‘Are you sure you don’t fancy joining them? We could find a spot a few metres away. Maybe over by the Small House?’ he said. ‘Go on, Martha.’

I did a being-sick face.

‘Yeah, no, don’t worry about it,’ said James. ‘Seeing that has set me back about ten years. I’m happy to die a virgin now.’

‘Really? Are you happy to die?’ I said.

He gave a sigh. ‘No. Don’t remind me. I forgot for a minute there. Not really.’

‘Then what are we going to do?’ I said. ‘We have to try something else to get off this thing.’

Lana and Kate had stopped laughing so much now, though Kate was still hiccoughing. Reminding them about our future deaths was a bit of a mood kill, and we sat for a few minutes thinking, or at least pretending to think. In the centre of the Big House, Soldier John and some of the others had now moved on to talking loudly about combat techniques for killing kriks.

‘I think we should say something to Soldier John. There’s no point in learning to kill kriks if we’re never getting off here,’ said Kate.

‘There aren’t even any on the shore at the moment,’ said Lana.

Suddenly there was a particularly loud grunt. A few of the people in front of us flinched, and immediately we four started laughing again.

‘Uh, uh!’ said James, doing an impression and putting his arms out as though he was going to grab Lana. She slid backwards to try and get away from him, whilst the four of us laughed even harder. I had to hold on to Kate just to keep myself upright. There were tears rolling down our cheeks, it was so funny.

‘Children!’ shouted Soldier John suddenly. We all jumped. I took a quick gasp of breath. The funniness went immediately. John’s shout makes the walls feel like they’re shaking, and makes you feel your blood pulsing so hotly round your skin that it blurs the edges of your vision. The room rustled as everyone turned to stare at us.

‘We’re not children,’ said James.

‘You’re certainly behaving like children. And you are a child, my boy. You are the youngest four on board, and in the old days you’d have just been worrying about exams at your age, and playing computer games. Or doing flute practice.’ James frowned and opened his mouth to argue. I nudged him and he shut it again. ‘I’m sorry that this has happened to you. But you are here, and you’re not dead. You need to be thinking about how to save yourselves . . .’

Soldier John paused for a second. Were we supposed to reply to this, or say something? There was an expectant silence in the room that was uncomfortable, and not just for us. Other people were shuffling awkwardly too. Soldier John never spoke like this.