‘Can you get Serbian passports?’ asked Liz. ‘Or is it a Yugoslav one?’

It was nerve-racking, waiting. They kept Sam in the office for a good ten minutes, but eventually he emerged, smiling, and got back in the bus.

‘What happened? What did they say?’

‘It’s OK,’ he replied. ‘They just ran a computer check. To see if I was a wanted man or something. But nothing showed up, so they let me go.’

Relief. Mrs Rundle eased the bus out of the parking bay and into the traffic stream once again. She glanced in the mirror…

‘I don’t like to worry you, but two police officers have just come running out of that hut and into their car. They’re coming after us!’

We froze. All of us. I saw the colour drain from Sam’s face as the car, blue lights flashing and siren screaming, caught us up and overtook us. Mrs Rundle eased off and got ready to pull over.

But then the police car shot straight past and vanished over the horizon! I looked at Sam.

‘Sam! You went white! Guilty conscience or what! Have you got a hidden secret?’

He grinned. ‘Yeah. I’m actually an eighty-five year-old war criminal but I’ve borrowed this body as a disguise and now the real owner wants it back!’

I was holding a bag of crisps at the time — I’d just got them out of my bag when Mrs R. told us about the police — and I threw them at Sam.

‘Yeah, right!’

‘Oh, thanks, Becky!’ he replied, and then he ate them! I couldn’t think what to say.