There are darker shapes inside it. The jelly flesh, under the epidermis, is called its mesoglea, and within that quivering white mass, you can see things: strange, hazy shapes. Sometimes shapes appear where there was nothing before. And sometimes the shapes disappear, so we think it might be the Jellyfish eating and digesting. We’ve tried cutting into the mesoglea with hard pieces of wood and even clawing with our fingernails to get at the shapes, in case they’re a vital organ and mean that we can kill the Jellyfish. But now I can see those same pieces of wood beneath my feet. When we gave up they become shapes absorbed into the Jellyfish too.

We don’t know what the bigger, changing shapes are. We say they’re fish, because we think the Jellyfish eats fish. But sometimes the dark blobs look like they have arms and legs and heads and hair and clothes and shoes. I might be wrong. I like to think I am. But I’ve seen others looking in closely too, and wondering, watching as the shapes get smaller and thinner, until they disappear.

When you lie on the Jellyfish at night, inside that cramped shack, you sometimes feel like you’re becoming part of it. Your breathing matches its gentle rise and fall on the waves; the vibrations go through you too so that your body quivers and starts to feel like it’s made of jelly; you wonder then what others can see beneath your surface.

It’s not like the jelly that was on your spoon. Not like the jelly from Before.

It had felt like something was going to happen, like there was going to be a change. Not that we were going to escape or anything – I wasn’t an idiot, I’d never have let myself hope for that. But that there was going to be something different in our days. It had felt like Pete’s almost-escape and Staring Crone’s revelations and Old Albert’s rugby match swim must be leading to change.

But now . . . nothing. We were still stuck, we could still see land so close by, and there was still nothing to do. Today that was almost unbearable. I felt like I was going to explode with something: energy or boredom or irritation or laziness.

‘Why are we here?’

I meant that question in a lot of ways. Because it was one of those days when you felt like you needed another night’s sleep, as though you could have slept right through the day and back into the night again. I would have liked to do that, but it’s too cold when the others get up. I’d end up just lying on the floor of the Big House, hunched and shivering, and feeling even more sorry for myself.

‘Why are we here? Ha!’ Lana gave a bitter laugh.

‘We’re fine here,’ said Kate. ‘I think we’re probably fine.’