Angels Like Me

by Karen McCombie

  ‘Hurry, people!’ says Mr Hamdi, ushering us all inside the marquee. ‘The audience is ready and waiting! Are you OK to go first, Marnie?’

  Marnie nods and takes the flute Mr Hamdi’s been looking after for her. Hoisting up her beautiful but lethally long dress, she lets Woody help her up on to the stage.

  There are rumbles of oohs when the audience sees how authentically she’s dressed, and how totally elegant she looks too, with her black bob scraped back into a tight, low bun.

  As the haunting strains of ‘Greensleeves’ drift out, I move around, taking photos from different angles. In between shots, I glance at the crowd, seeing lots of friendly but unfamiliar faces, as well as students and a couple of teachers I recognize from school. Mr and Mrs Angelo are near the back, sipping what looks like mulled wine. No sign of Dad, Hazel, Dot and Coco, though.

  I hope they don’t miss the angels; they’re due to sing next.

  Then I spot a couple of people I’m really, really pleased to see. Marnie’s nan Etta, and her mum too. They don’t seem to be warring for once, which will make a nice change for Marnie.

  ‘We left some warmth hidden in their kitchen,’ Kitt whispers in quiet words, obviously spotting who I’m looking at. ‘Bee told us it will last a while. But we need to find a way to be closer to Etta, so we can work out how to help find her shine.’

  I want to ask how and where they hid the warmth, but my head is so full of strangeness that it’s the least of my worries.

  ‘Thank you very much, Marnie Reynolds! Fabulous!’ Mr Hamdi says into the microphone over the barrage of applause. ‘And next we have three girls with the most angelic voices. I give you Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl Angelo!’

  There’s a smattering of clapping, a roar from the back (their foster father, Frank Angelo, maybe?) and – very annoyingly – a snigger or two.

  I think the sniggering is because the angels haven’t dressed in costume. It wouldn’t occur to them to do that, I suppose. They see no problem in singing an ancient choral song wearing colourful winter duffel jackets and wellie boots.

  Or, of course, it could be the fact that the audience has seen a dog trotting on stage with them and making itself comfortable next to the monitors.

  But, as soon as they open their mouths, the perfect, pure notes of ‘Gaudete’ soar as high as the roof of the tent, and gasps of awe ripple all around me.

  For the few minutes the short piece lasts, it’s as if everyone is holding their breath at the beauty of it. When the song ends, the applause is as loud as a hundred balloons bursting.

  Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl glance at each other and exchange small, pleased smiles.

  Mr Hamdi walks forward to the microphone to thank them. But he’s stopped in his tracks. The girls have launched into another song. And the first four notes grab my attention straight away, the hairs on my arms instantly prickling and tickling.

  ‘Lavender’s blue …’ the girls sing.

  ‘… dilly, dilly,’ I join in softly, finally realizing what the tune is that I’ve been hearing snatches of all week.

  ‘Lavender’s green …’

  I hum along to the song, while people all around me hum and mutter too, wondering why the oddly cool girls on stage have chosen to sing such an old-fashioned nursery rhyme.

  It’s when they come to one line that I suddenly understand why.

  ‘If you love me, dilly dilly, I will love you …’

  Mum.

  It was the song she always sang to me as a baby. Holding me close, rocking me gently, words soft and warm around me, then a kiss – always a kiss – on my forehead when she came to that line.

  Mum.

  My New Year Wish was to feel closer to her, and everything that happened this week, everything I’ve discovered, has been incredible. But this moment, this memory that the angels have given me, is the best gift ever. With that song, it’s as if her arms are round me, holding me like she’ll never let me go …

  ‘Well! Fantastic choice, girls!’ Mr Hamdi says into the microphone. ‘I suppose that nowadays people might think of that as a simple nursery rhyme, but it is in fact a traditional folk song that dates back centuries.’

  There are some aahs around me as people make sense of the girls’ song choice.

  Oh, and one boo … followed by giggles.

  Along with everyone else, I scan the crowd to see who booed. What stupid, mean idiot would ruin the moment – my moment – like that?

  Then I spot her blonde hair, her sniggering friends. Of course, who else would it be?

