I was taken to the hospital in a jeep. The man driving was very agitated. He told me he didn’t know where his family was. He was going to the hospital to look for them. They had been staying at the hotel, same as us. But he went on safari early in the morning. He went alone. He wasn’t at the hotel when the wave struck. He told me this again and again. He spoke too loudly. I sat in the front seat next to him. I didn’t say a word. I shivered and I shook. I stared out of the jeep. The road we were driving on was bordered by thick forest. There was no one on that road but us.

There was another man sitting at the back of the jeep. I recognized him, he was a waiter in our hotel. The waiter had a mobile phone in his hand, he kept waving it about. He stuck his hand out of the jeep and held the phone up high. He jumped across the seats from side to side. He was trying to get a signal, he said. His movements, I couldn’t stand it, I could feel each thud. Why can’t you just sit still, I kept thinking. I wanted to fling his phone out of that jeep.

They could already be at the hospital. Steve and the boys. Even Ma and Da. They might have been found and taken there. I kept thinking this, then stifling the thought. I had to stop getting my hopes up. I won’t find them, I must prepare for this. But if they were there, they’d be worried about me. I wished the jeep would speed up.

When we got to the hospital, it was Anton, Orlantha’s father, who came rushing out. He had no shirt, his trousers were ripped, his toes were bloody. He peered into the jeep, looking confused. Why is Orlantha not with you? Where are Steve and the boys? he asked. He thought this was the same jeep we’d driven off in, leaving him lying on the ground. I told him it wasn’t, that I didn’t know where anyone was. I didn’t tell him I’d hoped they’d be at the hospital. Now that I was sure they were not.