When you emerge from the portal, you expect to find yourself soaked to the bone. Because that’s what it felt like when you were inside of it—water. But you’re not even damp.

“Where am I?” you mutter to yourself as you wrestle the frisbee portal into the bum-bag.

And why is there a Rube Goldberg machine on the stairs?

Nothing about the place is familiar, though the scent of freshly baked chocolate cake wafts up the stairs, mingling with furniture polish, which makes the house feel homely if nothing else. The golden carpet along the wide hallways is plush enough to sleep on. You can’t decide whether to take the hallway ahead or the one to your left. Going down the stairs behind you doesn’t seem wise, even if you do want to find out if that cake tastes as good as it smells.

You hear someone coming. Are you supposed to be here? Probably not. Your heart starts pounding against your ribcage like an angry fist. Because those are the heavy footsteps of a giant.

Before you can think better of it, you open the closest door and slip into the room, closing it quietly behind you. You press your forehead to the door, listening for those footsteps.

You jump when someone speaks behind you.

“Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my room?”

You turn to find a girl sitting against the headboard of her bed, drinking milk and reading a book called Solid Air. Black curls frame a brown face and… purple eyes? You decide it must be a trick of the light.

“And what the hell are you wearing?” she goes on. “Did you mug the nineties?”

You look down at the bum-bag that she shouldn’t be able to see, slowly realising it’s not the worst thing you’re wearing. “These aren’t my clothes,” you protest.

The girl on the bed eyes you sceptically, one eyebrow arching high.

You’re wearing bottle green MC Hammer trousers, an oversized black shirt decorated with sunflowers, and… clown shoes. Bright red clown shoes with white stitching. At least they actually fit you. Where do you even buy clown shoes that fit? Were they made for child clowns? Are child clowns a thing?

Thatcher Kane’s last words come back to haunt you: You can’t wear that.

What a butthole!

“I think someone’s messing with me,” you say. “Sorry for barging into your room. A man with hell in his eyes brought me on an adventure, and I wasn’t sure which room to go to.”

“Oh, yeah, I know him,” she says, bouncing off the bed. “I’m Violet. Welcome to the priory.”

“You’ve got milk wings,” you tell her, then introduce yourself belatedly.

She wipes her mouth with her sleeve. “Are you hungry? I think Glenda made cake. And if you’re lucky, Archer’s cooking dinner tonight.”

You salivate as you stand there. This is the easiest decision you’ve ever made.

“This part of the house is a thousand years old,” Violet says as she leads you past the Rube Goldberg machine and down the stairs, turning left when you get to the bottom. “And this part is only a hundred years old.”

Vibrant, splashy artworks fill the plain walls, lending the room a modern air, but the furniture is dark and worn, like it's as old as the house itself.

And though the table is piled high with food, there’s no sign of a blue bun anywhere.

There are lots of tall, noisy boys standing around the table, elbowing each other for space as they pile food onto their plates.

“Not actually a zoo,” Violet reminds them, and the jostling miraculously stops. “We have a guest.” Violet hands you a tray. “Come on. We’ll eat in my room. This family… well, we're a lot.”

You're glad because they're all staring at you—a set of identical twins who look a lot like one of the older boys, the one who looks like he should be strutting on a runway, and the curly-haired boy with soft golden eyes—and you feel ridiculous in those clothes, certain you're blushing hard enough to power a lightbulb.

Back in Violet's room, you can't help wondering if the blue bun is here somewhere. The house is massive, the hallways almost as wide as the rooms in some parts. If the blue bun is here, how would you ever find it? And if it's the key to Pride finding you, do you even want to find it? It's not like you know the man, but he seemed kind of chaotic, and like a magnet for trouble. Still, he promised adventure, and isn't that what you wanted when you jumped into that frisbee portal? These thoughts occupy your mind throughout dinner and dessert.

Much later, after a tour during which you kept an eye out for the elusive blue bun, and met a brown goat called Lucy and her judgemental goat friends, all of whom had a nibble at your horrendous trousers, you watch the starlings swirling in the sky above the river. Violet points out squirrels and rabbits, and the super gnarly tree in the garden.

“It’s so pretty here,” you tell her as the sun makes its way to the horizon.

“It’s the best place on earth,” she says, and you don’t argue.

You like it here.

Still, you hesitate when Violet offers you a bed for the night.

So, what's the plan? Stay overnight at the priory and hope the blue bun presents itself? Or go home?