by Annie Dalton
girly info, fave music, most embarrassing moments. Finally I take a risk and tell her something real, you know, like the truth about my past, and suddenly little Miss Celestial Cool doesn’t want to know.” “Maia, that’s terrib—”
“Let me say it, before I chicken out. I wasn’t telling the whole truth just now. Brice and I do go way back, but we didn’t exactly meet in Heaven.”
“Oh, wow, you’re from the same time period?” I breathed.
She shook her head. “We didn’t meet on Earth either.”
With the sick, dropping down a lift-shaft feeling that goes with real shock, I realised what she was telling me. Maia had met Brice in the exact OPPOSITE of Heaven; in the clammy sulphur-smelling corridors of a Hell school.
I heard her swallow. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want to be my friend. You’d always be thinking, ‘Is Maia for real?’” She sounded like a lost little girl. I was shocked, I won’t deny it. Then I thought, Get real, Mel! Did you honestly think Brice was the only cosmic dropout in the Universe?
If I’ve learned one thing from knowing Brice, it’s not to judge anybody ever again.
“I would be proud to be your friend, Maia,” I told her. “I think you’re really brave to be so upfront. Everyone deserves a second chance, no matter what they did.”
Maia’s eyes filled with a sudden strange longing. “You don’t mean that?”
“I do mean it, Maia! If I get the chance I’m going to tell those pinheaded angel girls at your school what I think of them! They should be supporting you, not treating you like a cosmic outcast!”
Maia let out a half-sob. “You’re amazing, you know that? No wonder Indigo thinks you’re lovely.”
I felt my heart skip a beat. “Indigo thinks I’m /ove/y?”
She giggled tearily. “Are you kidding? Know what he told his best mate?”
We were getting to know each other so fast, I felt almost drunk. As we talked on into the night, I started to feel strangely blurry at the edges, as if I couldn’t tell where I ended and Maia began. She’d taken such a risk, sharing her dark secret, it seemed like I owed her one in return.
So I told her about my biggest ever failure as an angel. I told her about me and Sky.
When I got back to our room, Lola was sitting up in bed reading.
“Didn’t you get my texts?” she demanded. “You should have got one. I sent about a zillion.”
My excitement fizzled out like a dud firework.
I was such a bad friend. Not only had I abandoned Lola in a strange country two nights in a row, I’d shared personal info with Maia that I was still keeping back from my best friend.
I didn’t say any of this. That would have been the sensible thing to do. I just tried to laugh it off. “I didn’t get any texts,” I said brightly. “We must have been in a cosmic black spot.”
“What were you doing though, wandering around all by yourself at this time of night?”
“I wasn’t alone,” I protested. “I ran into Maia, that angel girl I told you about. She took me to the coolest place. You’d love it!”
Lola shut her book with a snap. “Is that right?”
“She goes to Indigo’s school. Apparently she knows Brice really well.”
I didn’t explain how Maia came to know Brice. That was Maia’s secret, plus she’d made me promise faithfully not to tell.
“Seems weird I haven’t seen her about.” Lola was punching her pillow with more force than strictly necessary.
“Why’s it weird? Maia doesn’t like crowds that’s all. Not everyone is a big show-off like you, you know!”
The cruel words just burst out. Lola quickly switched off her lamp. Her voice sounded incredibly hurt. “You should get some sleep. We’ve got another early start.”
No fun always being the understudy, is it, sweetie? whispered Maia’s voice in my head.
“It’s not really up to you when I go to sleep, is it?” I snapped. Pointedly switching on my lamp, I picked up my shiny new paperback and settled down to read.
Chapter Eight
My book was still lying open on my face when Lola’s alarm clock jangled us awake two hours later.
I managed to get myself washed, dressed and on to the tour bus, by telling myself my new friend would be there.
She didn’t show. As the bus doors slid shut, I felt really confused. I’d assumed she’d be as keen to see me as I was to see her. I didn’t know what to think. Was it something I said?
