by Chris Ryan
Ben’s brain was reeling with all these instructions, but this one pulled him up short. Fires? he thought. What are the teens around here like?
At the hotel he was briskly hustled up the steps and into the air-conditioned reception. Finally he was left in his room with instructions to unpack and wait for a call.
The room looked out over pale beaches and the sparkling blue marina. The sands were empty; no sunbathers, but it was ten on a Monday morning, so most people would be at work. There were lifeguards out in the bay and people working on the boats in the marina. During an English summer, people working outdoors in the sunshine wore as little as possible, but here they wore long sleeves, long trousers and hats with wide brims. Cars went by in the street below. More than half of them had soft tops or sun roofs, but they were all closed. So were the windows.
People here didn’t welcome the sun. They hid from it.
This was South Australia. Not far away was the infamous hole in the ozone layer. In this part of the world, the sun wasn’t a benevolent relief from the cold; it was a cosmic blowtorch.
Ben’s mother would have scolded him for forgetting that. Anyone who took the environment for granted, or didn’t seem to be taking enough care of it, felt the rough edge of her tongue. Dr Bel Kelland didn’t balk at haranguing popes and presidents, and the way she spoke to world leaders on television gave the impression she thought of them as spoiled children with too many toys. Bel was a woman on a mission, all right. She wanted to make her mark on the world. Although, more accurately, you might say she wanted to stop other people making their mark on it. Sometimes Ben was proud of her, but just as often the things she did embarrassed him.
Ben’s father, Russell Tracey, wasn’t like Bel at all. He was brilliant but shy, happy with his quiet, uneventful life in a small town in Cheshire. Russell and Bel were both scientists, but in every other way they were poles apart, as opposite as the climates of England and Australia in February.
Ben looked at his watch. Bel was supposed to meet him at the hotel room after he’d unpacked. She was late.
He read the leaflet he’d been given. It was a list of the venomous spiders and caterpillars and how to recognize them:
The redback will pretend to be dead rather than bite you, but the funnelweb, which is the size of your palm, will kill you within an hour. The funnelweb will grip its victim and bite several times …
Despite the constant warnings about sunstroke and dangerous wildlife, Ben was anxious to get out and see the sights. He hadn’t spent twenty hours on a plane just to be stuck in a refrigerated hotel room behind tinted glass windows. He was tired but there was no way he could go to sleep when there was so much out there to explore. He started to pace around the room impatiently, wondering how long it would be before he got a message from Bel.
At the same time, Kelly Kurtis was also wondering where her parent had got to.
She was walking up the stairs in the Adelaide conference centre, looking for her father and attracting rather a lot of attention. All the people around her were dressed smartly, and wore name tags. Kelly, on the other hand, was wearing an orange baseball cap and pale blue flying overalls, the legs rolled up to her knees like long shorts and the top half unzipped with the arms tied around her waist and a thin vest visible. Her bare arms were slathered in sun-tan oil, which gave off a scent of coconut. Around her neck she had a gold and black scarf. The conference delegates were looking at her as though wondering which planet she’d blown in from – or if she was there to cause trouble.
She pitied them, having to spend all day cooped up in a gloomy conference centre. It was such a lovely day to go flying.
Following the smell of coffee, she took the stairs to the first floor. A cafeteria area with tables and chairs overlooked the main entrance hall below. Then she spotted her dad, sitting at a table at the far end. He was bent over some papers, talking to a woman in a pale-green, slightly crumpled safari suit. A specialist in weather science with the US army, he was wearing dress uniform, charcoal-blue with gold buttons, and a shirt and tie. His dark hair was cut brutally short, military style. Kelly made her way over to them.
Major Brad Kurtis looked up, surprised to see his daughter. ‘Kelly! What are you doing here?’
‘Hi, Dad. Did you take the keys to the Jeep this morning?’
The major patted his breast pockets absentmindedly. The left one made a jangling noise. ‘Oh yes.’ He fished the keys out and handed them over. ‘Sorry.’
Kelly took the keys, but now something else had caught her attention. There was something familiar about the woman sitting next to her father, her delicate fingers counting through a stack of papers like the legs of a spider. She was very petite, with straight red hair and an angular chin.
