by Annie Dalton
Maia sat up, suddenly suspicious. “What’s your game, Mel Beeby?”
I shook my head. “I’m not the one who plays games. I leave that to you, sweetie. Where was I? Oh, back to what you said about me being jealous of Lola. You were bang on target there too.”
“Hey!” Maia made a fist. “Don’t think you can try any funny business, OK?”
“Oh, this is SO not funny,” I told her. “It’s sad, exactly like you said. Lola is the best friend anyone could ever have, yet I’ve always been secretly jealous of her. Maybe I really wanted to be her. She’s so talented. She’s cool, she’s confident. She could have any angel boy she wants, yet she’s one hundred per cent faithful to Brice. Omigosh, I had such hideous thoughts. Some days I couldn’t stand myself. But the more I tried to hide them…”
There was more, a lot more.
All those thoughts I’d imagined were so ugly and shameful but which just sounded - well, pathetic, actually - now I was hearing myself say them out loud. It was such a huge relief to let them go, like taking off a pair of super-tight hipsters you’ve technically outgrown yonks ago.
Maia seemed increasingly dazed, as I went on revealing all my bad deeds one after another, and my equally bad thoughts. She could not figure out where this was going.
Which made two of us. I just knew I was doing what I had to do. Finally I took a breath. “My turn.”
She scowled. “Your turn to do what?”
Maia never did like surprises, unless she was in charge of the surprising.
I gave her a cool smile. “Well, you see, I’m just wondering, babe, when you get back to Hell school, if you’ll be rushing to tell ‘Leela’ and ‘Rufio’, your maggoty little secrets? Like, all the time you were pretending you were my friend, a tiny part of you wanted it to be true.”
Maia jumped off the bed. “Don’t even go there!” she warned.
“Admit it!” I challenged her. “Isn’t there a teeny speck of divine Light inside you that absolutely longs to go to my school and hang out with my friends and yes, wake up smelling lilacs. The same part which longs to let the hate go forever, so you can let in the lo—”
“Don’t you dare!” Maia was literally blocking her ears. “Don’t you EVER say that L-word to me!”
“Sorry, babe, it’s a cosmic law. If you’re my Dark side, obviously I have to be your Light side!”
As I said it, I knew it was true.
“Oh, and another thing!” I remembered. “You’re supposed to be my worst nightmare, yeah? Did you ever stop to wonder what happens to the evil Hell minx when the innocent angel girl wakes up from her bad dream?”
Maia opened her mouth and shut it again.
“Because I’m awake now, Maia! WIDE awake. I owe you for that. I mean it.”
I was probably supposed to banish her now, like in that painting, but Maia and I come from a different generation. We have our own style of doing things. So I just walked away.
I noticed Khamsin’s kitty pattering beside me and wondered how long she’d been there.
Don’t think I wasn’t scared. I’d seen what Maia could do, don’t forget: turning lotus flowers to scorpions, making you think day was night. But I kept walking, refusing to even give her the satisfaction of turning round to see what she did next.
Nothing.
No frogs raining from the ceiling, no PODS tricks at all: just a sweet lovely vibe flowing through the palace, as the Dark energy that had pretended to be Maia was sucked back into its own dimension.
Maia had banished herself.
That’s how I knew she was gone. Forever, I hoped, this time.
In the garden, Cleopatra’s little boy was galloping over the grass pretending to be a chariot driver.
I could see them all through the open doors in the golden glow of late afternoon, framed by dancing leaves.
Seeming totally recovered from her shock, Cleopatra was making everyone sniff the insides of her wrists. Queen Nefertiti’s perfume was obviously a hit!
“Notice how it changes with the warmth of my skin?” she told her attendants eagerly. “It’s so fresh, like a summer dawn in my garden here in Alexandria. But underneath there is something most mysterious and intriguing!”
That’ll be the costus, I thought, grinning to myself.
“Charmian, have the blue chamber prepared for our honoured guests!” Cleopatra commanded her lady in waiting. She put an arm around each of the girls’ shoulders. “You will stay in my palace tonight,” she smiled. “Tomorrow I want to hear all your ideas for turning my ship into Aphrodite’s barque.”
That’s when I knew Khamsin was truly home and dry, in this life anyway.
I blew them all angel kisses, then turned to go.
A servant with a lighted taper was going from room to room lighting the lamps. It would soon be evening.
