Angels in Training

by Karen McCombie

  Dot is in my room.

  She’s not doing anything loud or dumb or annoying, which is unusual.

  Instead, she’s sitting with her back to me on the edge of my bed.

  The ears of her rabbit onesie flop forward as she stares intently at the only photo I have of my mum, in its mirror-edged frame.

  I have a small but starring role in that photo. The bump under Mum’s flowery dress – that’s me, all snuggled and small inside her, while she stands on the top of Folly Hill, her arms flung wide, smiling up at the great wide sky.

  ‘What if … ?’ Dot mutters, squiggling to get comfy, runkling up my duvet.

  I hold my breath, wondering what she’s going to say.

  Is she thinking – like I sometimes do – what life would’ve been like if Mum hadn’t died in the accident?

  If the family living in this house had been just a threesome of me, Mum and Dad, instead of a quartet of me, Dad, Dot and Hazel?

  Wow. That’s a weird ‘what if’. I can imagine life without Dot’s mum, Hazel (no offence), but not Dot. What would I do without her bouncing around the house, entertaining and infuriating me? It would be quiet. Way too quiet.

  ‘What if what?’ I prompt her, as I tuck the skinny end of the tie into my shirt.

  ‘What if our eyebrows were under our eyes instead of above?’

  As Dot turns and blinks earnestly, I realize that:

  a) she’s just been using the edges of the mirrored photo frame to see her reflection, and

  b) she’s drawn upside-down eyebrows on her cheeks with something that looks worryingly like a felt pen.

  ‘Dot! What are you doing?’ I gasp, and rush round to grab a packet of wipes I keep on my chest of drawers.

  ‘Just thinking of questions, Riley,’ she replies, trying to wriggle away from my big (step)sisterly face-scrubbing. ‘Miss Harris, my teacher, says we should always ask questions. It’s a sign of a … a something mind.’

  Scatty mind, in Dot’s case, I think, relieved to see that the brown scribbles are coming off.

  ‘You mean, an enquiring mind,’ I tell her.

  ‘Yes, that!’ Dot agrees. ‘Miss Harris says that having a kwiring mind is a good thing and that she wants us all to come to class with some interesting questions that we can talk about today.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice, Dot, but it’s nearly time for school, and I think Miss Harris would also like you to come to class dressed.’

  Never mind Dot’s teacher, what about Dad? Hazel’s on an early shift at the hospital today, and so it’s his turn to drive Dot to her primary school. I bet he’ll be expecting her downstairs, all washed and in her uniform, any second now.

  And all he’s going to get is a bunny with unbrushed teeth and half an eyebrow to the left of her nose.

  ‘Do you want to hear my questions, Riley?’

  ‘Not really,’ I say, with a final swipe of a wipe as I hustle Dot off the bed and out of my room.

  ‘Well, here’s one: I want to know why the Earth and moon and sun and stuff are all round. Why round? Why not triangles?’ Dot asks, unfazed by my lack of interest as we cross the hall to her room, me with a hand on her fuzzy back. ‘Then there’s the eyebrow thing …’

  ‘Yep, got that,’ I say, having a quick look at my watch. Eek.

  ‘… and I want to know how come some mums and dads give their children interesting names like Sunshine and Kitten and Pearl –’

  Er, I’m not going to interrupt her here, but I’m pretty sure angels don’t technically have parents. (Something else for my list of mind-swirling questions.)

  ‘– and not boring short names like Dot, which makes me sound like I’m this big.’

  Dot pinches her finger and thumb till they nearly touch, while I ransack her wardrobe at high speed and throw her uniform on her polka-dot bed cover.

  ‘Dorothea Madeleine Marshall,’ Dad’s voice booms from the doorway, ‘you have practically the longest name in the world, and I know for a fact that you were called after your lovely and not-at-all-boring grannies.’

  Dot scrunches her nose, thinking about that.

  ‘And I also know that you’re going to be late for school,’ Dad continues, stepping into the room, ‘and you’re making Riley late too! Go on, Riley – scoot. Your friends are waiting for you outside.’

  Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl are always waiting wordlessly by my gate on school mornings. Bee too, for that matter.