The woman looked up at that moment. Her eyes were icy blue. They registered that Kelly was staring. Kelly gave a slightly uncertain smile. Small though she was, there was something a bit fierce about the woman.
The major snapped his fingers. ‘Where are my manners?’ He turned to the woman. ‘Bel, this is my daughter Kelly. Kelly, this is Bel. Bel Kelland.’
The red-haired woman put out her hand and shook Kelly’s. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ She had an English accent. That and the name – printed in full on the badge she was wearing – suddenly made a connection in Kelly’s brain.
BEL KELLAND, FRAGILE PLANET. Kelly suddenly knew where she had seen her before.
‘Dr Bel Kelland? You presented the Discovery Channel programme on the flooding of London.’ Kelly slipped the Jeep keys into the button-down pocket on her leg, pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘I really enjoyed that programme; it was powerful stuff. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
Bel smiled. ‘Glad you appreciated it. I was just in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place at the right time, depending on how you look at it.’
Kelly folded her arms in front of her on the table and leaned forward. ‘I had some friends who were in New Orleans when it flooded. Can you get Discovery to do a programme about that? I think you’d be great at it.’
‘They’ve already made one,’ said Bel, ‘but they got an American environmentalist to front it. Which is a pity, as there were loads of things I wanted to say about the federal government’s criminal culpability.’ She shrugged. ‘Still, I’m always available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals.’
Kelly was baffled for a moment. Was that last remark a joke? She didn’t always get the English sense of humour. She laughed uneasily.
The major changed the subject. ‘Kelly’s travelling before she goes to Stanford in the fall to study law. She got her pilot’s licence last year.’
Bel’s face became animated. ‘Flying?! I got my licence years ago. I love it. I just don’t get enough time to do it now.’
Kelly was delighted to find she had something in common with Bel. ‘You should come up with me,’ she said. ‘Dad’s hired a microlight while I’m here, and it’s got dual controls. Give me a call and I’ll take you for a spin.’
‘That’s very kind of you. I would really, really love to.’ Bel spread her hand out over the papers on the table. ‘But I’m snowed under here: they want me to chair all the debates and I’ve got to do a live TV broadcast in a few minutes. My son arrived from England this morning and I don’t know how I’m ever going to find time to see him.’
The fierce and feisty Dr Kelland had a son. Kelly had a vision of Bel’s delicate features translated into young male form. She imagined a willowy English poet with intense blue eyes, passionate beliefs and a clever, slightly baffling sense of humour. Fresh off the plane and needing a companion. It sounded very appealing.
‘I’ll take him up in the microlight,’ she offered.
Bel was taken aback. ‘Would you?’
‘Yeah,’ said Kelly. ‘He can have a go at the controls. I’ve taken friends up with me loads of times and let them have a go once we’re in the air. No problem.’
‘That’s really kind of you, Kelly. Tha
nk you very much. He’d love it.’
‘Is he in TV too?’ asked Kelly.
‘Oh no,’ said Bel, ‘he’s a bit young for that. He’s still at school.’
‘In school?’ said Kelly. ‘Where? Oxford?’
‘Not university,’ said Bel. ‘What you call high school.’
The penny dropped. Kelly now remembered that in England, school meant something different from what it meant in the States.
The major started laughing. ‘How old did you say he was, Bel? Fourteen?’ They had obviously swapped stories about their children before Kelly arrived.
Bel shook her head. ‘Thirteen.’
Kelly felt like a cruel joke had been played on her. ‘Thirteen?’ she repeated. Her mind’s eye wiped out the mental image of a lean young man and replaced it with a tousle-haired freckly swot in an ill-fitting blazer.
‘I’m sure he’d love to go up with you, Kels,’ said the major. ‘You’ve got the microlight for a month. A couple of days won’t hurt.’
Kelly tried to hide the disgust on her face. Taking a thirteen-year-old flying was babysitting. But she couldn’t complain too much as her dad was paying for it – and now she’d already made the offer. ‘All right,’ she said.
Bel’s phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have to take this … Dr Kelland here … OK, see you downstairs in five minutes.’ She closed the phone and slipped it into her breast pocket. ‘The ABC Television crew have arrived. I must go.’ She got to her feet and gathered up her papers. ‘Kelly, it’s lovely to meet you, and thanks for agreeing to take Ben up. He’ll really enjoy it. He’s just like me; he should pick it up with no problem.’ She shook Kelly briskly by the hand again. ‘He’s very grown up.’ She made to move away from the table.
