by Annie Dalton
As I hurtled towards some unknown future century, new and deafening sounds erupted around me. Explosions, wailing sirens, crazily mixed up with canned TV laughter and dog-food commercials and pounding hiphop. And I’d thought MY century was insane!
Then everything stopped, dead.
There was a silence so total I genuinely thought I’d gone deaf. Then I realised I heard my own scared rasping breathing in the dark.
Had we fast-forwarded to the end of the world by mistake? Had some hideous future war finally exterminated everyone and everything on Earth? Was this the silence of total nothingness?
And then I heard it; the tiny liquid sound of a bird singing. A bird and a soft whisper of wind through leaves and somewhere in the distance, a small child happily laughing its socks off.
I felt my eyes fill with tears. The human race had pulled through! This wasn’t an ominous hush. It was world peace, how about that!
Simultaneously all the feeling flooded back into my body. It was agony, the worst pins and needles ever. And with a terrifying whoosh, I landed on solid ground. Seconds later, Reuben and Lola crashed down on top of me.
“OW! What are you doing here, you morons?”
“You didn’t think we’d let you swan off to the future on your own!” Reuben gasped out.
Lola just lay whimpering softly. “Never ever make me do that again,” she begged.
We lay in a tangled heap, trying to get our breath back.
It was almost evening and I could smell a sweet fresh smell, like the smell you get in really expensive flower shops. We had crash-landed in someone’s old summerhouse. From where I was lying, I could see bright blue trumpet-shaped flowers and a glossy orange tree complete with perfect baby oranges.
I felt childish pangs of jealousy. I’ve got a v. small orange tree in my room. I grew it in ten minutes flat, when I helped in Miss Dove’s nursery class one time. But though I water it faithfully every day, it still hasn’t produced a single orange.
I dimly registered Dom’s school mates melting out of sight between some pillars. We should really follow them, but I couldn’t seem to move. Then Lola gave a tiny gasp, so naturally I looked up.
Staring down at us with stunned expressions were Dom and his little freckled girlfriend.
I was so shocked that I actually stopped breathing.
We were visible! The device must have messed up our angelic molecules, causing us to materialise.
The girl pulled off her medieval head dress and a mass of frizzy red hair sprang out. With her looks she could have gone on as orphan Annie without a rehearsal. If it wasn’t for her suspicious scowl, that is! She jerked her thumb in our direction. “What are they?”
“No idea,” Dom admitted. “But if one of the teachers sees them, we’re history.”
I almost shrieked with laughter. Yes, I know it’s not cool for an angel to have hysterics, but I was in shock. Thanks to me, my angel buddies were totally exposed to human view, and I had no idea what to do.
I heard the creak of the summerhouse door and approaching footsteps.
“Dom, Lily! Do I have to come and get you?” said a friendly voice.
Dom froze. “It’s Mr Lamb.”
Lily looked appalled. “We totally forgot about Metaphysics!”
They started frantically changing back into their normal clothes, not space suits with slanting zips as you might think, but the twenty-third century equivalent of smart casuals.
“Is metaphysics like metalwork?” I whispered.
“More like philosophy,” Reuben whispered back.
Oo-er, I thought. Talk about high fliers.
“I tried to tell you,” Lily was moaning. “Twice in two days is pushing it, I said. Someone’s going to rumble us, I said, but oh no—”
“Will you just shut up, Lil! No-one’s going to rumble anyone. Let me do the talking, OK?”
“Yeah, and how’d you plan to explain the time stowaways?”
Time stowaways? I sagged with relief. They obviously had no idea that we were angels.
Leaves rustled as Mr Lamb came nearer.
“I know you’re in here!” he called. Any minute now he was going to find our hiding place.
Lola smiled at the kids. “Don’t worry,” she said in perfect future slang. “We won’t grass. Just tell us what you want us to say.”
Dom looked panic-stricken. “Don’t say anything,” he pleaded. “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
All the tiny oranges trembled on their stalks as a middle-aged man came pushing through the foliage. He had one of those bland harmless faces, like a kids’ TV presenter. “There you are! Everyone’s waiting.”
