As soon as I opened the cover, I saw the words of the previous day disappear as though the new day had drained the ink away, and in their place the neatest writing-my neatest writing-began to appear in loops and lines, word after word, so quickly I could barely keep up. The first line made me nervous.

Monday, 6 July

What a disaster! This morning Dr Gedad showed up just like planned. Rosaleen left at ten o’clock for feeding time at the zoo just as I predicted. I watched to make sure nothing fell that would cause her to come running back early. Dr Gedad showed up at ten fifteen on the button. I prayed she wouldn’t look out the window and see his parked car but there was nothing I could do about that. I just needed to get him in and out of the house as quickly as possible. I was waiting for him at the door and he seemed such a warm and lovely man. I shouldn’t have been surprised really, with Weseley as his son. We were in the entrance hall when the front door opened and Rosaleen stepped in. Honestly, the look on her face when she saw him, it was like she’d been caught by the police. Dr Gedad didn’t seem to notice. He was as friendly as anything and introduced himself because they’d never met. Rosaleen just stared at him as though an unearthly thing had been beamed into her precious house. She went on a rather nervous rant about an apple pie; she’d tasted the apple pie and she’d added salt instead of sugar, which was the first time she’d ever done that. She seemed really upset, as though it was the worst thing in the world that anybody could ever do. She’d come home to get the other pie that she’d made for dinner. She was sure me and Arthur would understand if we allowed her to bring it to her mother to eat instead. I mean, it was only an apple pie, but she was practically shaking. I don’t know if it was because she’d made a mistake or because I’d arranged a doctor for Mum behind her back. Dr Gedad asked after her mother, whom he’d heard was unwell, and in the most bizarre twist ever, he ended up talking to Rosaleen in the kitchen, without my being allowed to sit with them, and when they’d finished, Dr Gedad said to me that he was sure that his presence wasn’t needed at all. He was very sorry for my loss, gave me a pamphlet about some counselling and then left.

Now things are worse than they were before I started this. I can’t stand this any more. I can’t stand being here any more. Next time Marcus comes along in his bus, I’m hijacking it and I’m forcing him to take me home. Wherever that is, it’s not here.

Don’t count on my writing tomorrow.

With shaking hands I returned the book to under the floorboard and knew that I had to fix this. I went downstairs and in the kitchen Rosaleen was making her pies for the next day.

I sat and watched her, nervously biting my nails and trying to decide what to do. If I stopped her from using the salt in the pie then that would mean that I could stop her from returning to the gatehouse too early. But if I changed everything then Weseley would never believe me. Which did I need more, a doctor for Mum or an ally here to help me?

‘Tamara, would you mind fetching me the sugar from the pantry, please?’ she broke into my thoughts.

I froze.

She turned round. ‘Tamara?’

‘Yes,’ I snapped out of it. ‘I’ll get it now.’

‘Can you just fill this up to there, that’ll make it easier,’ she smiled pleasantly, enjoying the bonding.

I took the measuring jug from her and I felt like I was outside of myself as I walked to the pantry. In the small room off the kitchen I looked at the floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with everything a person could possibly need for ten years. Condiments separated into Mason jars with screw-on lids, labelled in perfect penmanship with contents and expiry dates. A shelf of root vegetables: onions, potatoes, yams, carrots. A shelf of canned goods: soups and broths, beans, tinned tomatoes. Below that the grains, all in their glass jars: rice, pasta of all kinds of shapes and colours, beans, oatmeal, lentils, cereals and dried fruits-sultanas, raisins, apricots. Then there was the baking supplies: flour, sugar, salt and yeast, and so many jars of oils, olive oil, sesame oil, balsamic vinegar, oyster sauce, rails and racks of spices. There were even more jars of honey and jam: strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and even plum. It was endless. The sugar and salt had both been emptied from their packets and poured into jars. The jars were labelled, in that perfect handwriting. My hand shook as I reached for the salt jar. I remembered my lesson from last night: I could change the diary. I didn’t need to follow its story. If I hadn’t found it, life would be going on without any of my knowledge.

But then I thought of Weseley. If I gave Rosaleen the sugar, then she wouldn’t return home tomorrow, she wouldn’t catch the doctor before he went upstairs, she wouldn’t convince him not to see Mum. If I changed the diary, then I would have absolutely no idea what would happen, so I wouldn’t be able to tell Weseley and he wouldn’t believe me about the diary. I’d have lost a new friend and looked like the biggest weirdo on the planet.

But if I told him what was to happen tomorrow, then Mum wouldn’t see a doctor. How much longer could I wait here while she sat upstairs sleeping and waking as though there was no difference between either?

I made my decision and reached for a jar.

I got very little sleep that night. I tossed and turned, felt too hot and kicked off the covers, then felt too cold and covered up again, one leg out, one arm out, nothing was comfortable. I could find no happy medium. I daringly went downstairs to the kitchen to phone Weseley about the diary entry. I didn’t use the stairs, instead I did my gymnastics teacher proud by climbing over the banister and landing gently on the stone floor. Anyway, I did pretty well not to make a sound going down the stairs and yet still, just as I reached for the phone in the kitchen, Rosaleen appeared at the door in a nightdress from the 1800s, which went to the floor and hid her feet making her appear as though she was floating like a ghost.

‘Rosaleen!’ I jumped.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

‘I’m getting a glass of water. I’m thirsty.’

‘Let me get that for you.’

‘No,’ I snapped. ‘I can do it. Thank you. You go back to bed.’

‘I’ll sit with you while you-’

‘No, Rosaleen,’ I raised my voice. ‘You need to give me space, please. I just want a glass of water, then I’m going back to bed.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She raised her hands in surrender. ‘Good night.’

I waited to hear the creaks on the steps. Then I heard her bedroom door close, her feet moving across her bedroom and then the springs in her bed. I rushed to the phone and dialled Weseley’s number. He picked up after half a ring.

‘Hi, Nancy Drew.’

‘Hi,’ I whispered, then froze, suddenly so uncertain about what I was doing.

‘So, did you read the diary?’

I searched for any sign that I shouldn’t tell him. I listened out for tones-was he jesting me? Was he setting me up? Was I on speaker phone in a room full of his hillbilly friends-you know, the kind of thing I would have done if some dork that had moved to my area gatecrashed my party and started spurting crap about a prophesying diary.

‘Tamara?’ he asked, and I could hear no tone, nothing to make me change my mind.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ I whispered.

‘Did you read the diary?’

‘Yes.’ I thought hard. I could tell him I was joking, that it had been a hilarious joke, just like the one about my dad dying. Oh, how we’d laugh.

‘And? Come on, you’ve made me wait until eleven o’clock,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve been trying to guess all kinds of things. Will there be any earthquakes? Any lotto numbers? Anything we can make money out of?’