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I say, smiling up at him as I escape.

  ‘By the way, Riley,’ I hear him call after me as I thunder down the stairs. ‘Keep meaning to ask – how does that dog of theirs do it? Make its own way back home after it’s walked you all to school, I mean.’

  ‘Well trained, I suppose,’ I call back to him, though it’s something I’ve often wondered myself. Specially when he shocks drivers at the busy junction on Meadow Lane by waiting for the green-man signal to cross.

  Grabbing my blazer and bag, I pause just long enough to bend down and pat Alastair in his dog basket. I’m not totally mad; it’s just a habit I’ve got into cos I know it’ll make Dot happy. (And it makes me smile too, I suppose.)

  ‘Hello,’ says Sunshine, as I pull the front door closed behind me.

  ‘Hi,’ I reply – then realize she didn’t say it out loud.

  She likes to do that. To see if I can pick up what she’s saying without talking, her lips moving fractionally. The skill is quiet words, and the girls use it to talk among themselves without being heard. (Useful for chats in class without getting detention.)

  So I’m starting to catch what they’re saying – getting better at reading lips these days, I guess.

  Now I just need to get better at asking them stuff.

  Hey, maybe I should be like Dot and set myself a target of thinking up a killer question for my friends today.

  The problem is I’m just not sure how to pick only one from the flurry that’s always swirling in my head.

  Then Bee, padding fluffily by my side, gives me an idea.

  No, I’m not thinking about Dad here, and his worry about how Bee finds his way home alone. I’m sure an angel-trained dog would have no problem with that. In fact, average, normal dogs can be capable of sniffing and navigating their way around too – with the exception of Alastair, of course.

  ‘Aren’t you ever scared that Bee might get run over?’ I ask, thinking of the steady, lumbering stream of traffic on not-so-scenic Meadow Lane, just beyond the end of our road.

  That’s not my killer question, by the way. I’m working up to that.

  ‘No,’ says Sunshine, shaking her head, her hair tumbling like glowing amber ribbons, even with the jumble of pretty hairclips she uses to hold it back. ‘Why would we?’

  ‘He’s very sensible,’ Pearl adds cheerfully, smiling down at Bee, who seems to smile back. ‘More sensible than us, actually.’

  ‘But bad things can happen to sensible people – or dogs,’ I say, thinking suddenly of my mum. ‘A driver could be going too fast, not looking …’

  As we turn into the growl and roar of the main road, I realize I don’t know where Mum’s accident happened. It could have been right here, at the busy junction. Or outside her flower shop in town. It could have been down a dirt track on safari or on the racetrack at Brands Hatch for all I know. It’s just one of the many questions I can never, ever ask Dad, since he never, ever wants to talk about her.

  ‘Bee would still be fine, I’m sure,’ says Sunshine, in that steady, reassuring way of hers.

  ‘Unless he was distracted. Then the bad thing could happen.’ That’s Kitt, talking in her usual, blunt way. She’s frowning, I notice, and the other girls notice too. They look concerned but say nothing.

  I don’t know what any of the girls are thinking (what’s new?) and they often talk in something that sounds an awful lot like riddles to me.

  But, as the green man at the traffic lights bleeps and we start to cross, I’m ready to come out and say what I mean.


  ‘I know it wouldn’t, but if something … something bad did happen, would you be able to bring Bee back?’ I ask.

  Yep, I want to know what sort of powers the average angel has. What Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl might be able to do when they’re fully trained, whenever that may be. (Spot another question I need to get around to asking.)

  ‘No – we don’t have skills to do that,’ says Sunshine, stepping on to the safety of the pavement.

  ‘Dead is dead.’ That’s Kitt again, blunt again.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I mutter. So, even if Mum had been as lucky as me and had a guardian angel hovering around her, she still would’ve died. No one human or angelic could have brought her back to life.

  The realization makes me sorry and sad for a second and a silence descends on us, though the traffic close by is pretty much deafening, same as the yells and chat of streams of students strolling or stumbling along the dead-end street that leads towards Hillcrest Academy.

  ‘Oi, Riley!’ A strangled sort of shout breaks through the din.