I saw him quickly suppress his surprise. “And who’s this?” he said in a jolly, joky voice.
“It’s OK, Mr Lamb, I can explain—” Dom began.
“Don’t worry, we’re just leaving!” I interrupted airily. “Our parents are thinking of sending us to your brilliant school, so Dom and Lily kindly offered to show us round.” I dug Reuben in the ribs.
“Oh, yeah,” he said solemnly. “Great school.”
“Wow, is that the time!” said Lola. “We’d better get moving.”
But nice harmless Mr Lamb had somehow got between us and the door. “Sorry kids,” he said in his child-friendly voice. “You know the rules. No-one enters or leaves a Phoenix School unless we’ve checked your ID. You’ll have to come with me.”
I saw genuine terror flicker across Dom’s face. What could possibly be scaring him so badly? I wondered. We obediently trailed after the teacher.
Lola pulled a face at me. “I feel totally naked.”
”You feel naked,” Reuben muttered. “I’ve got major stage fright. I can’t believe humans can actually see me!”
I wondered if materialising without permission was still a major cosmic offence, if you did it by mistake. I mean, we hadn’t actually blown our divine cover or anything.
Then we went through the door into the school grounds, and everything else went clean out of my head as Lola went, “Ohhh.”
The sun was setting, bathing everything in its warm peachy light. Kids in stylish casuals flitted about the school campus, chatting, laughing and generally being kids. Lovely music drifted from windows. Several pupils were practising martial arts under the trees. Every child had that special glow I’d noticed in Dom and his mates.
Reuben totally forgot about his stage fright. His eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh, wow, these humans are way more evolved!” he breathed. “They’ve grown out of that primitive war stage and now they’re producing beautiful genius kids. It’s like they’ve created Heaven on Earth!”
It all sounded really tempting, and you have no idea how much I wanted to believe him. But like Mr Allbright says, we should always listen to our angel intuition, and mine just wasn’t convinced.
Look closer, Mel, it insisted. What’s wrong with this picture?
Take the teacher. He knew what Dom had been up to, I was sure of it. OK, he hadn’t actually sussed we were angels, but he’d definitely twigged we weren’t from their time-zone. So why was he stringing us along, as if he’d genuinely swallowed our story?
Mr Lamb took us into a building so perfect that I could hardly believe it was a school. There was the sweetest indoor garden with a little Zen fountain and shells and coloured gravel, plus they’d hung the kids’ artwork everywhere, not Blu-tacked any old how, but beautifully framed, as if the teachers actually valued it. This school even smelled lovely.
Maybe my intuition had got it wrong? Maybe this really was Heaven on Earth?
Then I saw the retina scanner and my heart dropped into my trainers. We definitely don’t do retina scans in Heaven.
We had to take turns to stand in front of the machine, trying not to blink, while eerie blue lights sizzled and flashed, like those evil fly killer thingies they have in chip shops in my time.
Not surprisingly the scan showed that Reuben, Lola and I had no official existence in t
he twenty-third century.
The teacher vanished into an office and I heard him talking softly on the phone. “Definitely not from this era. Of course. Yes, I’ll hold on to them until the authorities get here.”
Like a tiny candle flame, my vision of a peaceful harmonious future gave a last sad little flicker and blew out.
Mr Lamb reappeared. “Sorry about this kids,” he said in his TV presenter voice. “But until we sort out this little mix-up, we’ll have to keep you here, I’m afraid.” He wagged his finger at Dom and Lily. “And you two have a class to go to!”
Dom looked desperately strained. “Bye, you guys,” he said feebly.
The Mr Nice Guy act was just for Dom and Lily’s benefit, though, because the minute the kids disappeared, the teacher hustled us upstairs and shoved us into an empty classroom. “I don’t know who you are,” he snapped. “But I’m going to find out!”
The door slammed and I heard an ominous clunk as he locked us in.
