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actually looked at him when he’d come home.
    He felt his head begin to spin. God, what was happening to him?
    Mia reached up to shut her laptop. ‘Listen, I’ve got to …’
    Sam saw the leather bracelet on her wrist, and grabbed her arm. ‘Wait. That thing on your wrist. Look!’ He pulled up his sleeve and showed her the identical bracelet he was wearing.
    Mia looked at it curiously. ‘But I made that.’
    ‘I know. Of course you made it. You gave it to me for our anniversary.’
    Mia grabbed her laptop and stood up. ‘I don’t know how you got that bracelet, but it wasn’t made for you. I made it for my boyfriend.’ She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked away.
    Sam jumped up and ran after her. ‘Mia! Wait!’
    Mia had reached the street. Sam grabbed her again. ‘Listen to me. I am your boyfriend.’
    She pulled her arm away. ‘Let go of me.’
    ‘Mia, please. Just listen to me.’
    Mia turned on him. Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘No! You listen to me. You are not my boyfriend. So stop freaking me out and leave me alone!’ She turned and walked off down the street.
    Devastated, Sam stood on the footpath, staring after her. Shoppers and schoolkids moved around him like he wasn’t there. Sam couldn’t move. Couldn’t take his eyes off his girlfriend, his girlfriend, walking away from him like he didn’t exist.
    ‘Same thing happened to me.’
    Sam dragged his eyes off Mia’s retreating figure and saw Andy sitting on a bench, watching him.
    ‘When I got home, I went to my room,’ said Andy. ‘Only it wasn’t my room anymore. It was my sister, Viv’s, and she’d re-decorated it with posters of Pink and Lady Gaga. She threw a lamp at me and then my nai nai chased me out of the house with a meat cleaver.’
    Sam stared at him. ‘So … what? None of your family knew who you were?’
    ‘My sister called me a stalker,’ Andy said bitterly. ‘Like anyone would want to stalk her.’
    Sam didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. ‘My parents don’t know who I am either.’
    ‘My dad once told me about an order of monks who had mass delusion and thought they were possessed by lizards.’
    Sam looked at Andy blankly. What the hell was he talking about?
    ‘I think the same thing has happened to our families. The stress of us going missing has caused them to have mass delusional hysteria, resulting in collective amnesia.’
    ‘What about the others?’ asked Sam. Andy made no sense at the best of times, and right now the last thing he wanted to hear was theories about monks and lizards.
    Andy shrugged. ‘If this is happening to us, it’s probably happening to them too.’

    Jake was picking up a tiny bike outside the police station when Sam and Andy found him.
    Sam watched him, wondering how you ask someone if their family has forgotten them. Not exactly something you ask every day.
    ‘Hey, Jake.’
    Jake looked up defensively. He didn’t look great.
    ‘Is everything okay?’ asked Andy.
    ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
    Sam and Andy looked at each other.
    ‘We were just wondering if you’d found your parents,’ asked Sam carefully.
    Jake turned away. ‘I’m looking for my mum.’
    Sam felt his stomach turn. ‘So, you haven’t seen her since we got back?’
    Jake shrugged. ‘She’s probably just shopping.’
    ‘What about your dad?’ asked Sam.
    ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’ Jake snapped. ‘I just need to find my mum.’ He straddled the bike and went to push off from the footpath.
    Sam stopped him. He had to give it to Jake straight.
    ‘Listen, Jake. Andy and me? When we found our parents they didn’t know who we were. It’s like we were complete strangers …’
    Jake looked at him like he was crazy. ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘And it’s not just our parents. Mia didn’t know who I was either.’ Man, it hurt to say that out loud.
    ‘My theory is that our families are experiencing mass delusional hysteria caused by –’
    ‘Does anyone