Angels Next Door

by Karen McCombie

A girl you know has a nice new hairstyle. A boy in class who’s usually annoying has done a great drawing. Your best friend was really good fun today and made you smile when you were grumpy. You might fleetingly notice and think about stuff like that, but how about saying something out loud? Come right out with a compliment? Giving someone a bit of praise can boost their self-confidence big time. And make you new friends!

  2. ‘There, there …’

  Feeling ill is pants. If your friend is off sick with flu or whatever, be aware that she will be feeling

  a) ropey,

  b) mopey, and

  c) like she’s missing out on the fun that you and your other friends are having. So get yourself round to hers after school or at the weekend, armed with chat, chocolate and maybe a favourite magazine. Or, if she’s infectious, gather your friends to shout, ‘Get well soon!’ down the phone to her. That should help her smile through the snot!

  3. Be an ace listener.

  You can tell something is bothering your friend, but she keeps saying she’s ‘fine’. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk in front of others, so how about arranging to have a little time to chat, just the two of you? You can suggest it face to face, or reach out with a text, or even a note. You might not have all the answers, but having someone to splurge her feelings to might be enough to cheer your friend up.

  4. ‘If you liked that, you might like this …’

  Start a book group. And don’t just invite your BFs… ask girls you don’t know so well, who you know like reading. You might turn people on to books they wouldn’t have ever tried before. And, for people who are a little shy, getting together to talk about books and stories and authors is a great way to be sociable. (Don’t forget the biscuits – you ALWAYS need biscuits at a book group!)

  5. Make homework not suck.

  It’s easy to get stuck on homework, especially with creative subjects like writing or projects. But being in a group, bouncing ideas around, can really flick a switch on in your brain! So suggest get-togethers to help each other out – but lay down the rules too:

  1) be nice (no poo-pooing what people say),

  2) be encouraging (you’d want the same) and

  c) no gossiping (you can save that for later, once the homework is done!).

  6. Mad makeover time!

  If a friend is feeling a little flat or fed-up, get silly with an over-the-top makeover. Invite her round, blast some music on, and try out a ton of different hairstyles and make-up looks on her. Get her to pose in the mirror, or catwalk up and down the bedroom. It’ll be even more fun if you get her to do the same to you!

  www.karenmccombie.com

  Create a Friendship Collage

  A collage that’s all about you and your friends – that’s got to look great on your wall, right? Or why don’t you make one in secret, as a surprise for someone? Of course, there are websites where you can create an online collage, but there’s nothing like getting a bunch of photos and images and snipping, sticking and gluing them together by hand!

  1. Decide on the theme.

  What do you and your friend(s) like to do together? Share a hobby? Watch movies? What makes you laugh, squeal, drool? Decide on your theme – and you’re ready for Step 2 …

  2. Grab some photos.

  The snaps you use should be of you as well as your friend(s), or group shots of you together. Choose a variety of sizes and shapes, as well as photos taken from different times of your life. (If you don’t want to use the ACTUAL photos, copy them on a printer and use the copies instead.)

  3. Flick through some mags or the internet.

  Browse through magazines or online to select headlines or images or even just fun words that represent the theme of your collage. Rip out the pages or print out your favourites to use. You could also look for a quote from a film or book that you both love, or maybe even a phrase you always say to each other.

  4. Get creative.

  For a cool collage, cut each photo into an interesting shape. If you have a photo of you and a friend, for instance, cut round your bodies and discard the background. Or maybe stick your heads on to a star made out of silver foil, or transplant yourselves on to a funny background, like a scene in Harry Potter!

  5. Add the words.

  The words and phrases you’ve picked from magazines or online should be a variety of sizes, shapes, fonts and colours.

  6. Get gluing!

  Stick the larger images on to a poster board (from art shops) or just some cardboard, and then paste other images around them. Try to cover every area of the backing board with either a photo or words. Remember: you can get clever with your background too – if you don’t want to have just one big rectangle, you could cut it into a circle, or even a chunky letter from the alphabet, like the first letter of you or your friend’s name.

