The sun was starting to break through, and there were beams of light shining in several spots on the sea; more beams were appearing every few minutes or so, like they were slowing ripping the clouds apart. Most of the sky was dull, though: grey, boring, slow-moving. The morning was still bitter, and there were white trails of frost in the shadows of the cliffs. We were hunching at the front of the Jellyfish, sitting on our hands until we absolutely needed to write. For me, that wasn’t going to be soon, because after Old Albert’s talk last night, I was finding it difficult to think about lessons. There was also a wailing noise coming from just beyond the Big House, and one of those quiet men, the muscular rugby types, had his head back and his arms outstretched. He was wailing enthusiastically, and with great emotion, whilst waving his right arm across his left arm every so often. From this distance it was a bit tuneless – though that’s not to say it wouldn’t have been a bit tuneless if you were close by too. I’m just mentioning the distance to point out our good fortune in being far away.

‘I think Stinky is pretending to be a violin again,’ said James. ‘Do you remember the last time?’ He started to laugh. ‘God, it went on for ages . . .’ His laugh was hysterical now. Dr Jones was striding off towards Stinky, so it was possible we wouldn’t need to beg him to stop ourselves, but it also gave us a few minutes to chat without being asked if we needed any extra maths.

‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Are the kriks and the jellyfish working together?’

Everybody sat up immediately. I knew they’d all been wondering the same, after last night.

‘Really doesn’t look like it. I know what Dr Jones said,’ said James, ‘but apart from the fact that they both come from the sea, they’ve got about as much in common as us and birds. Or cows, or sheep. Like, they’re a whole different species.’

‘But they appeared at the same time, didn’t they?’ I said.

‘Don’t know,’ said James. ‘Sort of the same time, I suppose.’

‘I think,’ said Kate, ‘I think that’s because Dr Jones said that there was climate change and sea levels rising. I think that would disturb a lot of things. You know, if where you’d been living for millions of years suddenly changed, you might want to change too. And you might want to move somewhere else too.’

‘Yep,’ said Lana. ‘I really know the feeling.’