I looked miserably around the room. With its pastel pink walls and teeny tiny furniture it reminded me of Miss Dove’s angel nursery class, which somehow made our situation even more depressing.
“Still think it’s Heaven on Earth?” I said sourly to Reuben.
“Sorry,” he said humbly. “I got a bit starry-eyed, didn’t I?”
He looked so forlorn that I felt really ashamed of myself.
“It’s OK, Reubs,” I said quickly. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Yeah, don’t beat yourself up, Sweetpea,” said Lola. “I lived on this gorgeous planet for thirteen years and I have NO idea what’s going on at this school.”
“Me neither,” I admitted. “It looks perfect. But something’s off.”
“Way, way off,” Reuben agreed. “But what? None of this makes sense.”
Lola sighed. “The three cosmic musketeers are seriously out of their depth this time.”
“We’d better call up the Agency,” suggested Reuben. “Get them to beam us home.”
We fished out our angel tags, centred ourselves and tried to connect with the Link. We waited patiently. Nothing happened. No cosmic tingles. No answering heavenly vibe. Nothing.
“I don’t want to depress anyone,” said Reuben, “but I think that device demagnetised our tags.”
My stomach gave a lurch. “You’re kidding!”
“But we can still get out of here?” said Lola. “We can still dematerialise?”
“Sure we can,” I said bravely. “We’re angels, right?”
A quarter of an hour later, we were still 100% visible.
I slumped on to a tiny chair. It didn’t help knowing that I was personally responsible for this nightmare. At the Academy, our teachers are constantly telling us we shouldn’t try to be heroes and go it alone. But had I listened? I had not! I’d just gone ahead and done my own sweet thing as usual without once thinking of the consequences.
I could tell that Lola was trying to stay calm. She wandered around the classroom, inspecting the work on the walls. “Hey, these babies are doing some cool stuff.”
Reuben had started doing martial-art stretching exercises. “What did that guy call this school again?” he called over his shoulder.
I wasn’t in the mood for giving Earth lessons to be honest. “A Phoenix School,” I said wearily. “A phoenix is a mythical bird. When it’s old and ready to die, it sets fire to its nest, and a little baby phoenix chick is reborn from the —”
Reuben immediately straightened up. “That’s so beautiful!’ he breathed. “It’s like these genius schools are the new hope born from the destruction of the past.”
“Pity about their teacher training,” Lola said sarcastically.
“We only met one teacher,” Reuben pointed out “The others might be saints.”
“So why are we getting these weird vibes—” I began.
We heard something scrape against the window. A ladder appeared. Its top rungs waved about wildly then finally came to rest against the glass.
Voices drifted up from below.
“They came out of nowhere!” Dom was explaining excitedly, and Lily grumbled something I couldn’t catch.
“I told you, I’ll sort it,” said a male voice.
I stiffened. I’d heard that voice before.
The ladder grated against the glass as someone started climbing up. “You’ll have to open it from inside,” called the voice.
I felt myself go dizzy. It can’t be.
I tried to scream a warning, but it was like my vocal cords were paralysed. I couldn’t even move, just watched helplessly as Reuben ran to flip the catch.
The glass slid back and a boy appeared outside the window.
His eyes were just as beautiful as I remembered. Beautiful and totally empty.
“Hi, Melanie, how’s it going?” he said smoothly.
It was Brice.
Chapter Eight
Reuben instantly went into a defensive martial-arts stance, but Brice totally ignored him. He jumped down into the room, his face carefully blank like a gymnast bringing off a tricky dismount.
“The ladder seems OK, so you shouldn’t have any problems,” he told us. “I’m not saying it’s great or anything. It’s probably best not to make any sudden moves.”
Apart from his twenty-third century casuals, my cosmic enemy looked just the same, the exact double of a boy I once had this hopeless crush on. I realised he was avoiding my eyes. In fact if it was anyone but Brice I’d have said he was nervous, rabbiting on like he was our special best friend.