I wanted to fix it all in my mind for ever; the lovely light, the sea breezes which set the tapestries shivering and the lamps flickering, this palace which seemed as thrillingly alive as Cleopatra herself.
I heard a husky mew. Khamsin’s cat was winding around my legs.
“No, kitty,” I said softly. “You can’t go where I’m going.”
She gave an irritated squawk, like, I’m the all-seeing eyes of Isis OK? I choose where I go, thank you VERY much!
So the determined little kitty and I ended up going back through the long hall together, over the slippery black marble floor, past Cleopatra’s guards, out through the barred gate, and down the steps, until we’d reached the street.
The kitty kept running in front of me, almost like she wanted to trip me up. She seemed v. stressed about something, like, Will you just look at me, Melanie! No I mean REALLY look at me!!
Suddenly I was crouching on the blistering hot pavement, gazing into a pair of intense moonlit eyes. I mentally replayed my exit from Cleopatra’s palace. “Did you just shimmer through those gates, kitty?” I breathed.
“Oh, finallyl” said Lola’s voice inside my head.
I gasped. “Lollie? Is that really you in there?”
I felt a weird disturbance in the air.
We both looked up in time to see a shimmery white shape racing towards the palace steps at warp speed. Five seconds before it drew level, I recognised Maryam’s jeep.
My tutors were in the front, looking like they drove to Cleopatra’s times every day of the week.
“You weren’t planning to walk into the future were you?” teased Khaled.
The kitty and I climbed in. Khaled put the jeep in gear and I felt my hair stream back as we blasted back to the twenty-first century.
“Doesn’t she know how to turn back!” Maryam asked, amused.
“Actually, I’m not too—”
The little she-cat picked that moment to morph back into an irate Lola. “I can’t believe you didn’t recognise me, you pig!”
“Maybe because I wasn’t expecting you to be wearing FUR!”
“What was I supposed to do?” Lola shot back. “When I lost you in the middle of that cosmic battle, I was just screaming, ‘I can’t leave Mel, someone help me!’” Next minute I was floating down to Cleopatra’s times! So I guess someone helped.”
Someone like the gods, I thought, breaking into goose bumps.
Suddenly Lola was almost in tears. “Michael said I had to stick to you like glue. I had this idea to turn myself into a cat so I could look after you without Maia knowing. Sorry, trainees aren’t really supposed to shape-shift unless it’s a cosmic emergency,” she added hushly with a worried glance at our tutors.
“Oh, that definitely counted as a cosmic emergency,” Khaled said a little grimly.
Then Lola and I just hugged each other and cried.
Chapter Eighteen
Before we left Egypt, Khaled and Maryam organised a private celebration for us at Maia’s magical Nile cafe.
When we rocked up, I was amazed to see Michael chatting to our tutors.
He was obviously delighted to see me and Lola sa
fe and sound. He poured out sparkling pomegranate juice for us all, and everyone congratulated me all over again on getting through the Test with flying colours. I’d even had a text from Brice telling me well done!
I’d survived an ordeal I never knew existed.
Instead of feeling proud, I just felt confused -and, well, betrayed. How could a divine Agency turn a deranged angel girl loose in a dangerous Universe, with just her inner fruitcake for guidance?
Also, if I’d truly passed - durn durn durn - THE TEST, and come safely out the other side to popping champagne corks, like everyone was making out, why didn’t Helix come back? Now my cosmic crazies had worn off, I was aware of a kind of foggy void where my divine guidance system ought to be.
No one seemed able to tell me if this was, like, a temporary after effect of the Test, and if so how long this phase would last.
But Michael had taken time out from a hectic cosmic schedule to toast my achievement, so I swallowed down all my questions and tried to make an effort.
Our headmaster listened patiently as Lola and I babbled two versions of our big Nile adventure simultaneously, from our two legged and four legged perspectives.
About half way through, we had an interesting discussion about why I didn’t get sick on the boat despite spending so much time with the high-school girl from Hell. Michael thought it was because the Light coming from all the humans on the boat, Mardian, Lady Iras and whoever, was simply too strong. It was Maia who got sick, as she’d so
charmingly pointed out. Khamsin got sick too, of course, but only because Maia deliberately plugged her full of toxic vibes.
Then we went back to describing Cleopatra’s palace, and of course young charismatic Queen Cleopatra herself.
