well, she deserves it!’ said Charlie, following. ‘As if a bit of provoking comes anywhere near to what she did to us!’
    ‘No, that’s not what I meant. It’s more … I was really scared it was the end for us today. You one time, me another, maybe all of us, if we hadn’t broken the recursor … I’m just surprised that doesn’t upset you more.’
    Charlie stared at her for a moment, then dropped his head. ‘It does.’
    Amelia heaved a deep breath, and waited.
    Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t know … maybe Tom’s got to me at last, but you know the bit that I keep going over in my mind? What would have happened if James and I had fallen into the Nowhere. It was so rushed at the time, we didn’t stop to think about it, but now …’
    At last he looked up at her. ‘Do you think we would have really been lost forever?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Amelia. ‘But I’m glad we don’t have to find out.’
    They were both very quiet for a while.
    They heard Dad come out of the kitchen downstairs with Ms Rosby, walking her to her car. Amelia crept out across the gallery overlooking the lobby and peered over the railing at the hotel’s main doors. She heard Dad and Ms Rosby farewelling each other, and Ms Rosby’s last ‘Bravo!’ as she drove off down the gravel driveway. Dad plodded back into the hotel and closed the door behind him with a sigh.
    Amelia was about to call down to him when Tom limped out from the common room. ‘Have they gone?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘They’ve gone. Perhaps now you might tell me why we lied to one of the top three Control agents on Earth? Not only that, but one of the only two agents in the whole organisation that is on our side . Why didn’t we trust her with the truth?’
    ‘Because some truths were never meant to be told,’ said Tom. ‘And that canister was never meant to be found. Even more than the recursor, what’s in that tin has the power to overturn the universe as we know it.’
    Dad blinked and his anger fell away from him. ‘So what is in it?’
    Tom looked away. ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘You. Don’t. Know.’
    Tom huffed. ‘Look, it was hidden in that safe years ago – not just before Control was assembled, but years before the war.’
    Amelia’s stomach flipped over. The war? What war? Is that what Tom had been referring to as the trouble? Had they been fighting against these Guild people?
    ‘Hidden by whom?’ said Dad.
    ‘I don’t know that either.’
    ‘Oh, come on, Tom!’
    Tom glowered. ‘I don’t know, I