I tapped one of our petrol cans gently with my foot. Disappointingly, we weren’t the only ones to have got some – and others had remembered matches too. Still, we did have three cans, and that would get a lot of kriks. If we should need to. I looked down at the town again. There was definitely nothing moving down there, but was that suspicious? Was that strange? Should there not be more wildlife than just a few sheep?

‘We need to get to safety ourselves too,’ said Stinky. ‘Where are we going? We can’t stay here another night.’

‘Leave, then,’ said Soldier John.

‘No, I didn’t mean now. Just . . . we can’t stay here.’

‘So go.’

‘Well, we can leave it a while,’ said Stinky. ‘But what do you plan to do this morning?’

‘I’m going to go out and save them the same way we did yesterday. We’ve got at least twelve hours of light.’

People looked at each other uncertainly then. It was fairly obvious that going out wasn’t a good idea. The Jellyfish might be calm now – but did we really want to make it cross again?

‘So you’re going to go out,’ said Dr Jones. ‘Shall we have another group to gather food and water and something to carry it in?’

‘You organize that,’ said Soldier John. ‘And you, you and you,’ he pointed at some of the rugby men, ‘you go and find a map. Figure out where we can go tonight. We want somewhere we can fortify that is inland.’

The men nodded, more confidently than I’d have done if I were them. But then I didn’t remember where to get maps from. Maybe that was an easier task than it sounded?

‘Shall me and Kate get some clothes, and some shoes for everybody to wear?’ said Lana. She tilted her head to one side and frowned to make it look as though this was an important task. She ruined it, though, by grinning at us with excitement.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Soldier John.

‘Sir,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t think you can do the same thing as yesterday.’

He looked at her fiercely, and if it was me, I probably wouldn’t have carried on saying anything. Normally Kate wouldn’t have continued either – but everything was feeling different now. Everybody was feeling different.

‘The way it was yesterday, the Jellyfish knows what you’re doing. It won’t let you. It’ll just smash you up, and them too.’

There was silence then. Because we all knew she was right. Even Soldier John knew she was right.

‘I’m prepared to listen to alternative battle plans,’ he said. ‘What would anybody else suggest?’