“I wish Maia hadn’t told me about her dying of snake bite,” I said wistfully.
I wanted to remember Cleopatra putting her arm round Khamsin and Amisi going, “Charmian, have the blue chamber prepared for our honoured guests!”
I literally jumped up spilling my juice. Golden shoes.
“Michael, I just realised! Sky - well, really Khamsin - got to sleep over in Cleopatra’s palace for real!”
“Oh she did much better than that,” he said mildly.
He opened up his shimmery white laptop and suddenly we were watching cosmic footage of Cleopatra’s treasure ship.
“Omigosh, can you believe that hussy went for purple sails!” Lola shrieked.
Like a modem-day celeb, Queen Cleopatra knew exactly how to promote herself, picking the perfect time of day to sail into Tarsus, so she’d be sailing right into the setting sun. The slaves’ silver-tipped oars shimmered and flashed, making it seem as if this magical ship was giving off its own divine light.
Michael zoomed in, and Lola and I oohed and aahed to see Cleopatra draped over a leopard-skin couch in a frankly cheesy goddess pose. She was dressed in pure gold from head to toe, making it seem like she’d just that minute flown down from a starry Heaven. She was showing a LOT of cleavage I have to say!
Lady Iras and Lady Charmian reclined adoringly at her feet, dressed as sea nymphs. The two younger sea nymphs beside them seemed strangely familiar. My heart gave a delighted skip as I recognised Khamsin and Amisi giving it all they’d got!
Now we were zooming in on a burly Roman in military uniform, waiting on the dock with his awestruck lieutenants.
“Look at Mark Antony’s face!” breathed Lola. “He thinks he’s dreaming!”
“Wait till he smells Nefertiti’s perfume,” I giggled.
It’s a strange feeling, knowing you’re one tiny part of an awesome pattern woven by gods and angels, runaway perfume makers, divine cats and incredibly cunning and resourceful queens.
If one tiny element had been changed, if I never knew Sky, if my inner fruitcake hadn’t made me rush off to Egypt to save the world, if Khamsin hadn’t run out to buy apricots, if Amisi had been born without the snake magic in her DNA - would Cleopatra’s meeting with Mark Antony still be remembered thousands of years later as one of the most romantic moments in human history?
I was only sure of one thing. Khamsin would never have made it to Cleopatra’s court alive without a determined tufty-eared kitty.
I wasn’t alone, I realised, and I started to smile to myself, I had my faithful inner kitty to take care of me!
“I knew you’d send her packing in the end,” Lola told me softly.
“How could you know?” I asked amazed. “I was being such a total idiot.”
My soulmate squeezed my hand and repeated with total confidence, “I knew, carita, OK? I just knew.”
*Answer: None. If the angel is doing her job properly, the light bulb will v-e-r-y slowly and gradually change itself!
About the Author
Annie Dalton has been shortlisted for the Carnegie medal and won the Nottingham Children’s Book Award and the Portsmouth Children’s Book Award.The twelve Angel Academy books (previously known as Agent Angel), became an international best selling series. Annie lives overlooking a Norfolk meadow with a ruined castle, in a row of cottages that were rescued from bulldozers and lovingly rebuilt by a band of hippies.
www.anniedaltonwriter.co.uk
Also by Annie Dalton
Urban Fantasy Books
Night Maze
The Alpha Box
Naming the Dark
The Rules of Magic
Angel Academy Series
Winging it
Losing the Plot
Flying High
Calling the Shots
Fogging Over
Fighting Fit
Making Waves
Budding Star
Keeping it Real
Going for Gold
Feeling the Vibes
Living the Dream
The Afterdark Trilogy
The Afterdark Princess
The Dream Snatcher
The Midnight Museum
Swan Sister
Friday Forever
Zack Black & the Magic Dads
Ways to Trap a Yeti
Cherry Green, Story Queen
Invisible Threads co-written with Maria Dalton
World 9 stories
Ferris Fleet the Wheelchair Wizard
How to Save a Dragon
Moonbeans stories
Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Dream Cafe
Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Shining Star
Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Talent Show
Magical Moon Cat: Moonbeans & the Circus of Wishes
Credits
Cover Illustration by Maria Dalton & Louisa Mallet
Lily Highton
Sarah Nash
Alistair Johnston
Juan Casco
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
About the Author
Also by Annie Dalton
Credits
