Jelly

  A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE

  Waking up on a giant jellyfish with the world gone to hell and ominous predators stalking the shore would be a bit rubbish . . . but you’d get used to it, wouldn’t you? You’d probably even get a bit bored, after a while – I know the teenage me would. And whether you’re on land or on jelly, there will always be issues. Like how to get off the jellyfish (and not get off with each other), avoid those bossy adults, grow your friendships, or stomach yet more raw fish . . . This surreal story by awesome debut writer Clare Rees is funny, thought-provoking and unbearably real (really).

  BARRY CUNNINGHAM

  Publisher

  Chicken House

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Copyright

  For Owen

  ‘Instantly one of those long arms glided

  like a snake into the opening,

  and twenty others were quivering above.

  With a sweep of the axe,

  Captain Nemo chopped off

  this fearsome tentacle,

  which slid writhing down the steps . . .

  Seized by the tentacle and glued to its suckers,

  the unfortunate man was swinging in the air at

  the mercy of this enormous appendage.

  He gasped, he choked, he yelled . . .

  The poor fellow was done for.’

  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

  by Jules Verne

  1

  Pitiful Pete was sitting right on the edge of the Jellyfish, facing out towards the far coast, and a few of us had gathered round to watch.

  ‘What do you think your chances are this time, Pete?’ called James. He bit into a piece of dried fish, ripping off the tail with an expert flick of his wrist. One thing about James is that he does eat disgusting foods in a non-disgusting way.

  Pitiful Pete shrugged his shoulders, his eyes focused on the waves. He always takes a while to work himself up to it.

  ‘Your problem’s been with the tentacles in the past,’ said James helpfully. ‘If you can just get beyond those, you should be fine.’

  ‘Your problem’s with your face,’ said Lana.

  ‘My face is fabulous, and you know it,’ said James. He puckered up his lips and gave a dramatic toss of his matted hair. His face wasn’t exactly fabulous, if I’m honest. His eyes were grey like the sea on a dull day, and his hair was probably dark blond, though it was tricky to tell because it was so coated in dirt and salt. But there’s always been something about James’s face which makes you want to keep watching it. It seems to move more than other people’s faces, as though he feels emotions more than everybody else, and most of those emotions are about being happy – even at times when that doesn’t seem possible.

  The tentacles of the Jellyfish were moving from side to side in their normal, irregular fashion. They might swipe over to the left with a swoosh, then waggle a bit, before swiping back to the left again. But then the next time they might do a waggle before swooshing to the right, or maybe a quick wiggle somewhere in the middle. It was pretty difficult to work out a pattern.

  ‘Pete, why don’t you come back from the edge?’ said Kate softly. ‘I can fetch you a nice cup of hot water and we could play bottle-top chess.’

  Pete didn’t respond.

  ‘There’s a lovely driftwood fire going over by the Big House,’ she added, putting her hand on Pete’s shoulder. ‘And it’s such a beautiful day. You’ve got so much to offer us here, and we’d be sad if you died. I’d really miss you.’

  ‘Kate, what the . . . ?’ James glared at her. ‘The man wants to jump in. Can’t he even do that in peace?’

  ‘I respect everybody’s decision,’ said Kate. Lana rolled her eyes. ‘But I’m just not sure that he’s happy. I think Pete might feel more like himself after a nice chat.’

  ‘I think feeling like himself is what’s got him into this situation. I think it’d be totally rubbish to be Pete,’ said James.

  I felt like I had to step in at this point. ‘James!’ I said. ‘Rude!’

  ‘It’s true though, isn’t it, Martha?’ he said. ‘The man’s stuck on a giant jellyfish, for whatever mysterious reason. He hasn’t eaten anything other than bony fish and seaweed for ages and he has to sleep in a crappy shack with a load of miserable, smelly people.’

  Pete gave a big sigh and lowered his head.

  ‘Some of those people are my best friends!’ I said, loudly.

  ‘The loveliest people in the world,’ said Kate. ‘Who care for you deeply, Pete.’

  ‘Some of your best friends are complete losers,’ said James to me. He took another large bite, picking out a couple of bones before he chewed. There was only the head of the fish left now. Its eyes were glazed and crusted over with salt.

  Lana nodded. ‘I know how Pete feels. Almost everybody on here is a loser, Martha. Especially you.’

  ‘And some of your best friends are the smelliest in the shack,’ added James.

  ‘No!’ I said.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I pride myself on it. My farts last night were amazing.’

  ‘Seriously, Pete,’ said Lana, smoothly steering James away from one of his favourite topics. ‘What’s your plan?’ Pete sighed deeply again, but didn’t reply. ‘I think if you stand up to do it, you’ll get further when you jump in,’ Lana said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea,’ said James. ‘And if you want to stand on my back, that might give you an even better chance?

  You know, if you say, 1, 2, 3, Go, then we’d all push.’

  Lana nodded. ‘Or do a running jump?’

  ‘No!’ said Kate. ‘You’re not going to help him do this.’