  I feel a rage building inside me …

  ‘All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ says Mr Hamdi, holding a piece of paper up in front of him. ‘I’ve been told to let you know that the stocks are now open.’

  Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl are getting down from the stage just as two men dressed as jesters jump up beside Mr Hamdi. At the mention of the stocks, they stick their thumbs in the air.

  ‘So,’ Mr Hamdi continues, ‘if anyone fancies volunteering to get locked in the stocks and pelted with wet sponges, put your hand up now. Anyone up for it? Anyone? Ah, a student from my own school! Well done, Lauren!’

  Lauren Mayhew offered to go in the stocks? I watch in surprise as the two jesters jump off the stage and run over to her. Sure enough, Lauren’s arm is held high above her. In a matter of seconds she’s being cheerfully jostled out of the tent by the jesters, her arm still in the air but a look of panic on her face.

  ‘No! I don’t – I mean, I can’t –’

  A smile spreads across my face as I realize Lauren has no control of what her arm is doing. I’m seeing some errant magic going on, aren’t I?

  And whichever of my friends is responsible for it I’m going to have to thank them big time.

  I glance over to look for them now – but instantly I sense trouble.

  They’re marooned at the edge of the stage, the crowd too closely packed for them to get over to me easily. But it’s Kitt – with her talent for catching – that is alerting me to something. Even from here I can see how intensely dark her eyes are.

  ‘Dot!’ Kitt’s voice rings inside my head with a sense of urgency.

  It’s all I need. I spin round, frantically looking for signs of my little sort-of-stepsister. Instead I see Dad and Hazel at the entrance to the marquee quickly, desperately scanning the room.

  ‘Excuse me, s’cuse me,’ I mumble, squeezing myself through the crush to reach them.

  As I get close, I see real fear in Hazel’s eyes. And now Woody is by their side and Dad is telling him something.

  ‘What?’ I ask, finally forcing my way to them.

  ‘Dot and Coco are missing,’ says Hazel, ashen-faced and trembling.

  ‘We were chatting to one of my clients from the shop, and the girls were a bit bored,’ Dad explains at breakneck speed, ‘so I gave them money for the hook-a-duck stall … but when we went to it just a couple of minutes later there was no sign of them!’

  ‘Me and my friends can look for them too,’ I say, looking to Woody to help me. But he’s helping already, bless him.

  ‘Marnie, I’m over by the entrance,’ he’s saying into his mobile, while waving at the stage, where Marnie’s been chatting to Mr Hamdi. ‘Bit of an emergency – Riley’s kid sister and her friend are missing. Can you get on the mic and make an announcement?’

  Everything happens in a rushed, fuzzy blur. As Marnie’s voice booms out over the shuffling audience, the angels manage to join us and Dad suggests different areas for us all to check. We instantly fan out, and I’m running, running away from the fair towards the tangle of shrubs and the dog-walkers’ path.

  ‘Dot! Dot!’ I call out, my chest heaving. ‘Coco!’

  Something brushes past my legs. Something soft and warm.

  It’s Bee and, knowing what I know about him, I’m happy he’s with me.

  I’m especially happy to have him when I see the path split into two up ahead, and I follow Bee as he confidently bound
s down the right-hand fork.

  I hurtle after him, aware that the sounds of the fair behind me are muffled by the dense shrubs all around.

  ‘Dot! Coco!’ I call again, hoping I’ll be able to hear any response over the deafening thunder of my heart and the pounding of the pulse in my head.

  But Bee’s sudden barking is loud enough to grab my attention.

  ‘DOT!’ I yell louder, absolutely sure that the four-legged angel is leading me to her.

  ‘Riley!’ comes a thin, reedy voice that doesn’t belong to my sister.

  ‘Coco?’ I call back, just as I stumble into a clearing by the lake’s edge.

  Bee barks up at a gnarly, knotty old tree with branches arcing over the water.

  ‘Riley! We were climbing!’ Coco squeaks, clinging like a frightened bush baby to the twisted trunk of the tree. ‘We can’t get down. And Dot can’t hold on!’

  I glance further along the bent branches, and I suddenly spot Dot’s blue coat.