I thought of calling Maia back on her mobile but Lola was beside me, stony faced. She hadn’t said a word since we got up. It wasn’t such a long drive to the time site, but with my friend giving me the big silent treatment, it seemed a LOT longer.
It was technically morning by the time we arrived at the temple, but the sun stayed stubbornly behind yellowish cloud.
We climbed up crumbling steps between rows of weather-beaten statues depicting Egyptian gods wearing that bizarre headgear that always reminds me of space helmets.
The temple was mostly rubble. Just four giant sand-coloured pillars were left, towering over us like massive trees, making me feel like a pointless little ant.
Khaled made us examine the base of one of the pillars, where someone had carved exquisite lotus flowers from the stone. If you squinted you could make out speckles of sky blue on one of the lotus petals, the one ancient Egyptian colour to survive centuries of desert storms.
Even though I felt so down, I felt a tiny buzz of excitement to think I’d be seeing this dust-coloured ruin restored to its original blues, greens and glittering gold, assuming I managed to find a time-stream.
I had to work with Yoko this time, but I had soo much trouble focusing you wouldn’t believe. A spiteful desert breeze had sprung up, stirring up flurries of sand that stung your eyes and any exposed bits of skin. But I think my problems were mostly down to my mixed-up state of mind.
Because Maia hadn’t showed up, and I had no idea why, I was feeling more and more uneasy about our evening together. Specifically, I felt I shouldn’t have talked about Sky. I felt like I’d betrayed her to Maia, which was dumb, because how was Sky ever going to find out?
But I commanded my mind to become as quiet and empty as a cloudless sky, like Mr Allbright always tells us, and after a few minutes, Yoko and I started getting quite cute cosmic footage of temple dancing girls. (By the way, the colours of the temple were AMAZING!)
Suddenly the deep hush of the temple was disturbed by creepy scrabblings.
I started picturing that gruesome mummy, clawing its way out of a forgotten tomb. It did NOT improve my concentration let me tell you!
Everyone was struggling to stay tuned to their time-streams. Everyone except Lola.
“Sorry,” she said to her partner. She walked over to a stone alcove, removed bits of rubble from an ancient storm drain and gently lifted out a tiny spotted kitten by its scruff.
“Sorry,” Lola said, to our teachers this time. “It was stuck.”
Khaled came over to admire the wild kitten. “She might actually be descended from the original temple cats!” he smiled. “See these spotted markings, and the slight tuftiness to the ears? You can see almost identical animals in ancient tomb paintings.”
He went on about the intense spiritual connection Egyptians had with cats, and their belief that cats were like, the ‘eyes of the gods’, maybe because cats’ eyes glow so spookily in the dark.
But it was really Lola who had everyone’s attention. The other trainees were giving her wondering smiles, thinking how special she was. No fun always being the understudy, sweetie. “How did you know it was there?” I asked Lola jealously when we were back on the bus.
“I just did,” she said tersely and went back to staring out the window. Then I heard her take a breath and it all came tumbling out.
“You think I’m jealous of Maia,” she hissed, “but I’m SO not! I just think it’s a bit weird that she signed up for this course, then doesn’t come on any of the trips.
And she says she knows Brice, but he’s definitely never mentioned her to me.”
“What’s really a bit weird, Lola,” I flashed back, “is that you’re so quick to get your knives into someone you haven’t even MET.”
Again, it wasn’t what I said, it was the poisonous way I said it.
Lola went white. She actually had tears in her eyes, but it’s like she had to finish what she’d started. “Just answer me one question, Mel,” she pleaded, “then I swear I’ll let it drop.” She took a breath. “Has anyone but you actually seen this angel girl?”
I was furious. “You’re unbelievable, Lola, you know that? You go swanning off with strange musicians and that’s fine. But if someone actually wants to be my friend, it’s like a major cosmic catastrophe!”
We travelled the rest of the way in grim silence. A scary space had opened up between us, and anything we said would have just made it worse.