  At the other end of the Jellyfish there was a sudden burst of laughter, followed by a few shouts and calls. It sounded like the morning catch of fish was starting to arrive. It had probably landed on somebody’s face again. It was always brilliant when that happened – there’s nothing funnier than wet fish flapping in somebody else’s face.

  With a shudder, Pete stood up. His hair was clumped together and claggy with seaweed, so that it was hard to tell what was beard and what was hair. All the salt water made it stick up like the mane you’d draw on a lion when you were little and you’d run out of yellow crayons, so had to use the greys and browns.

  ‘You can do it, Pete,’ said James, slapping him on the back. ‘This is your day. Come on, man. We believe in you!’

  ‘There’s still time to change your mind,’ said Kate. ‘We love you and think you’re great.’

  Pete turned and shook her hand, then offered it to the rest of us in turn. We all shook it.

  ‘Guys!’ I shouted over to the Big House. ‘Pete’s going to jump again.’

  ‘Come on, Pete,’ said Lana. ‘Go for it!’


  He took a few steps backwards and paused.

  The tentacles slowed for a split second. There was a light waggle of movement, a lull. The breeze dropped too, and it seemed, for that moment, as if it might just be possible. Even the sway and pull of the waves seemed to pause. But then the larger tentacles swished sharply over to the left again, and the bits of jelly beneath them gave a roll, almost to show off.

  ‘Good luck,’ I said, and the others offered their goodbyes.

  Pitiful Pete gave a nod in reply.

  Somewhere behind us, the shouts and laughs came again. Nobody else was coming to watch Pete jump in.

  He took a deep breath, looked once more up at the submerged houses and factories on the coastline, then took a step forward to launch himself towards them. He sprinted five paces, his ragged shirt streaming out behind him, and his bare feet slapping on the jellyfish mesoglea. He bowed his head and raised his arms as he reached the edge, before leaping off in a practised dive so smooth he barely made a splash.

  There was another cheer from the Big House.

  Then that lull again. The tentacles slowed. It was almost as if the world had stopped, as though time had paused. Lana looked round, eyes wide, and Kate put her hands up to her mouth. James raised his hands to keep us quiet.

  None of us moved. I could see Pitiful Pete’s dark shape sliding through the water. First one metre, then five, his arms scooping small trails of bubbles in the water behind him. He’d never got this far before.

  There was a kerfuffle over by the fire again, and somebody started to sing.

  ‘Attention, attention!’ Soldier John was shouting about something, probably trying to organize unwilling slackers into groups to gut the fish. There were the usual groans of complaint and more laughter. But at our end, we hadn’t moved. We’d barely breathed.

  Pete was still going. As he broke the surface he turned in confusion.

  ‘Go,’ I whispered, urging him on.

  ‘Quick, quick!’ hissed James, gesturing to him.

  Kate covered her eyes.

  Pete turned back again and started towards the coast. He was doing front crawl, his arms sleek and powerful like two diving seals. He was trying to go as fast as possible, but it’s tricky to do that when you’re also trying to avoid disturbing the water.

  ‘He’s past the tentacles, isn’t he?’ Lana whispered.

  I’d been holding my breath. There’s still the longer ones underneath, I mouthed back.

  He was edging onwards, another metre, then another. He was into the open sea now, the waves higher and breaking against him, pushing him forwards. Nobody had ever got this far.

  ‘You can do it, Pete,’ I whispered. ‘Come on!’ I dug my fingernails into my palms to stop myself from shouting. But then it came, the same as always. A sudden, swift slither through the waves, the dark buzz of the powerful tentacle cutting through the air, and then the thudding splash as it hit the water and scooped Pete out. He landed back on the surface next to us with a dull squelch, dripping and quivering.

  ‘Did you see?’ said Lana. She was so excited her hands were shaking. ‘He almost did it.’

  ‘Oh, bad luck, Pete,’ shouted Soldier John. ‘Are you still stuck here?’

  ‘Yes, of course he is,’ said Lana. ‘But he almost friggin’ escaped.’

  And that was the start. That was when we started to believe we could do it. That maybe . . . we could escape.

  2

  The biggest problem with being trapped on a killer jellyfish isn’t what you’d expect.

  Once you get over your fear of death (basically because you start looking forward to it), and the smell of rotting fish stops making you gag, it isn’t too bad, really. Boredom is an issue, yes. It’s not the main one, though. The main problem is the other people trapped with you.

  When I get sick of it all I go over to the back tentacles and sit in between the hard jelly ridges on the creature’s muscle ring, looking out to sea. Sitting there means that the cold wind is blasting into your face, and the spray from the waggling tentacles hits you in the eyes. But it’s still better than listening to Old Albert’s Dire Warnings, or James’s favourite diarrhoea stories. Again.

  Sometimes the creature’s muscle ring is the most popular place on the Jellyfish, and you arrive to find all of the ridges already taken. That’s normally OK, though, because the people sitting there are going to be the quiet ones. And even if they did try to talk to you, it would come out as, ‘Blugglerlp’ or something, what with all the spray flying into their open mouths.