  ‘Dot – are you OK?’ I shout, taking a few steps to one side to try to see her better.

  She doesn’t reply, which worries me madly. Dot is never quiet.

  ‘HELP! Riley, I’m slipp–’

  With a scream and a splash, she’s disappearing below the surface, swallowed by the water.

  Instantly I throw down my mobile and my bag, kick off my boots and desperately wriggle my heavy jacket off.

  With nothing to weigh him down, Bee’s in the water before me. And as I follow, wading and sloshing into the freezing lake, I fight back the fear that I’m not going to make it, that I’m not a good enough swimmer, that I won’t have the strength to dive down and get her.

  Every muscle in my back already aches with the effort.

  ‘Please, please, please,’ I murmur desperately, thigh-deep in muddy water now.

  And then – just as I go to push off and swim – I catch sight of my reflection in the dark surface.

  In that split-second I see something so shocking it makes me gasp, as if all the air in my lungs has been violently sucked out.

  Because behind me, rising, are two wings.

  I can hear the crackle and the rustle of them as they quiver higher.

  I can feel the weight of them between my shoulder-blades.

  And in that same split-second I hear a voice.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Riley …’ Mum calls to me from the past.

  Strength floods through me like a white heat and I dive in, ready to rescue my sister …

  From Mum to me …

  It’s quite weird seeing a girl in medieval costume using a mobile phone.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Marnie is muttering impatiently, as she stands at the entrance to the first-aid tent.

  She’s trying to get through to Dad, to let him know Dot and Coco have been found.

  Woody’s run off to ask for another announcement to be made, and hopefully to run into Dad and Hazel too.

  I’m perched on a kind of camp bed, and have just told the female first-aider that I’m fine sitting and that I don’t want to lie down.

  ‘Fair enough. Well, here,’ she says, wrapping a crinkly silver blanket round me. ‘This’ll help warm you up.’

  With relief, I realize she put it round me without gasping, without screaming at the sight of my wings.

  Were they really ever there?

  Was it just something I imagined to give me the strength to save Dot?

  ‘Better?’ I hear Etta asking.

  She’s sitting on a nearby folding chair, with my little sister on her lap. The older lady gently tucks Dot’s own silver blanket more snuggly round her, while Coco, eyes wide, nibbles on a biscuit she’s been given by the male first-aider.

  Thank goodness for Etta.

  She heard Marnie’s first ‘lost’ alert, then spotted me and Bee run off.

  It was just as well she decided to follow us … Etta had the steadiness to talk Coco down from the tree, and the sense to pick up all of our belongings – including my bag with Mum’s set of skills in it, and Alastair, of course – as I carried Dot out of the water and to the safety of the first-aiders.

  ‘Mmm.’ Dot snuffles a reply to Etta’s question, knuckles white as she clings on to Alastair. Is she worried that she might fall again if she doesn’t hold on tight?

  ‘And what about you, Riley, dear?’ Etta asks, turning her attention to me. ‘How are you feeling? You were awfully brave.’

  As if he agrees, Bee licks my hand. Or maybe he’s letting me know that I didn’t imagine the wings …

  ‘I’m just glad everything’s OK,’ I reply with a little shrug.

  It’s almost funny, describing ‘everything’ as ‘OK’.

  I need grand, sweeping words like ‘staggering’, ‘overwhelming’ and ‘transforming’. But, if I come out with those right now, I worry the first-aiders might think I was delirious.

  ‘Oh, look, Riley – here come your lovely friends!’ Etta exclaims.

  If I had a tail like Bee, I’d be wagging it same as him right now.

  Although I’d like Dad and Hazel to be here with me, I need Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl even more, to help me make sense of my practically unrecognizable life.

  ‘Now, not too much chatting all at once, girls!’ says the male first-aider, spotting the girls heading over towards me. ‘Your friend here has had a bit of a shock and we need to keep her calm.’

  I certainly have had a shock, but not necessarily the one he is thinking of. And Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl are the perfect people to help calm me down.

  Sunshine and Kitt sit themselves on either side of me, and Pearl pulls up another folding chair.

