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me. I’ll be glad when the Festival’s over and the worm’s gone for good.’
    â€˜If.’
    â€˜Huh?’
    â€˜If, not when. How do you know the worm’ll go? It might win this time.’
    â€˜Don’t be daft.’
    Lisa shrugged. ‘OK.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Two minutes to nine. Last one in school’s a creepazoid.’ She broke into a run and Fliss followed, wondering what old Hepworth would say when she told him she wasn’t going to play Ceridwen.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    THE PLATE ON the door said ‘Deputy Head’. Fliss knocked. ‘Come in.’ She pushed open the door. Mr Hepworth smiled from the swivel chair behind his cluttered desk. ‘Now then, Felicity, what can we do for you?’
    â€˜I don’t want to be Ceridwen in the play, Sir.’
    â€˜Why ever not?’
    â€˜I don’t really know, Sir. I mean, I know it sounds daft but I had this dream. This nightmare, about the worm. It scared me. And then last night—’
    â€˜What about last night?’
    â€˜Well, I don’t want to get anybody into trouble, Sir, but something happened last night at David Trotter’s and that scared me too.’
    Mr Hepworth leaned forward across the desk. ‘What sort of something, Felicity?’
    â€˜The worm, Sir. We finished the worm and they got inside it and—’
    â€˜Who? Who got inside it?’
    â€˜Ellie-May Sunderland, David Trotter, Gary Bazzard and Lisa Watmough, Sir. They’re playing the worm.’
    â€˜I see. Go on.’
    Fliss related the evening’s events, including her flight from the garage. When she’d finished, the Deputy Head nodded. ‘I can see how a thing like that might upset you, Felicity, but I’m not altogether surprised that it happened, considering who was in control of the worm.’ He sighed. ‘Whatever possessed Year Eight to put Gary Bazzard in the worm’s head?’
    â€˜Well, he wanted to be the Viking Chief, Sir, but we’d decided to have a girl for that part, so Gary got the worm’s head as a sort of consolation.’
    â€˜Well, it’s Year Eight’s production and we promised not to interfere, but I have to say that Mrs Evans and I probably would not have set our hearts on consoling Gary Bazzard, Felicity. The class gives him a leading role and he shows his gratitude by intimidating you with what sounds like a typical display of hooliganism. That’s the sort of lad he is, I’m afraid.’
    Fliss shook her head. ‘It’s not that that bothersme, Sir. Gary’s all mouth. I can cope with him any time. It’s – other things that have happened. Things that have been said.’
    Mr Hepworth shook his head. ‘You’re going to have to explain that, Felicity. You’ve lost me somewhere along the line.’
    Fliss tried, but the things she had to say sounded ridiculous even to her, in the Deputy Head’s office in broad daylight. The way they’d found everything they needed to make the worm. Lisa’s remarks about fate. How the creature had turned out perfect without any striving on the part of its makers, and how easily the four children had learned to work it, as though they’d been doing it all their lives. And the change which seemed to have come over Lisa since she’d become involved. It was worrying stuff when you put it together but she spoke stumblingly and without conviction, presenting the teacher with a hopeless jumble of suppositions. When her voice tailed off in mid-sentence, he smiled.
    â€˜It’s up to you, Felicity, but if you want my opinion it’s this. Both you and Lisa Watmough have highly developed imaginations, and you’ve allowed them to run away with you a little. This, coupled with Gary Bazzard’s typically idiotic antic, has given rise to needless anxiety on your part, the upshot of which is that you now wish to relinquish your part in the