Pearl blinks hard – she has tears in her eyes.
‘Do you realize the trouble you could be in?’ Kitt asks out loud.
‘Leave her alone!’ I surprise myself by saying. ‘Pearl has been really kind to me. Can’t you be kind for once?’
I don’t get a chance to see Kitt’s reaction – Dot’s scream cuts through all the music and roaring and chaos.
‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! RILEY!!’
It’s coming from the direction of the window.
The boys – the boys are all laughing. For a horrible, horrible second I panic that they’re about to throw my little sort-of-stepsister out of the window. But as soon as I get over to them I see that they’ve done something that – in Dot’s eyes – is nearly as bad.
‘It’s just a stick!’ one lad cackles, when he spots the ferociously protective look on my face. I glance around and see they’re all cackling like manic Cheshire cats, beside themselves at the funniness of the moment.
They don’t seem to notice that Dot is crying her eyes out, sobbing at the fact that someone has torn her pet from her arms and thrown it out of the window.
I push aside the boy who talked and peer down into the garden, trying to locate Alastair.
But someone is already down there searching. Woody.
‘Come on,’ I say to Dot, grabbing her hand. ‘We’ll get him back.’
Hustling her out of the room and into the cavernous hall, I spot a short set of stairs heading downwards and assume they’ll lead us into the garden.
Sure enough, there’s a glass-panelled door that’s already open.
‘Any sign of Dot’s … pet?’ I call out to Woody, not really sure how to describe Alastair to anyone outside the family.
‘Here – ouch! Here’s your dog,’ says Woody, stepping out from the depths of a red-berried holly bush with Dot’s hunk of driftwood in one hand and a bleeding scratch on the other.
‘Alastair!’ Dot yelps, running to grab and hug and dance around the garden with her rescued mutt.
‘Thank you,’ I say to Woody, passing him a clean but scrunched-up tissue from my pocket.
‘No worries.’ Woody grins, dabbing the tissue on to his hand and then – in true boy style – lifting it up to inspect the blobs of red on the paper.
‘Your friends are idiots,’ I say, nodding my head towards the now-empty window, though the pounding music and accompanying hollering is still going on, I can hear.
‘They’re not my friends – they’re just in my class,’ Woody says with a shrug.
‘So your proper mates are those Year 8 boys I’ve seen you with?’ I ask, my dislike for those lads probably written across my face.
‘Nah, not really,’ he says with another shrug. ‘I just hang out with them on the way to school. Try to make them laugh and whatever.’
‘So who are your best mates, then?’ I ask, trying to picture him with anyone in particular at school. I guess I’ve seen him chatting to loads of people, always goofing around, but not with any one boy, or group of boys.
‘Hmm,’ says Woody, rubbing his chin and raising one eyebrow, cartoon style. ‘Which of the hundreds of people do I choose from?’
I can’t help but smile – he’s pretty funny and likeable.
‘Well, Marnie Reynolds must like you, since she invited you,’ I point out.
‘She invited everyone in our class, and a whole bunch more besides, so I’m not so special,’ he grins. ‘But Marnie’s all right, once you get to know her.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask, wondering if I’ll find out something that might help the angels with their mission.
‘Everyone thinks she’s a snob, cos of where she lives.’
‘And because she acts a bit snooty too,’ I point out.
‘Nah, she’s all right. It just takes her a while to warm up and trust you. She said at her primary school, lots of people pretended to be her friend, just so they could come and check out her posh house.’
OK, I suppose that fits with what she said when the angels sprang her. I suppose I shouldn’t take her coolness so personally. Though I still don’t know why she changed her mind and invited me to her party.
‘Wait – if Marnie’s so funny about people wanting to be friends with her for the wrong reasons, then why did she want to have this party in the first place?’ I ask, the thought just occurring to me.
‘I think it was just to get back at her mum,’ says Woody.
I scrunch my nose up – the universal sign of Huh?
‘Well,’ Woody carries on, hopefully about to explain it better, ‘Marnie came into class last Monday and said her mum was going away on a business trip this weekend. Her mum does it a lot, she says, and always promises Marnie she’ll cut back on trips and work stuff – only she never does.’
