Angels Like Me

by Karen McCombie

  Er … hold on. He thinks I look nervous cos I’m guilty of being mean to Dot and Coco?

  ‘But Hazel did say you lost your temper with the girls just now, Riley.’ Dad gives me a sorrowful smile, a meaningful stare and a pat on the hand.

  And those three things add up to me feeling a big wave of crossness again.

  I thought I could count on Dad to stick up for me. But instead he actually is here to give me a telling-off, even if he’s trying to sugar-coat it.

  ‘They were in my room, Dad! And Dot’s been stealing my stuff!’

  ‘Now, stealing is a harsh word, honey.’

  He pats my hand again and I’m about to argue back, when I see his face fall and feel his fingers move mine aside.

  ‘Oh …’ he says quietly, forgetting to give me a hard time all of a sudden. ‘So this is where you’re keeping her photos?’

  I move the other hand and let him see.

  ‘Yes, it’s the perfect size,’ I tell him, opening it up with slightly trembling fingers. ‘I’ve got all six of the photos you gave me in here.’

  I hardly breathe, bracing myself for Dad to stand up and leave the room. It’s happened before.

  ‘I remember … that was taken on Whitsea beach,’ Dad murmurs instead, as he stares at Mum’s carefree, happy face, tendrils of wavy hair flapping in the summer breeze.

  He turns the page.

  ‘And that one was when we cycled along the old rail track.’ Mum on a bike, in denim shorts and a loose white T-shirt.

  ‘And this one was the day she opened the shop.’ Mum in a flowery dress outside her new florist’s – Annie’s Posies – pails of flowers under each arm.

  ‘Lady Grace’s Lake, in the autumn.’ Mum wrapped up snuggly in a coat that’s as red as the berries in the tangle of bushes behind her.

  ‘That’s Annie with a chocolate cake she’d made for our anniversary,’ says Dad, flipping the page and gazing at the misshapen brown blob on a plate. ‘She always was a rotten cook!’

  Then he laughed.

  Dad laughed!

  And, apart from that small miracle, I just found out something I never knew about my mum. Being a rubbish cook isn’t the sort of detail that might seem remotely important to anyone else, but I love it – love it.

  ‘Ah! Well, this one speaks for itself, doesn’t it?’ With his index finger, Dad strokes the photo of Mum sitting up in bed holding a tiny something that Woody would probably describe as a potato, but of course it’s a newborn me.

  Out of the blue, Dad leans over and kisses me gently on the forehead.

  Wow.

  This might just be one of the most incredible moments of my life. Dad has never, EVER spoken this much about Mum before. Hey, maybe this is the start of something, with Dad opening up to me more. Maybe my New Year Wish will come true, without me having to ask the angels for help in finding out about Mu–

  ‘Hee, hee, hee!’

  The most incredible moment disappears, like the pop of a delicate floaty bubble.

  We’re being watched. There’s a face at the crack in the door, spying on us and sniggering.

  I love Dot, I really do, but I don’t need her interrupting us right now, not when –

  Hold it right there …

  ‘Dot!’ I bark, stomping towards the door. ‘That is NOT funny!’

  ‘Yes, it is! Hee, hee, hee!’ She giggles some more, then runs away before I can grab my Hello Kitty pants – which she’s wearing as a HAT.

  ‘Dad! See?’ I say, turning back to him.

  Great. Instead of sympathizing, Dad is grinning madly. ‘It is pretty funny, Riley, you have to admit!’

  ‘Actually, I don’t,’ I say sharply.

  There’re no random music notes noodling in my head any more, just a roaring red rage.

  I rush out of my room, down the stairs, past Alastair in his ‘dog’ basket and hurtle out of the front door.

  Only one thing will make me feel better right now, and that’s having an angel on my side …

  The question and the answer?

  The tickle starts at the back of my knee.

  I no sooner bend down to scratch it than it moves to the side of my neck.

  And – eek! – now it’s as if someone is tickling my waist!

  ‘Hee, hee!’

  More giggling, but this time the voice doesn’t belong to my sort-of-stepsister or her little friend Coco.

  For a start, it’s coming from a tree.

  I look up at the looming chestnut in Mr and Mrs Angelo’s garden next door and see a pair of white-blonde plaits dangling over the wooden rail of the treehouse.