  I glance around, but can’t locate the voice.

  ‘Riley!’ it comes again.

  ‘Look, it’s that boy who talks to you,’ says Sunshine, pointing a long, thin arm in the direction of what looks like a rugby scrum just up ahead of us on the pavement.

  Sure enough, there’s Woody in the middle of it all. Tall, goofy Woody Slater, who is in one of the other Year 7 classes, and who used to be my friend Tia’s biggest fan. (Probably still is – I’m sure that’s the only reason he talks to me.)

  He’s bent over in a headlock, while lots of Year 8 boys bundle on top of him.

  ‘Are those bigger boys fighting him?’ Pearl asks, sounding alarmed.

  I can see why she thinks that and why Bee has run off towards the scrum barking and growling.

  ‘They’re not fighting; they’re just mucking about. It’s what boys do for fun,’ I explain, sure that I’m right because of the lads’ gruff laughter, and the fact that Woody has just extricated himself and is grinning as he gamely limps his way over towards us.

  ‘That is a strange kind of fun,’ mutters Kitt, scowling through her dark-rimmed glasses.

  Human life must seem very, very peculiar to anyone on the outside.

  Especially boy human life, which I don’t get myself sometimes.

  ‘So,’ says Woody, smoothing his dark rumpled hair with one hand and bending his tall body down to pat Bee with the other. ‘Going to the News Matters meeting at lunchtime, Riley?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answer him, a little confused. Why’s he asking? It’s only my second-ever meeting with the team, since I became photographer for the school’s online news website. And Woody’s not involved with it.

  ‘I’ve asked to join.’ He grins lopsidedly at me (or maybe he’s just all lopsided after that wrestling session). ‘They said I can come along to the ideas meeting this lunchtime; see how I get on. Thing is, I’ve got this GREAT idea that’s going to totally blow them away!’

  ‘Yeah?’ I say, raising my eyebrows. ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘Not telling – yet!’ he says, tapping his nose and winking at me, which I think is meant to make me all intrigued.

  But, if he’s expecting me to beg him to tell, he’ll have a long wait.

  I know a story that would make whatever Woody’s got seem as exciting as an episode of Peppa Pig.

  Could you imagine if I did an interview about that moment in the girls’ loos a few weeks ago, when I found out that Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl were more than just my new, slightly kooky neighbours? That heart-stopping second when those huge wings unfurled in front of me, one looming, rustling pair after another?

  Or if News Matters actually printed that photo I have on my pinboard at home?

  ‘That’s a pretty amazing effect,’ Hazel had said, when she’d dropped off my laundry one day and found herself entranced by the three blurs of white light in front of the statue on Folly Hill.

  She’d had no idea what she was really looking at.

  A trio of angels as they truly are.

  ‘Anyway, catch you there. Yeah?’ says Woody, zooming off after his thuggish buddies.

  At the same time, Bee turns and ambles in the opposite direction, his bushy blonde tail whacking happily on my leg as he begins his homeward journey to Chestnut Crescent.

  ‘So,’ I begin, as me, Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl once again fall into step beside each other, ‘what’s the plan for today?’

  Now the school gates are looming close, I’m pretty keen to know how exactly we’re going to find whoever’s fading.

  The only problem is no one seems to know the answer.

  Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl are all looking at me curiously.

  ‘Um, the plan is we have science first thing?’ Pearl suggests uncertainly.

  ‘No, I was talking about the person who’s lost their shine,’ I reply, a little shy and awkward again. ‘I just wondered what the plan was … to find them, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ giggles Pearl, as if magically tuning into someone’s sadness was the simplest thing to do.

  ‘You’ll see,’ says Kitt. Always the most serious of the sisters, her face, as well as her words, give nothing away.

  ‘We’ll show you,’ whispers Sunshine – then I realize she didn’t say that out loud.

  She’s used quiet words, or maybe she’s sneaked inside my mind again while I wasn’t looking.

  Funnily, I don’t mind; I’m suddenly buzzing with excitement, thinking of all the angels’ skills.

  When they were helping me, I didn’t understand what they were doing, what was happening or why.