  The front of the Jellyfish – which I suppose might not be the front, given it’s just a giant lump of wobbly flesh – faces towards the coast. We used to see people walking there almost every week. We would wave and shout, and if they weren’t being chased by scuttling kriks – more about those later – they would sometimes wave back. It’s like we were saying, ‘Hullo! We’re trapped on a giant killer jellyfish,’ and they were saying, ‘Gosh, how interesting. Good luck, then!’

  In the middle of the Jellyfish is a load of splintered wood. We call it ‘the Big House’, which I think might have been somebody being sarcastic, but the name’s stuck because a lot of the people here don’t understand humour. It’s made from bits of driftwood and rubbish all jammed in together and piled up to create walls. There are rows of plastic bottles, of course, and plastic bags are squeezed into every gap to try and block the wind – but they’re mainly all faded and grey these days. We get super excited whenever we see another bit of brightly coloured rubbish floating towards us, because it means we can redecorate.

  True story: Kate and Lana once stopped speaking to each other for a whole week, because Lana told Kate that putting all the blue plastic bags on one wall was, ‘Stupid when they’re not the same shade.’ Even though they’re friends again now, it still feels risky when there’s a blue plastic bag amongst the rubbish. They avoid making eye contact when that happens.

  We’ve gone for a tasteful selection of rags to decorate our corner of the Big House at the moment – me, Lana and Kate. They’re mainly all different sorts of brown, of course, but we pulled them into strips and then wove them into a hanging which is supposed to look like trees in a forest. You have to use your imagination, because the background is also brown, just like the trees, so there are a few places where it’s difficult to tell which is background and which is forest. Also, none of us could really remember what a forest looked like, so it might not be that accurate.

  You do get sick of the people. Even the lovely ones. You get sick of never having any time to yourself, you get sick of hearing the same stories over, and over, and over again. You get sick of being able to tell what somebody is going to say before they even open their mouths.

  This morning I bumped into James. Well, I say I bumped into him, it’s not like there was anywhere else to go, really. He was standing in my way, and I diverted so we could have a chat about what had happened to Pete and how we might be able to get past those tentacles.

  ‘Hi, Martha,’ he said. He never normally calls me ‘Martha’ except when he wants something. It’s normally ‘Bucketface’, or ‘Idiotbrain’, so I was immediately suspicious.

  ‘Uh huh,’ I said. ‘What do you want, James? I’m busy.’

  ‘Are you, Martha? Are you really?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You know I’m not. I was dropping hints that I don’t want to talk to you right now. The polite thing to do would be to take those hints.’ I put my hands on my hips to make it clear I was telling him off.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got more important things to think about, Martha. We should all start thinking about repopulating the planet.’ He grinned, and I swear his eyes gave an actual twinkle, though it could have just been light reflecting off the mesoglea.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So are you up for it?’ he said.

  ‘I’m up for saving the world and the planet,’ I said.

  James did look surprised at this point, to give him s
ome credit.

  ‘Erm . . . good. Shall we get started then? In the Big House?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Shall I invite some of the others?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Do you think that’s appropriate?’

  ‘The more the merrier, surely?’ I said. ‘Kate! Lana! Come here! James wants to repopulate the planet.’

  From all over the Jellyfish, people started walking towards us. Old Albert was waddling faster than normal, Dr Jones put down her fishing rod, and even Pitiful Pete lifted his head to listen. It doesn’t take much to get us all interested here.

  ‘Oh, erm, that’s not quite what I had in mind,’ said James. ‘I don’t mind the girls, but I’m not sure about the others.’

  ‘But if we’re going to repopulate the planet, don’t we need to involve as many people as possible?’ I pointed out. ‘Stinky! Dr Jones!’ I called.

  ‘Yeeessss,’ James said. ‘But I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘Look,’ I said, thinking it was time to get to the point. ‘Does your plan for repopulating the planet involve taking off any of my clothes? Because if it does, there’s no way that’s happening. It’s much too cold.’

  He looked at my threadbare jeans for a few moments and I could see him working out the possibilities. ‘Noooo,’ he said, slowly.

  By this point, almost everybody had gathered around us.

  ‘Martha, I’m offering you the opportunity to have my children,’ said James, styling it out. ‘We could get started right now if you want?’

  ‘Sadly I’m going to have to turn down your offer, James. I’ve got too much to do today.’

  Old Albert coughed in his gravelly, phlegmy way. ‘It probably wouldn’t take him very long,’ he muttered.

  ‘Fine, then. Your loss. Lana, will you have my children?’ called James.

  ‘Get stuffed, dickhead,’ said Lana.

  ‘No need to overreact. You were only my third choice anyway,’

  ‘Good. I wish I was your last choice.’

  ‘It’s a short list, Lana, but I’ll add your name to the bottom of it, if that’s what you want.’ He smiled triumphantly as Lana made retching noises.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Does that mean I was your second choice?’