  7. Final touches.

  Got any tickets from shows you’ve been to together? Even tickets from things like swimming or ice skating are nice last-minute additions. And scrabble around for some craft stuff to add sparkle, like bits of ribbon or sequins. Even buttons look cute!

  8. Tah-nah!

  Your collage is ready. Stick it up on your wall, or present it to your friend. And don’t forget – you can always update it by adding a new photo to it now and then.

  www.karenmccombie.com

  If you would like to...

  Turn the page for an extract from

  Angels in Training

  the next book in the Angels Next Door series

  by

  Karen McCombie

  Karen McCombie

  ANGELS IN TRAINING

  (ANGELS NEXT DOOR BOOK 2)

  Freaked out and starstruck

  I’m running, racing, breathless.

  Nearly there.

  Nearly at the very top of Folly Hill.

  Nearly at the statue.

  It’s as if she’s watching us coming.

  ‘Yay – I win!’ yells Pearl, slapping her hands on the marble plinth a split second before I do.

  ‘Well done,’ I pant, flopping my back against the ice-cold stone.

  I was hoping that running up here this chilly Sunday morning would shake the thought, the secret, out of my head, but it’s still there, rattling around.

  I see Sunshine applauding us both, as she and Kitt go to sit on the bench just a little below us.

  I glance away quickly, kicking at the frost-tinged grass with the toe of my ankle boot.

  The thing is, my best friends don’t know about my secret.

  It’s a secret that makes me feel guilty.

  And confused.

  Ungrateful too.

  After all, a few weeks ago I felt lonelier than a wisp of cloud in a clear blue sky – till they turned up in my life, moving in next door, the mismatching foster kids of Mr and Mrs Angelo.

  But I can’t help the way I feel.

  And I can’t tell them my secret, cos the secret is about them.

  It’s this – they freak me out.

  That’s it.

  My friends freak me out.

  Isn’t that tragic?

  I mean, look at them – Sunshine, all calm and willowy, her long, red-gold hair dancing in the buffeting November breeze.

  Kitt, so super-smart, even if the pair of tight, dark buns in her hair make her look a little like a cute, girl-version of Minnie Mouse.

  And dainty, giddy Pearl, with her white-blonde stubby plaits framing her perfect and perfectly pretty face.

  All three of them are great, and they make me feel great (when they’re not freaking me out). Actually, forget great, these three girls are awesome.

  Ask anyone at school – when they’re not busy gaping at them in wonder cos of their cute, kooky charm or their frighteningly casual cleverness in class.

  In fact, it blows my mind that Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl actually like me.

  Every now and then I have a moment: a moment, like I’m having now, when I can’t handle the fact that we’re friends at all.
/>   It’s just that I’m so ordinary, so un-special.

  As for my friends … well, this is what my secret’s all about. This is the reason these great, awesome, extra-special girls freak me out: my friends happen to be angels.

  Absolute angels.

  For real.

  ‘What?’ Pearl suddenly asks, beaming at me, her breathing completely back to normal while I’m still panting like an elderly Labrador.

  ‘Huh?’ I gasp, shrugging at her.

  ‘Is something wrong, Riley? You’ve got a sort of thinking face on.’

  Pearl tilts her head to one side, her eyes darting about, trying to read my human body language.

  Please don’t let her guess what’s rattling around in my head right now.

  ‘It’s nothing … nothing. Just tired myself out,’ I lie.

  Pearl’s pale grey eyes are a little unnerving. I wish I had my camera with me; it’s great to hide behind sometimes. But I left it in my bag on the bedroom floor – I was using it to take photos of the school ukulele band for the newsletter on Friday. So instead I glance away from Pearl and stare up at the white statue looming above us.