“Hope you don’t mind heights, Sanchez,” he said with a sideways glance at Lola. I hadn’t realised he knew her name.
“I’m an angel, moron,” she snapped. “Air is my natural element.”
“How are you with heights incidentally?” I asked sarkily. “Now that you’re a - oh, what is the correct term for a fallen angel these days?” I asked my mates. “A former angel? An ex-angel?”
For the first time I saw a flash of the old Brice. “Will you just cut out all this angel garbage,” he snarled. “Just climb down the damn ladder and get out of my life.”
No-one moved. It wasn’t that we were deliberately defying him, more that this whole situation was so weird that none of us knew how to handle it.
He flung up his hands. “Fine! Stay here! But I don’t think you’re going to like what happens next. Future science labs, weird tests.”
Lola looked disgusted. “Oh, please! Like you’d actually care. I can’t believe you’re daring to show your face after what you did.”
“Yeah, why would you want to help us?” I said disbelievingly.
Brice gave his cold laugh. “I don’t give a monkey’s about you, darling. It’s Dom I care about.”
“Yeah right!” I snorted. The idea of Brice caring for someone was just bizarre.
“Will you guys just get a move on?” Dom called hoarsely.
To my astonishment Reuben shrugged. “Well, we obviously can’t stay here. I say we take a chance.”
Lola was scandalised. “Are you nuts? How do we know he hasn’t got some gruesome PODs posse down there?”
Brice gave her a nasty grin. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me!”
But when we reached the ground, we only found Dom and Lily waiting. Dom was still agitated about something. I heard him whisper to Brice.
“I’ll look after it, mate, if you’re worried,” Brice offered.
My mates and I gave each other helpless glances, as Dom handed the time device to our cosmic enemy.
“Now let’s see if you can keep the school rules till bedtime, eh Dom?” Brice gave Dom’s arm an affectionate biff.
“Dave’s always getting me out of trouble,” Dom explained bashfully. “He’s like my guardian angel.”
Reuben recovered first. “That’s erm, great,” he said a little too brightly “Everyone needs a guardian angel. Right, Dave?”
“Right,” said Brice, looking incredibly uncomfortable.
When Dom and Lily had gone, Brice let out a sigh of relief. “It’s cool. He has no idea who you are.”
“He certainly doesn’t know who you are!” I snorted. “So what’s a bright kid like Dom doing mixed up with an evil jerk like you?”
Lola’s lip curled. “Maybe Brice is like, grooming him to be his evil successor.”
The air was suddenly crackling with tension. I genuinely thought Brice was going to hit her. Reuben quickly put himself between them.
Brice was so furious he could hardly get the words out. “You kids are all so freaking morally superior! Even when you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Lola shrugged. “Oh, please, put us right, hombre. We’re hanging on your every word.”
“It will be my pleasure,” he spat.
We didn’t exactly have a choice. Normally nothing would induce us to hang out with Brice. But as you know, he had the time device, so where he went, we basically had to follow.
He led us through the beautifully kept grounds one of the dorms. A little kid spotted us. “Hey who are you?” he yelled.
“Oh, we’re ange—” Reuben began eagerly.
“Shut up!” Brice shoved him roughly through door.
We followed him up a flight of stairs to an open-plan kitchen. It was a really homey space with sofas and a massive blackboard. I suppose that was in case a young genius felt the need to solve mathematical equations while he was heating his baked beans.
Someone was practicing a cello in one of upstairs rooms. It sounded beautiful yet tragic, you know how they do? All at once I felt horribly depressed. It had just dawned on me that I screwed up a major celestial mission.
I found myself compulsively listing my latest cosmic boo-boos, and there were quite a few. Materialising without permission, stranding my mates in the distant future, damaging Agency property (our platinum angel tags) damaging them so badly in fact, that we couldn’t even let the Agency know where we were.
Worst of all, we’d just watched, like lemons, as Dom handed over a dangerous time device to the PODS favourite messenger boy.
Miss Rowntree was right, I thought bleakly. I’m just an airhead with attitude.