Back at the hostel the staff were hastily bringing in tables and chairs from the courtyard. It was too windy now to eat outside.
The dining room was hideously stuffy even with the ceiling fans whirring. Occasionally a plastic chair would go bowling past the window, jolting me out of my thoughts.
Maybe Maia just couldn’t face those snotty celestial college girls? Or maybe it was me she couldn’t face? I’d said I wanted to be her friend, but probably she’d heard it all before.
I waited till Lola went up to help herself to seconds, then sneakily tried Maia’s number. All I got was a strange robot voice saying her phone was switched off.
Lola and I spent our free afternoon sullenly reading on our beds, with the net curtains whipping in the wind. Forgetting we were scheduled for a return trip to Seshet at sunset, we both fell asleep.
By the time we struggled upright, the winds had grown so strong our hostel was thrumming like some strange musical instrument.
We splashed water on our faces, grabbed two bottles of water from the mini fridge, rushed back for our phones, then zoomed downstairs, all in deadly silence.
Outside Khaled was manoeuvring the bus out of the parking bay. Maryam was waiting in the jeep with Yoko and two other trainees. She had to shout over the wind as we clambered in. “Sorry to drag you guys out in this weather! There’s so much to squeeze into the schedule as it is, we decided to chance it.”
It was totally different to our dawn trip to Seshet. The river was utterly empty. Not even the brave little feluccas would risk coming out in this weather. On the road, we saw maybe five or six humans in total, all of them bent almost double against the wind, holding scarves across their faces as they hurried to find shelter.
We were five minutes from Seshet, when we heard a BANG like a bomb going off. I was looking in the wing mirror and I saw our back wheel suddenly trailing a smoking black rag behind it.
All the angel girls were screaming as the jeep went careering across the road. I was convinced we were going to turn over but Maryam was a star, quickly getting the vehicle back under control and switching off the engine.
“The tyre just blew out,” she reassured us. “Is everyone OK back there?”
She sounded calm but we all knew tyres didn’t just blow on celestial vehicles.
“I’ve got a spare,” she told us, “but I don’t think we should carry on. I’m going to call the hostel and get them to send someone out to pick us up.”
We all settled down nervously to wait.
Lola knows me REALLY well, so she knew that breaking down in the desert wasn’t my best thing.
She caught my eye and, as if we’d never quarrelled, she said perkily, “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with S.”
“Very funny,” I growled. “Sand.”
“Correct!” She gave me a clap as if I was five. “Your turn!”
The wind’s tense thrumming changed to an unearthly shriek. The jeep literally rocked on its tyres. Next minute the sandstorm came howling down from all sides.
The windscreen went yellow as a truckload of sand slammed into the jeep then went whirling away again. You can’t believe how suffocating it feels inside a world of flying sand.
There was a moment of eerie stillness, then Yoko gave a squeal of fright. “Something’s happening to the sand!”
The seething sand grains had started to swarm like angry hornets. We watched in horror as the swarms formed fast-moving spirals, circling ominously above our jeep like disembodied genies searching for a lamp.
“What are they?” Yoko quavered. Before Maryam could answer the giant spirals morphed into huge figures. Suddenly we were surrounded by shrieking beast-headed beings.
Their unearthly screechy voices were worse than scraped metal, making us shrink down in our seats, clutching at our ears.
Like monstrous serpents their necks extended on and on, as the furious creatures stooped to flatten their faces against the windows, seeming to want to suck us in through their howling open mouths.
The angry gods in my exam nightmare had come to life.
“You said the gods were on our side!” I screamed at Maryam.
“Different gods!” she yelled. “The ancient Egyptians had a few Dark gods too.”
With humungous tearing sounds, the jeep’s canvas roof peeled back and went hurtling off into the storm.
A huge churning hole opened up in the sky over our heads.
“OMIGOSHHH!!!!!” Yoko wailed.
Lola made a grab for me just in time. Like fruit juice shooting up a straw, we were both sucked up helplessly into the raging cyclone, leaving the jeep like a little white speck far below.