  So the tickles were tingles of errant magic …

  ‘Coming up?’ asks Pearl.

  My hands are on the steps of the ladder before she’s finished asking.

  I need to blow off steam after the pants incident just now (and the way Dad and Hazel reacted); hanging out with the angels is exactly what I want to do.

  ‘Hey, nice!’ I say, as I come out on to the platform and see Pearl armed with a long, heavy piece of orange fabric and a staple gun.

  The angels’ dog, Bee, is curled up happily on something green and stripy. I’m always surprised when I see him up here. How a large fuzzy dog can clamber up and down the ladder so easily always amazes me. I must tickle his tummy one day and see if there are buttons or poppers there; maybe he’s actually a small person in a dog-suit. (Nothing would surprise me with the angels.)

  ‘Sarah gave us all these old curtains to make the place cosy now it’s winter,’ says Pearl, talking about her foster mum.

  Skinny, girlish Pearl delicately gathers the orange material into nicely shaped swathes, then thunks and clunks and staples them to the treehouse roof like a muscly builder.

  THUNK!

  ‘Where are the others?’ I ask her, settling myself down cross-legged on a pile of cushions to watch her at work.

  ‘Sunshine is with Sarah, at the supermarket –’

  THUNK!

  ‘– and Frank –’

  THUNK!

  ‘– asked Kitt to help him take some stuff to the recycling depot.’

  ‘Just as well, or you’d be in trouble for tickling me!’

  ‘Shh!’ says Pearl. She lifts a finger to her lips, then quickly lowers it when she realizes she’s using the hand that’s holding the staple gun. (Pearl still gets pretty muddled and kerfuffled over human habits and tics.)

  But why is she shushing me? The angels might have beyond amazing powers, but I don’t think Sunshine and Kitt will be able to hear me from the other side of town, will they?

  I’m about to carry on the conversation, to ask Pearl if she actually did have something to do with Lauren and the chewing gum in assembly this morning, when Pearl suddenly drops the staple gun to the floor with a clatter.

  ‘Ooh, you’re all purple again, Riley,’ she says, kneeling in front of me and laying her hands on the top of my head.

  I haven’t a chance to respond; the warmth starts straight away.

  It’s like the sensation of bathwater gently pouring over my head, my shoulders and down my back.

  It’s like being stroked by soft hands.

  Like being draped in silk.

  Like being dribbled in melted chocolate.

  OK, so it might be difficult to find the right words for this skill, but words don’t matter when you feel so good, when you feel all the crossness bottled up inside just burble and trickle away …

  ‘Better?’ asks Pearl, letting her hands rest back by her sides.

  ‘Better,’ I say, nodding.

  And, with my head clear of noisy, negative clutter, a shiny, clear thought pops right in there.

  It’s out of my mouth before I know it. ‘Can you help me find out more about my mum, like you and Sunshine and Kitt said you would?’

  Pearl sits back on her heels and tilts her head, silent for a few seconds. It reminds me of those pauses that happen with news reporters on TV, when they’re listening to the voice o
f the producer in their earpiece, advising them what to say next.

  Whatever’s going on, Bee takes it as a sign that it’s cuddle o’clock, and comes over to flop down beside Pearl.

  ‘There are things you’ll come to know,’ she says finally, as she begins to stroke Bee’s head. What Pearl’s just said came out serious and stilted – not much like giggly Pearl at all. It’s as if she’s reading something off a script, or as if someone really is whispering in her ear.

  ‘Are Sunshine or Kitt telling you this?’ I check with her.

  Pearl looks flustered. ‘Um, no! No, it’s not them! It’s –’

  Another pause.

  ‘It’s just me!’

  Now I’m flustered. Something is odd here – but then everything to do with the angels is odd.

  ‘OK. So what things will I come to know?’ I carry on, anxious for details. ‘And when will I know them?’

  Another pause.

  ‘Soon.’

  I wait for a moment or two, hoping Pearl will say more, but that’s all she seems able to tell me.

  Excitement and frustration tangle together in my tummy. I wonder if I should pester Pearl, beg her for answers, but I know deep down that it won’t get me anywhere. Angels – as I’ve come to realize – work in very, very mysterious ways.

