What was going to happen next? Well, because of my little dance of awkwardness, I stopped celebrating before everybody else, so I saw the reactions of the people on the shore.

After giving us that wave they just stood staring at us, but then I think our cheering went on a little bit too long for them. They started talking amongst themselves, and the blue-haired woman got her binoculars out again. She was definitely using them to scan the water. She went back and forth slowly, very carefully this time. And then she gave another signal to the team on the shore. Others said they saw that too, but I was fairly sure I saw her shake her head. It might have been that I was too far away to see that and, yes, I could be imagining it. But the movements of the people on the shore seemed to confirm it. It was like they were shrugging, and saying, ‘Oh well. It was worth having a look at these people, but they’re doomed to die on this jellyfish, so we might as well get back to our happy, free lives.’

By this time, most of the Jellyfish people had stopped cheering loudly, and were just smiling to themselves, or sobbing quietly with joy. We were all eagerly watching the shore, however, to see what these brilliant, efficient, organized people would do.

One of the women started waving more obviously to us, and pointing to the road with exaggerated gestures.

‘What’s she doing that for?’ I asked.

‘To tell us where they’ve come from?’ said Kate. ‘So that we can go there when they get us off?’

‘They’re not waiting for us, then?’ James muttered at me. ‘Not exactly planning to get us off in the next half an hour, are they?’

I nodded. Because already I was thinking that they might not have a plan, that they might just have come down here to have a look at us. They didn’t seem to have that useful helicopter hidden anywhere, or a magical bridge. In fact, they didn’t seem to have anything different from other people we’d seen; they were just more organized, that was all. Already I was thinking – no, knew – that they wanted to leave now without seeing us all crying.

James gave me a glum look. The blue-haired woman was still scanning the water with her binoculars, and it was just taking way too long. What was she looking for?

‘I think they look annoying, actually,’ I said.

Lana screwed up her face. ‘You’re bonkers. You’ve got literally no reason for saying that at all.’