‘So Marnie was just mad at her?’ I say.
‘I guess so. So next thing she’s telling everyone she’s having this party. But I think she regretted it about five seconds after she said it!’
Sympathy swirls in my chest for Marnie. We’ve all got angry and said things in the heat of the moment – Like me with Kitt upstairs a minute ago, I wince to myself – but not all of us will have to spend the rest of the weekend scooping peanuts out of the snooker-table pockets and gathering tossed cushions from the flower beds.
‘Isn’t her dad around?’ I ask.
‘Think they’re divorced. There’s just her nan – who lives in there.’
I turn round and see a set of French doors and a bunch of windows, in what must be the basement of the house. The granny flat I heard about.
‘She must be one deaf old lady,’ I say, wondering how anyone can ignore the noise thundering above her.
‘Marnie says she’s at the hairdresser’s. Hope her appointment lasts a few hours!’ Woody jokes.
‘Riley,’ a little voice interrupts us now. ‘Can we go, please? I don’t like this party. It has bad boys and no crisps.’
That sounds like a reasonable description of the party to me. I’m about to say yes, when Woody leaps in.
‘Aw, don’t go! It could get better!’ he says, sounding genuinely disappointed.
Somewhere in the house up above, I hear a crash, a tinkle of glass, accompanied by groans and hoots of howling laughter.
‘I don’t think so,’ I say with a wry smile.
‘Just stay a little while longer – I really want to speak to you about working on the school newsletter. It’s important!’
‘Riley, I really want to go …’ whines Dot, in that shrill five-year-old way that makes your ears twinge.
‘Dot – I’m pretty sure I know where some crisps are,’ Woody suddenly tells her. ‘If we can find you some, can you let your sister stay for just a tiny bit longer, so we can talk?’
Dot thinks. Dot frowns. Dot speaks.
‘Are they really nice crisps?’
‘REALLY nice crisps!’ Woody promises her. ‘Coming?’
‘They’d better be nice,’ grumbles Dot, taking Woody’s hand and stomping off like a Disney princess in a very bad mood.
‘Don’t go anywhere, OK?’ Woody says over his shoulder.
‘OK,’ I say, wondering what he wants to talk to me about.
I hope he doesn’t think I’ll be able to persuade Daniel and the others to let him write the main piece about the mysterious red messages. I only know the newsletter crew well enough to say ‘Hi’ and ‘Do you like my photos?’ so far.
Speaking of photos, my hand automatically goes to the camera in my bag. I brought it along this afternoon, wondering if Marnie would appreciate me being her unofficial party photographer. But the way things are going I have a feeling she might prefer to forget all about it once she finally gets rid of everyone – whenever that’ll be.
‘Riley?’ It’s Pearl, who’s just pattered down the stairs and appeared in the doorway, passing Woody and Dot on the way.
If this was a month or so ago, Marnie’s party might well have had a Halloween theme, and Pearl woul
d have fitted right in – as the ghost of a 1960s girl in her mini smock dress.
I didn’t know it was possible for anyone to look that pale without layers of theatrical make-up and dramatic, spooky lighting.
‘Where are the others?’ I ask Pearl, as she steps into the garden and pads over the lawn in her sparkly baseball boots.
‘They’re hovering around Marnie,’ she says, shivering a little in the watery, wintry sunshine. I’m kind of chilly myself.
‘Won’t they want you with them?’ I say, wishing I hadn’t promised Woody – and Dot – that I’d wait here for them. I fold my arms over my chest, as if that’ll hold the heat in.
‘Maybe. But I don’t have enough energy to help,’ she says with a small smile.
The small smile worries me. It’s as if she’s trying to hide something.
‘What can I do?’ I ask quickly. ‘Do you want me to get your coat, so you can get warm?’
She is shivering, from head to spangly foot.
‘Do you need to go home?’