  Catching sight of the marble lady’s familiar face makes my thumping heart rate start to slow, maybe because ever since I was small I’ve loved her. As a little girl I’d gaze at her clasped hands, her skyward stare, her flowing robes and towering arches of wings – and sometimes pretend she was my mum. (Is that dumb? Or just sad? Or totally understandable for a kid who never had the chance to get to know her mum for real?)

  Whatever she was, the Angel was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen, and I’d curtsey to her, to this glorious figure that looks out over the valley, over the roads-and-streets tangle of our town.

  All these years, all of my life so far, she was what I thought an angel should look like.

  Not a twelve-year-old girl dressed in a cropped pink duffel, with long stripy socks and glittery baseball boots. Blowing bubblegum.

  Pop!

  ‘Sure that’s all?’ asks Pearl, cross-eyed and giggling as she picks a piece of the popped gum off her nose.

  Pearl’s new to bubblegum – Dot got her into it. My sort-of-stepsister has also introduced her to the delights of clapping games (once Pearl got over the worry that she was slapping and hurting Dot) and lemonade (the shock of all the fizzing made Pearl spit it out at the first bubbly sip).

  I guess cos Dot’s only five she doesn’t question why our exciting new neighbours can sometimes be a little hazy about stuff every kid should have seen/done/experienced in their childhood. She’s just way too excited at having a new playmate in Pearl in particular. Specially since I tend to spoil Dot’s fun and roll my eyes at her a lot.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s all,’ I say, smiling shyly at Pearl, as I absent-mindedly scratch my head.

  You know, being best friends with angels is like suddenly finding yourself hanging out with the most famous teen actor or singer on the planet, only it’s:

  a) a lot weirder, and

  b) something you can never talk to anyone about.

  Actually, there are plenty of things I can’t talk to the angels about.

  I mean, if three average girls had moved into my old friend Tia’s house, I could’ve asked, ‘Where did you live before?’ or, ‘What was your old school like?’

  If they were in a genuine foster family (instead of a magicked one), I could chat to them about their birth families, and what had happened to bring them to live with the human-but-oblivious Mr and Mrs Angelo.

  But normal and ordinary questions don’t cut it.

  Instead I have huge, deep, brain-swirling, mind-blowing questions that I’d love to know the answers to.

  Like, ‘What are you exactly?’

  Like, ‘Where have you come from?’

  Like, ‘Why did you choose to help me?’

  Over the last couple of weeks I have tried. But the three girls just laugh or look confused, as if I’m being silly or the questions don’t make any sense to them. And I guess I’m way too starstruck and in awe of them to keep asking. (For now.)

  Also, I think I’m maybe a teeny bit scared that their answers would completely freak me out …

  ‘Riley?’

  It’s Dot. She’s been hurrying after us, her skinny little legs struggling to keep up, her tied-back fair hair flipping and flopping exactly like a pony’s tail.

  She’s clutching Alastair’s lead in her hand.

  Next to her is Bee – Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl’s snow-white fluffball of a dog.

  Bee is helpfully holding Alastair in his jaws.

  (It’s lucky that Alastair is a chunk-of-driftwood-pretend-pet and not a real animal, or we’d be yelling ‘Drop it!’ very anxiously right about now.)

  ‘What’s up, Dot?’ I smile at her, glad she’s suddenly right here to distract me from my guilty, confusing and ungrateful thoughts.

  ‘Do you have nits?’

  ‘No, I do not have nits!’ I reply, taken aback.

  What’s she on about?

  Though I don’t know why I’m surprised. Dot is an expert at coming out with stuff that makes you want to curl up and die. If there was an exam in Embarrassing Your Big-Sort-of-Stepsister In Public, she’d pass it with an A***.

  ‘Why are you scratch-scratch-scratching, then?’ Dot asks.

  Suddenly, I’m aware that my fingers are burrowing in my muddy-puddle brown hair.

  You know, something is tickling me.

  But it can’t be nits (shudder). Cos the tickling feels … it feels like it’s inside my brain.

  ‘You look like Bee when you do that,’ giggles Pearl, watching me itch and scratch.

