We started to push the boat around, as both James and Soldier John held on to the rope. We all wanted to leave quickly too. As the back of the boat touched the side of the creature, and that jelly started to seep out, Soldier John passed down two large, bulky black plastic bags. ‘Take these,’ he said. ‘They’ve got buckets and some empty bottles inside. We’re going to swap them for people by filling them with water to make them heavier.’

There were gasps of amazement. If we’d known this would work, we could have done it ages ago. There had never been any shortage of bottles in the rubbish that got washed up.

‘Careful now. You’ll have to make sure you do this on my command, so that we can do it at exactly the same time. We think we can take five people this time. We’ll take the children, of course, and you.’

He pointed at Staring Crone.

Chapter 26

26

Climbing on to that boat is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done – and I’ve done a lot of things that sound much braver than that. It just didn’t feel like it could be that easy. We’d spent so, so much time thinking about leaving and escaping, surely it couldn’t be real now?

There was no way it could be different now.

Soldier John raised his hand, and five people bent over to fill their bottles. Carefully, steadily, they held the full bottles out over the water. ‘Martha, are you ready?’ he said.

I nodded.

‘Now!’ he said.

As I stepped on to the boat the bottles were hurriedly brought on board and stacked up in a pile near the Big House. A pile of plastic and water which was supposed to be me. Would the Jellyfish really not be able to tell?

Under my feet the boat felt hard and clumpy, but then also stupidly flimsy. It wasn’t moving in the right way; it was on the sea, not part of the sea. It was too inflexible and it felt too vulnerable up there, on top of the waves. Plus, there was a patch of water between the Jellyfish and the boat, and as I had lifted my foot over it, I had seen something slithering beneath. It was uncomfortable knowing that we were now on top of those squirming, snaky pieces of flesh.

‘Come up, right into the centre,’ said Soldier John in a hushed voice. ‘Get under the tarpaulin. Cover yourselves well.’