  But, as we’re here, just the two of us, maybe there’s something else I can ask her about …

  On the day of Marnie’s party, Pearl was weak and worried, scared her skills were fading. Opening a silky blue square of material, she revealed nine stuttering, faltering, fading little globes the size of marbles.

  I haven’t seen them since. She’s not likely to talk about them or show them to me in front of her sisters, so now’s my chance to ask if they’re stronger and shining brighter.

  ‘Pearl,’ I begin. ‘How –’

  ‘They’re good, thanks,’ she says quickly.

  ‘Did you – did you just read my mind?’ I ask, freaked to know she can see in here. Pearl knows she’s not meant to peek unless she has my permission.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, biting her lip while agitatedly scratching and ruffling Bee’s ears. ‘Didn’t mean to see that. Or that.’

  That what?! What else has she spotted?

  Aargh! I bet I know. It’s the question I’ve always wanted to ask the girls: what exactly are they?

  I’ve seen their real being, of course. I have a photo of the angels on my pinboard, though no one knows it’s them. To Dad, Hazel and Dot it’s just a snap of the stone Angel statue with three spangling spots of light floating in front of it, specks of sun reflected on my camera lens …

  So maybe my question is more about the angels’ past. What were they, and where were they? Before they turned up as the foster daughters of Mr and Mrs Angelo, I mean.

  My mind is chattering, and Pearl is blinking, listening.

  ‘Do you understand?’ I say out loud.

  ‘Um, no,’ she admits, ruffling Bee’s ears all the more madly.

  Uh-oh. It’s as if I’d just asked Pearl something that’s impossible to answer, like, What does yellow taste like? Or: How many sixes are there in a carrot?

  I try again.

  ‘Before you were here, before you were a trainee angel, you must have been something else, somewhere else?’

  Then I see her lips moving, but no sound is coming out. It’s the quiet words: the way the girls communicate with each other, without being heard.

  I might not be an angel – I might not have their skills – but I’m getting good at lip-reading.

  ‘Someone could be listening,’ Pearl says in silence.

  I play her game and don’t answer aloud. Has Pearl heard or sensed someone coming? I lift a flap of fabric and peek down below.

  There’s no one. Not a soul in the garden of number thirty-three, no one in my garden next door, nobody walking by on Chestnut Crescent.

  I turn back to Pearl, but our cosy curtained cave is different. Very different.

  I’m in a cocoon of glowing brightness, a glow like a silver sun shimmering around me.

  Pearl sits still as the statue of Folly Hill, with her eyes transformed into two pools of pure light.

  ‘Tell me, Pearl!’ I urge her.

  ‘I liked the breeze …’ she murmurs, smiling at some vision only she can sense. ‘I twirled and I twirled and I twirled!’

  I hold my breath, waiting for the astounding, brain-exploding description that comes next.

  I hold it for quite a long time, and then some more.

  I hold it till I realize that’s all the explanation Pearl has for me.

  I also realize that she’s so lost in this moment of random memory that she’s been clutching poor Bee too tightly. It might have started out as a nice ear scratch, but now he’s whimpering, his front paw flailing, trying to release the grip she has on either side of his poor head.

  ‘Pearl! PEARL!’ I say with urgency, giving her shoulders a shake.

  The light pours away, her hands loosen and Pearl gives a shy girlish giggle.

  Just in time – I can hear the crunch of gravel as one or other of her foster parents and sisters arrives back.

  ‘Did that help?’ her lips move and ask me.

  ‘Sort of,’ I lie, as discombobulated as Bee, who’s now frantically scratching a freed fluffy white ear with his back leg.

  So Pearl’s explanation made as much sense as how many sixes are in a carrot, but finally asking the question has made me feel braver.

  Watch out, Kitt – I’m going to ask you next …

  Spot the catch

  ‘Whoop! Whoop! Go, Marnie! Go, Marnie!’

  Woody stands up and punches the air.

  You’d think it was a sunny weekend afternoon and he was at some crowded stadium in America watching a baseball game.

  Me, Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl sit still.

  We know it’s a rainy Wednesday lunchtime in the UK, and we’re in the mostly empty school hall waiting for not many people to audition for the Frost Fair event.