I suddenly think of Dad – his print shop isn’t far from here. Maybe I should give him a call. He could do that thing with the car, where you can flip the flat part of the boot up and have two extra seats. We’d all fit in then. Dad wouldn’t mind. And I’m sure Woody could wait, and we’ll have that newsletter conversation on Monday at school.
My hand is now scrabbling in my bag for my phone instead of my camera.
But Pearl seems to ignore all my questions and simply says, ‘I think they might be right.’
‘About Marnie, do you mean?’ I whisper, leaving my phone where it is for a second and motioning Pearl to move behind the dense green expanse of the holly bush, so we’re away from any prying eyes in the house.
‘No – about me doing things wrong. I think the glow is going,’ says Pearl, sounding scared, I realize with a shock. ‘Can I show you something?’
‘Uh, yes,’ I reply, nervously watching as she pulls something out of her small velvet bag.
It’s a package of some sort, a silky handkerchief the blue of a summer sky, gathered up at each corner and tied with a thin silver thread.
‘Do you want to see my skills, Riley?’ she says in a small voice. ‘For real?’
‘But I – I’ve seen you use them, I’ve felt you use them,’ I fumble around with a response, not sure what she means by for real.
All those mind-blowing questions I have about the angels? Maybe it is better if I don’t ask, don’t know.
Cos right this second, I’m suddenly a little bit frightened, and I’m not sure I really want to see what Pearl is about to show me.
Whatever’s inside the soft, silky package in her hand … whatever it is, it’s moving.
‘But we haven’t shown you our personal skills,’ says Pearl, pulling at the silver string. ‘And I’ve seen you have questions in your head about how they work.’
I’m hardly daring to move, to breathe.
‘So I thought I would take mine to show you today. But, Riley, when I checked them just now … there’s something very wrong!’
The thread falls away, and the silk material opens up like blue petals.
And in the middle, held in Pearl’s now-cupped hands, are eight tiny spheres, turning in tiny, jerky movements against each other, glowing with the faintest fluttering light. At first I think they’re made of glass, and then I see that they’re soft, like gel, as they squash and rub up against each other.
What exactly am I looking at?
‘They used to be so much brighter, Riley!’ Pearl whispers to me, anguish in her voice. ‘As we gain experience, our skills glow more strongly and spin faster. In time, the glow is so bright, the spinning so fast, that it will be just one bright, intense ball of light and then …’
‘You’ll have … qualified?’ I suggest, using a word so normal it sounds pathetic for the wondrously strange phenomenon I’m staring at.
‘I thought helping you would make the glow stronger, but it’s got weaker – same as it does if we use errant magic,’ says Pearl, staring down in dismay at the stuttering, stalling twirling beads of glass or gel or whatever it is they’re made of. ‘Sunshine and Kitt said we always have to work together, but I didn’t want to. And now this is happening … and I don’t know how to tell them that one of my skills has gone altogether!’
Eight spheres. Of course, there should be nine – one for each of the angels’ skills.
I see fat tears start falling, soaking darkly into the blue silk. Pearl is now shaking with fear as well as cold.
‘But what does it mean? Why are you so worried?’ I ask her.
‘Take a photo of me, Riley!’ Pearl suddenly insists, lifting her gaze and staring at me with her watery, pale grey eyes.
‘What?’ I say, confused.
‘Do it – then you’ll see!’
But I won’t see anything, I think, grabbing my camera anyway. Only a warm beam of light – I have the evidence in that photo of all three angels on my pinboard in my room, even if no one else looking at it would understand what they were seeing.
Holding up the camera, I fix Pearl in the viewfinder and press.
Click!
Now looking at the image in the display, I have to stop myself from gasping. There’s hardly anything there – a scene of a winter garden, with the faintest gleam of something that you’d hardly notice, that you might mistake for a blur of a passing moth.
‘Do you think I’ll disappear completely, Riley?’ asks Pearl, an edge of sadness and panic in her voice.
Pearl has helped me see something I’d never have dreamed of the last couple of days. But I can’t help her – I’m only made of flesh and blood and human uselessness. But I know two special people who can and will.