  But this time – well, this time I’ll be watching. And maybe even helping?

  Written in red

  I’m not sure if Mrs Mahoney is having way too much fun in the staffroom or if she’s been abducted by aliens, but there’s no sign of her yet.

  Not that any of my classmates seem bothered about our registration session starting late, though.

  Groups of girls are sitting around or leaning on the big library tables, chatting and giggling.

  Groups of boys are doing much the same, with a few arm punches and lazy kicks at each other thrown in.

  Meanwhile I’m sitting at the table nearest the library’s check-out desk with just the people you’d expect. Only they’re doing something you might not expect.

  Sunshine is pretending to read a book.

  Kitt is staring at – but not seeing – the clouds outside the big plate-glass windows of the library.

  Pearl is acting like she’s daydreaming, twirling a pencil in the fingers of her right hand, as if it’s a tiny cheerleader baton.

  If anyone else in our class glances over at our table, they’ll think my friends are doing nothing very much – but they’d be wrong.

  I can see what’s happening.

  See, there – Sunshine’s elbow is pressing against Kitt’s arm.

  Kitt is leaning back in her chair, with Pearl’s left hand lightly resting on her shoulders.

  They look like what they pretend to be – three foster sisters who are as close as best friends.

  But I know the press of the elbow, the hand on the shoulder, are anything but casual.

  Connected by those innocent-looking touches, Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl are working together, making the skill stronger. They’re seeking, quietly trying to tune into whoever’s lost their shine.

  It’s as if I can almost feel what they’re doing – there’s the faintest vibration on the surface of the table where my hands are resting.

  Wouldn’t it be amazing if the person the angels are searching for is right here? In our own class?

  ‘Hey, have you heard?’ says Ella Brown, rushing into the library, blazer flapping.

  ‘Heard what?’ asks someone in the gaggle of girls all bunched round the back table near the non-fiction section.

  ‘Well, Marnie Reynolds –’

  ‘Who’s she again?’ another voice asks.


  ‘Snooty-looking one in Y7A, with the dark bob,’ yet another person explains.

  There’re a few ‘Oh yeah!’s of recognition. I’m pretty sure I know who she is – Y7A is Woody’s class, and I think I’ve seen him talking to her.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ella carries on, ‘apparently Marnie Reynolds is having a party at her house this weekend. With no adults.’

  Ooh!s and Aah!s burble from the girls, and the boys start craning in, wondering what’s going on.

  ‘And guess where she lives?’ Ella asks rhetorically, just about to tell us, you can sense.

  ‘In one of those huge houses up by the golf course,’ Lauren Mayhew butts in, using her best all-knowing and slightly bored voice.

  No offence to witches, but Lauren is the closest I’ve ever been to one. She’s the type of girl who’d be completely beautiful if she didn’t ruin it by having the meanest look on her face at all times.

  Right now she’s lazily scrolling down the screen of her phone, her long blonde hair flopping over it. Either side of her are her cronies Joelle and Nancy, staring at whatever’s so interesting on Lauren’s display.

  ‘So,’ says Ella, trying to grab back control of her gossipy piece of information, ‘I bet everyone’ll be dying to get an invitation to that!’

  ‘I wonder who’s going?’ asks someone.

  ‘Us, for a start,’ drawls Lauren, tossing her hair back and holding her phone up so the bunch of girls at the neighbouring table can read the texted invite she must’ve got from this Marnie girl.

  People lean forward and make impressed noises, which only eggs Lauren on.

  ‘Yeah, apparently Marnie can’t stand her mum, so while she’s away this weekend Marnie’s decided to have this party – and doesn’t care how wild it gets!’

  There are more Oohs and Aahs, and Lauren grins slyly. You can tell she’s loving having the insider information – but what she’s said has niggled.

  For one thing, how can it be true? No matter how bad Marnie Reynolds’s mum is, it doesn’t sound very likely that she’d leave her twelve-year-old daughter all by herself for a whole weekend. And how can someone not stand their own mother? Don’t they know how lucky they are to have one at all?

  But, hey, I don’t want to seem like I’m hanging on Lauren’s every – and possibly not true – word, so I turn quickly back to my friends.