  Marnie is first up. (The other five or six students here look knuckle-white with nerves, and they were happy for her to go ahead of them.)

  As she walks up the stairs to the stage, Marnie gives Woody a long, cool look, which is hard to read. Does she find his whooping funny, encouraging or annoying? I wonder.

  ‘Thank you for your enthusiasm, Woody!’ Mr Hamdi, the head of music, booms through the microphone. ‘Though I’m not sure “Whoop, whoop” is entirely appropriate given the type of music we’re going for.’

  Woody grins up at Mr Hamdi and, with a shrug, sits down next to me.

  ‘The music’s all got to be dead old-fashioned sounding cos of when the Frost Fairs took place,’ Woody tells me, like I haven’t figured that out already. We’ve both been doing plenty of research for our newsletter feature.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t think they were so keen on pop and rap hundreds of years ago,’ I joke with him. (Like I say, Woody’s a dork, but kind of fun to dork around with.)

  ‘Check THIS out,’ Woody says, shaking his laptop out of the bag at his feet. He flips the lid and a website pops up. ‘The first Frost Fair was held on the River Thames when it froze over in 1608, and the last one in London was held in 1814 – when an elephant was paraded up and down on the frozen river! How amazing is that?’

  ‘Hope you’re not expecting any elephants on Saturday,’ I reply, holding my camera up ready. I’ve spotted that Marnie has taken her flute out of its case and is about to begin.

  ‘So, Marnie, what piece are you going to be playing for us to–’

  Mr Hamdi’s words are drowned out in a sudden slip-slapping stampette of black ballet-pumped feet.

  ‘Hello! Hi! Sorry we’re late!’ says Lauren, leading the way through the swinging hall doors with Joelle and Nancy following her like schoolgirl security guards. ‘Mr Hamdi, could I ask a favour, please? Could me and my friends audition first?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Mr Hamdi tells them, a little taken aback. �
�Marnie’s about to start and there are more people before you. You girls will just have to wait your tur–’

  ‘But, Mr Hamdi, Joelle’s got to leave really soon for a dentist appointment …’

  Lauren sounds super-convincing – Joelle doesn’t.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got this … uh … tooth thing.’

  I bet it’s not true; I bet Lauren’s made it up on the spot. She just doesn’t want to bother hanging around with the rest of us.

  ‘Well, I –’

  ‘Oh, please, Mr Hamdi!’ Lauren simpers, in the voice she always uses to get round teachers. ‘And Marnie doesn’t mind. Do you, Marnie?’

  Marnie raises her hands in a wordless ‘whatever’ and steps back from the mic.

  ‘Right, I suppose maybe …’

  Mr Hamdi doesn’t get to finish what he’s saying because Lauren’s already slip-slapping up the stairs to the stage, her sidekicks in tow.

  Wow, Lauren’s attitude sucks. She honestly makes my blood boil and my teeth grind.

  And I’m guessing it’s also made the haze of purple appear around my head, cos Kitt is giving me one of her hard stares – which is kind of freaky, even if she is my friend.

  Whenever Pearl gazes at me, it’s with eyes that are full of curiosity. Sunshine’s eyes brim over with smiles and kindness. Kitt just stares, as if her eyes are scanning you inside and out, like a girl-shaped X-ray machine.

  ‘Don’t worry, Riley,’ I read her lips saying. ‘Very soon, you’ll feel happy again.’

  What does she mean? Is this a catch? It’s Kitt’s best skill: seeing just round the corner into the future, a glimpse of what might happen in the next few minutes.

  Or is Kitt about to do some errant magic, same as she did on the school trip? Hey, maybe it was her yesterday, when Lauren ended up in her gum-and-hair tangle? Maybe Kitt is getting better at hiding her guilt when she’s used her powers the wrong way …

  ‘One, two, three!’ Lauren counts in professionally, taking the mic out of its stand.

  Joelle and Nancy are positioned either side of her, heads down. They’ve all kicked off their pumps, I notice.

  Why?!

  ‘All the single ladies!’ Lauren suddenly calls out.

  At that first line of Beyoncé’s hit song, the three girls break into a dance routine that they’ve obviously practised a LOT in each other’s bedrooms, while Lauren sings the tune.