And it took us even longer, because we were mainly trying to figure out where ‘here’ was, but over to the far side of the map, the side away from the sea, there was a big blue circle which somebody had drawn on to the map. It was around a black blob labelled Castle Huw. And here’s the important bit, which I had to read twice, and then again, before I trusted I wasn’t just making it up. Somebody had also written: ‘Safety here. All welcome.’

‘Woah!’ I said, checking.

‘Yes,’ said Kate. She turned to grin at me then.

‘Do you think that’s where they are? Those fighter people?’

‘I don’t know. But there’s somebody there. It’s somewhere we can go!’

The writing looked fresh. I don’t mean like it had just been done yesterday or something – but it wasn’t as faded as the rest of the board. It looked like it was recent.

‘It says there’s safety. Imagine that. And . . . we can get there either along the road, or by following the river.’

‘Yes.’ Kate looked in closer at the map – but it was really clear. There were only two lines which went that way. The rest of that part of the map was green and empty. For a second it felt like the ground gave a little shiver beneath us, like we were back on the Jellyfish again and it was checking where we were, but that moment passed and the world was back to being solid. Concrete.

Suddenly it did seem more urgent that we shouldn’t go there wearing our jellyfish rags. Now that there were other people, and somewhere to go.

Right next to us, there was a shop containing bottles and creams and pills and things. Yes, I knew it was a chemist, but I hadn’t remembered there being so many different types of medicines and soaps. I ran in, sticking to the sections which were light and near the entrance, and not venturing into the parts that were in shadow at the back. There was broken glass sprinkled over the floor, and lots of the bottles were lying around in the aisles, but towards the back of the shop I could see rows and rows of supplies still neatly stacked. I wondered, if there were people close by, why they hadn’t taken these supplies. Were there so few people now that they didn’t need them? Or was it that this town wasn’t safe? I picked up some eyeliner, lip gloss, four toothbrushes, some hairbrushes and some toothpaste, and I left.

‘Hey, idiot,’ Lana called to me from a green shopfront. ‘Come over here and have a bath. Come, quick.’

She was holding a bucket, full of the water from the pools.