  ‘She does, doesn’t she?’ Dot agrees, joining in the joke at my expense.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what it is, but it’s not nits,’ I say, addressing myself to Dot.

  ‘Anyway, if I did have them, then you would too,’ I add. ‘It’d be your fault, cos you’re always coming home with letters from your primary school saying they’re going around.’

  That shuts Dot up.

  If there’s one thing she hates more than homework/being nagged to brush her teeth/the boy down the street who’s nicknamed her Spot, it’s getting her hair treated for nits.

  Whenever her mum, Hazel, brings out the dreaded, smelly hair treatment, Dot yells so much I worry that the neighbours will think she’s being fed to wolves or something.

  ‘Whee! Watch me!’ Dot suddenly calls out, switching off from the conversation she started. (What’s new?)

  So I watch as she gallops off and throws herself happily into a cartwheel. But I guess cartwheeling on the frost-tipped grass with Bee and Alastair is a lot more fun than teasing me and risking future Torture by Nitcomb.

  Argh, there’s the tickle again. Or maybe it’s more of a maddening prickle.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Am I going to have to go home and Google my symptoms? ‘Inner Head Prickles …’

  OK, now Sunshine and Kitt are looking my way. They can’t think I have nits too, can they? I don’t believe they even know what nits are.

  I mean, all three girls must’ve had lessons or read some kind of guidebook about what to expect when they showed up on Earth from wherever. (Yep, another question I haven’t had a proper answer to.) The thing is, they’re ace at all our school subjects, but there are still some pretty big holes in their day-to-day knowledge. Last week, when Dot was playing with her yo-yo, the sisters ended up staring at it for ages, mesmerized, as if they were watching someone scale the Shard without the aid of a safety rope.

  So, no, Sunshine and Kitt probably aren’t wondering whether or not I have nits. What’s making them stare, then? What are they thinking?

  Biting my lip, I give my head another scratch and return Kitt’s stare. She’s leaning on the back of the park bench, her chin in her hands, brilliant-blue eyes magnified by thick, black-rimmed glasses. (Will I ever get used to those intense Kitt glares?)

  And Sunshine – Sunshin
e is standing up and walking towards me, her long legs like licorice sticks in her black tights and undone ankle boots. (Will I ever stop worrying that she’ll trip over them one of these days?)

  As Sunshine gets closer, it’s the weirdest thing – the prickles and tickles inside my head get more and more maddeningly itchy.

  She comes to a standstill, eyes locked on mine, and smiles.

  ‘You’re stopping me,’ she says simply.

  I haven’t a clue what she means.

  ‘Is she?’ says Pearl excitedly, clapping her hands together. ‘Wow, can you do that now, Riley?’

  And then – blam – I get it.

  The brain prickles-and-tickles – it’s Sunshine.

  She’s trying to muscle her way into my mind.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ I burst out. ‘It’s as bad as reading someone’s diary!’

  I probably look pretty dumb, slapping my hands across my forehead, lamely trying to protect what’s inside.

  But I don’t care; I’m too busy being hurt.

  Hurt that Sunshine’s done the seeking on me, trying to tune into what I’m thinking.

  I mean, yes, she and her sisters came to my rescue when I was lost and lonely, which I’ll never forget. And I really don’t mind being a guinea pig for some of the skills they have to practise.

  But not this one. Not when I have feelings I don’t want on show.

  Trainee angels may be awesome, but an ordinary everyday girl needs a little bit of privacy now and again.

  ‘What’s a diary?’ I hear Pearl ask, but I’m still busy frowning at Sunshine and not about to answer her.

  ‘I was only trying to see how strong you’ve become, Riley.’ Sunshine smiles at me, her violet-blue eyes blinking, her cool fingers reaching up to touch my clasped hands.

  And with her touch comes the warmth.

  A sense of soothing hot water coursing over my hands, my face, my chest and back, as if I’m relaxing in a steamy shower instead of standing on a windswept hill.