I caught Lana’s eye, and that’s when I realized I was crying too. For a time we stood there, clutching each other, the three of us, while we wept. Gut-wrenching, stomach-crunching sobs of pain and sadness.

When we had stopped, exhausted, we sat with the people in the centre of the Jellyfish, dejected and sad.

‘What are we crying for?’ I said. ‘Them? Their deaths? Or us?’ I paused, both because it was a big frickin’ statement, and because I was fairly sure it was the meaning of life. I think I may have even raised my head up slightly, and stared off mysteriously into the distance.

‘Bog off, will you, Martha,’ said Lana. ‘I am so not in the mood for your over-the-top bullshit self-pity today.’

It was a fair point. But I think sometimes you need somebody to tell you you’re being a wanker, before you know for definite.

‘What are we going to do then?’ I said.

‘What do you think, Martha?’ said Kate, looking up at me.

‘Well . . . get off here, I suppose. And quickly. We don’t have time to think about . . . what’s happened.’

James came back at this point, and I think it’s probably a good thing that he did. He was pale, and his eyes were red with crying, but he looked determined, and like he wanted to do something. It made me say some stuff which I hadn’t even been realizing I was thinking myself.

‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘I don’t know how it knows. How can the Jellyfish tell when we leave?’

‘It can see us?’ said Kate.

James frowned. ‘Where, though? Where are its eyes? They’re not on the muscle ring. Are they on the front?’

‘Well, where is the front?’ said James.

‘Does it have eyes in the same way we have eyes?’ said Kate.

‘Maybe it has feelers?’ said Lana.

We all thought about it for a minute. Maybe that was right. Maybe it felt us when we moved around, or when we were jumping up and down.

‘Is it maybe that it can hear us, or smell us?’ said Kate.

‘It’s one of those, though, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘The five senses.’

‘You know when the Jellyfish moves, can we tell anything from that?’ James asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ I said.

‘Yes. You can tell when it’s grumpy and happy,’ said Kate.

Lana raised her eyebrows. ‘You can. I can’t. I definitely don’t speak jellyfish language.’

‘But you do know when it’s really cross and the tentacles get dangerous,’ said Kate. ‘Or when it’s happy and the tentacles are just waving.’

Lana looked at her, eyebrows still raised.

‘I don’t know if I can tell anything more than that,’ said Kate. ‘It was cross before it . . . killed. But I don’t know if that tells us anything.’