  Placing her hand gently on my back, Sunshine simply says, ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have wings?’ I check with her, although she’s already answered my question.

  ‘You’re part angel because of your mother,’ Sunshine says gently, while knocking me sideways with this information.

  ‘You won’t have all the skills in their full strength,’ Kitt explains some more. ‘But they will work well enough for you to help others.’

  ‘Oh, and because you’re not a pure angel, Riley, you don’t actually have physical wings,’ Pearl adds apologetically. ‘But just sometimes, when you’re alone, you might see them in a reflection.’

  ‘I … I’ll have powers?’ I ask, still not taking it all in.

  ‘Riley, you already have them,’ says Sunshine.

  ‘I do? How?’

  Before anyone can reply, the male first-aider calls over to us. Oh no, in all the excitement, have we been talking way too loud? My heart lurches at the idea of our conversation being overheard.

  ‘Hey, I know I said not to chat too much, but you girls don’t have to be totally silent, you know!’ he teases.

  I stare stupidly at him, then feel a wave of relief … our conversation has been spoken entirely in quiet words, without me realizing. There’s a power, a skill I have, for a start.

  ‘You saw a purple haze in Marnie’s kitchen,’ Sunshine continues once the first-aider has turned his attention to someone who’s walked in with a nosebleed. ‘When her mother and grandmother were arguing, remember?’

  ‘Yes! But I thought it was just the lighting!’

  ‘And when we sang in class … when we opened up to the music, you held us tight, making sure we didn’t lose ourselves too much.’

  I rack my brain, trying to understand what Sunshine means, and then I get it; she’s talking about singing along to ‘Gaudete’ in the music lesson. I was so worried about a repeat of Pearl nearly unfurling that I’d concentrated hard, barely breathing. I’d willed the angels to be all right, and it had worked. That’s why Sunshine had whispered her thanks as we’d left the room.

  ‘Of course, you will need to stop doing the errant magic, Riley …’ Sunshine says now with a knowing smile playing at her lips.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, blushing and flustered at the idea of doing something wrong without knowing what it was.
>
  Pearl grins, Kitt snorts and even Sunshine giggles a little.

  ‘What?’ I demand.

  ‘The gum in Lauren’s hair on Tuesday? The fact that she ended up in the stocks today, because you forced her hand up?’ says Kitt.

  I slap my hands over my mouth to cover my surprise. Lauren’s the mean girl around here – I don’t want to be just as mean in return.

  ‘I’m sorry … I can’t believe I did that,’ I mumble red-faced. ‘It’s so bad! I promise I won’t do it again.’

  ‘Well, you probably will, but learning not to takes practice,’ Sunshine reassures me. ‘And these –’ Sunshine takes the blue silky bundle that Pearl’s holding out to her, the one she must’ve found in my bag just now – ‘these will let you know when you’re doing things right, and when you’re doing them wrong.’

  She places the bundle in my hand, but doesn’t pull the silvery thread.

  ‘There are too many people around to take them out,’ Kitt explains. ‘But you can feel them, can’t you?’

  I can!

  I can feel the movement of the tiny spheres, delicately bumping and juddering and spinning in my palm!

  ‘They were your mother’s, but Bee helped us reignite them,’ says Sunshine. ‘They’re yours now.’

  So these skills are passing from Mum to me.

  ‘Are you pleased, Riley?’ Pearl asks excitedly, and out loud.

  Pleased? It’s too small a word again. I need to think up far more grand ones like … like …

  ‘Riley!’ I suddenly hear Dad call out.

  ‘Dotty! Dotty, darling!’ Hazel practically cries with relief.

  ‘MUMMY!’ Dot yelps, finding her big voice again, I’m pleased to hear.

  I don’t know whether Marnie got through to Dad on my phone, or if Woody’s announcement alerted both of them to get here, but, whatever, I am very glad to see them.

  ‘Woody told us what happened,’ says Hazel, pausing beside me.

  Uh-oh. My stomach lurches – what’s she going to say? She hasn’t exactly been impressed with me lately.

  But, before I know what’s happening, Hazel’s scooping me up in a sudden hug.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, Riley, for being the best big sister Dot could ever have!’