‘Quick,’ I tell her, folding her hands round her precious package, to keep it safe. ‘We have to find Sunshine and Ki–’
‘Riley!’ comes an urgent shout. ‘Are you still down there?’
It’s Woody. I step out from behind the shelter of the holly bush and look up, trying to locate him. OK, there he is, leaning out of an open window on the first floor. A bedroom, maybe? There’s no sign of Dot.
‘You’ve got to see this!’
‘What?’ I call up, not in the mood for party gossip, if that’s what this is about.
Woody grins down at me.
‘Riley, it’s the red writing – it’s here, in the house!’
As if I didn’t have enough reasons to shiver.
Surprise, surprise
It must be a spare bedroom – there are no personal pictures hanging on the walls or special objects on the chests of drawers. It’s a bit like a really nice hotel bedroom, only with a pile of coats dumped on the bed.
And, of course, the scribbled red message scrawled on the mirror.
SUPRISED TO SEE ME?
‘Take a photo, Riley,’ Woody demands excitedly. ‘Daniel’s going to love this, isn’t he? Wait till we tell him. He’s got to let me write this story now! None of the rest of the News Matters team are here … only us!’
I take one snap, ignoring the sight of my own shaking reflection in my favourite denim shirt, black tights and shorts, then nervously move closer to take another.
Pearl is nearby; I’ve sat her down on the bed. I want to sneak a look at her, see what she makes of the message, but it’s hard with Woody here with us. And, with her own fading, how can she even begin to seek anyway? I wouldn’t want her to, in case it made her weaker than she already is.
‘Listen, you know when I said I wanted to talk to you, Riley?’ Woody babbles, frantic with nervous energy and oblivious to the fact that Pearl is poorly. ‘It’s just – well, if Daniel does let me write this feature, can you help me? Write it, I mean?’
‘But I’m the photographer, not a journalist,’ I remind him.
What’s he on about? And hold on, where’s Dot? Weren’t they supposed to be going on a crisp hunt together?
‘Look … the thing is, I have dyslexia.
Really, pretty bad dyslexia, OK?’
I forget about Dot for a second – Woody sounds so on edge, agitated.
‘OK,’ I say, lowering the camera, glad to step away from the strange message. ‘But so what? Lots of people have that.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Woody says with a shrug, ‘but those people might have classmates who are cool about it, instead of the bricks-for-brains lads I’ve been landed with in Y7A.’
‘Do they give you a hard time?’ I ask, suddenly concerned for him.
‘Hard? Only hard like concrete. Or cement, maybe.’ Woody can’t help but joke, since that’s the way he seems to deal with everything. ‘So I’d just like a chance to show them that I’m not some loser they can laugh at.’
I’m not seeking – obviously – but suddenly I get a sense of how lonely Woody must have been since he started at Hillcrest, trying to be the joker among people that aren’t at all nice to him.
His gaze falls to the floor, his expression and real feelings hidden behind his flopping spikes of fringe.
I’m trying to think what to say, how I can let him know that I get it, that I understand what it feels like to be alone in a crowd, that we might have that in common.
I reach out to touch his arm.
And then I see something that makes me pull my hand away.
On Woody’s fingers … red smudges. Like a pen that’s leaked.
I quickly glance back up at the writing on the mirror. I didn’t read it properly the first time cos I was so shocked to see it.
SUPRISED TO SEE ME?
Surprised, but minus the ‘r’.
Now I really get it.
This message, all the messages at school last week – they weren’t the work of a poltergeist, or even some mean hoaxer. They were done by a boy who’s sad and frustrated, and hoping a bit of attention might change the way people see him. Oh – and a boy who’s not so good at spelling. Especially when he’s rushing to write, so he can show me the message before I leave the party.
‘Woody – where is it?’ I snap.
‘Where’s what?’ he answers, taken aback at the edge of urgency in my voice.
‘It’s in his back pocket,’ says Pearl. Her gaze is dropped to her lap, where her hands are clasped together. But even from this angle I can make out the silvery crescent moons under her trembling white eyelashes. She’s tuning into him.
Angels in Training Page 10