We were yelling with terror, convinced we were going to get sucked right up into the sky hole and into a very bad place, but at the last minute there was a mighty SWOOSH, as a new unseen force blasted us in a totally different direction.
The Light gods had showed up finally, seeming determined not to let the Dark gods have things their own way.
Like a fraying rope in a cosmic tug of war, my soulmate and I were hauled this way and that by opposing divine forces.
Different types of lightning flashed and fizzled.
Thunder rolled. I saw an absolutely spectacular lightning flash, which turned the sky into one vast crackling spider’s web of light and suddenly my soulmate’s hand was jerked right out of my grasp.
She was swept away screaming. I was screaming too. Seconds later there was a painful thunk as we smacked into each other again.
I made a frantic lunge, by some miracle grabbing hold of both her hands. “It’s OK, sweetie, I’ve got you!” I yelled.
I was hurtling through the air at several hundred MPH as thunderbolts whistled past my ears, meanwhile being totally sandblasted by supernatural winds, plus my arms were half-wrenched out of their sockets. Yet, just like they tell you in those true life stories, I found the necessary strength to hang on to my best friend.
“If we stick together, we’ll be OK!” I shrieked over the storm.
“Please don’t drop me, Melanie!” she wailed. I almost did - out of pure shock. It wasn’t Lola I’d saved. It was Maia!
Chapter Nine
Maybe the gods finally got what they wanted? I just know the sensation of enormous cosmic struggle magically stopped.
Maia and I went floating silently across the sky until, v. softly and gently, we were set down on the river bank in the syrupy gold light of late afternoon.
I knew we’d gone back in time. I knew the minute we touched the ground.
Ordinary sounds drifted through the evening air, the kind you can hear any day in almost any place on planet Earth. Little kids laughing, adults scolding, cocks crowing, the ring of hammers on metal.
I made myself turn around and it was true. The gods - who knew which ones? - had blown us back to ancient times. The lost city of Seshet was alive again!
A furious yell from Maia almost shocked me out of my skin.
“That was not part of my FREAKING plan.” She flung her flip-flop across the sand in a temper. ‘“Oh, w
e’ll be OK if we stick together’,” she mimicked. “Well, we’re freaking stuck together now!” And she turned her back on me as if this was all my fault.
Snatching off her cap, Maia pulled out a comb from somewhere and started angrily detangling her hair.
I have NO idea how our caps survived the storm, though Maia’s had acquired interesting scorch marks from somewhere. One of those divine lightning bolts must have come a teensy bit too close.
Part of me was worrying about Lola, in case she’d been whirled off to some alien time-period all by herself. But deep down I sensed that wherever she was, she was OK. That’s the thing with me and Lola - we might have fights, but we’re always, always connected.
Since Maia was still ignoring me, I just sat in silence watching the sun go down over the Nile. I had no clue what time-period we’d landed in, but it had to be a long way from the mad, polluted century we’d just left. The atmosphere was so pure I felt like
I was literally swimming in the flaming oranges and golds of this old-style Egyptian sunset.
It was so peaceful after the horrendous chaos of the cosmic battle that I actually dozed off…
Something woke me, a tiny splash, a movement. Something.
I held my breath as a barge, ghostly in the twilight, came gliding into the bank.
I stumbled to my feet. For a moment I thought I must be dreaming, but it really was the same boat. I recognised the golden lotus flower gleaming on its prow.
We’d been blown back through human history just in time to see Cleopatra’s barge arrive on its hush hush royal mission. Any minute now her messengers would be setting off to Seshet under cover of darkness in search of talented locals.
First the ancient gods of Egypt had shown me this event in a vision, now they’d whooshed us back to this moment for real. That suggested they had brought us here for a reason.
What was it Maryam said? Angels and gods only joined forces when something huge was at stake. Something like saving Queen Cleopatra and her country from the Romans maybe?
I was suddenly so wildly excited, I could hardly breathe.