‘Where will I find him?’ asked Kelly.
‘Oh yes,’ said Bel absent-mindedly. ‘He’s at the East Beach Hotel. Just ask for him at reception. His name’s Ben Tracey.’ She thought for a moment, then added: ‘He was in London with me when it flooded. He had a hell of an adventure. You can ask him all about it. I’ve got to dash now. Brad, I’ll see you at the first debate.’
Major Kurtis raised a hand to wave her goodbye.
Kelly watched Bel make her way through the crowd towards the stairs. She couldn’t imagine what she’d talk to a thirteen-year-old about, even if he had been in a disaster zone. Whichever way she looked at it, she’d been conned into babysitting. But at least the woman had had the decency to look faintly embarrassed about it.
She went back to their hotel, collected the Jeep, and in ten minutes was marching into the foyer of Ben’s hotel on the waterfront.
There was a tall guy standing at the reception desk with his back to her. ‘I’m waiting for Dr Bel Kelland,’ he said to the receptionist. ‘Has she left a message?’ He had a cool English accent.
Kelly went and stood next to him. ‘Do you know Dr Kelland? Because I’ve got to babysit her kid.’
The guy turned round slowly and looked at her. ‘Babysit?’ he repeated.
Kelly suddenly realized he was a lot younger than she’d thought. She wished the ground would open up and swallow her. ‘Are you Ben?’
Ben’s blue eyes narrowed. ‘Yes. Who on earth are you?’
Chapter Three
The stage of the conference centre had been set up with two big red chairs. It was the Jonny Cale interview slot and the chairs were his trademark. Each morning he picked somebody who was in the news and interviewed them.
Bel hadn’t seen Jonny Cale’s work before, but one look at the set-up told her his style might not be indepth journalism. She sat in the chair, a microphone clipped to her green lapel, and waited for the first question.
Jonny watched the director count down, then turned to the camera and went into his introduction. ‘I saw an interesting bit of graffiti on my way in today. I was in the dunny, and I’ll spare you any more details, but next to the toilet roll someone had written “Weather forecasts, please take one”. Dr Bel Kelland, you’re here in town with a bunch of weather experts. Just last week we had a mini-tornado that took the roof off a building at the airport and grounded planes for four hours. And yet the forecast had been for fine weather all day. Shouldn’t you all pack up and go home?’
Inwardly Bel cringed. Cale wasn’t a proper news presenter; he was more like a vaudeville comedian. She didn’t have time to swap banter with him – she needed to make some serious points. But if she handled it wrongly she’d just look prim and humourless. The director pointed to her. Time to reply.
‘Jonny, I’d stick to the day job if I were you,’ she said, her tone deliberately light. ‘If you try to make it as a stand-up comic you’re going to starve. But I agree with your underlying point. Weather forecasting is a joke at the moment. I could add many more examples – the ferry to Tasmania that sank in storms last month, the hailstorm in the middle of the Melbourne Carnival. All on days that were supposed to be fine. Weather forecasting is going wrong, and we need to ask why.’
Jonny replied, ‘Why do we need weather forecasters at all?’
‘For just the reasons you gave. Airlines need to know if their routes are going to be safe. So do shipping companies. Farmers and wine makers need to protect their crops.’
Jonny decided the discussion was getting too serious. He changed the subject. ‘What about global warming? I always think it must be good news for somebody. People who make air conditioning?’ He glanced at the camera and gave it a wink.
Bel cringed again. Jonny was obviously imagining the viewers at home chuckling appreciatively. She answered crisply, ‘It will probably be very good news for people who build nuclear fallout shelters. When the weather goes loco, there’s nowhere to hide. This planet was having tsunamis, hurricanes and ice ages long before mankind even rubbed two sticks together. But now we’re taking this temperamental system and we’re warming it up – and fast. Don’t you think we should be more careful?’
Jonny moved on to another subject swiftly. ‘So what is this I hear about weird US weather experiments?’
‘What US experiments?’ said Bel.
‘As I was coming in this morning, I saw a lot of people with placards outside. They gave me this.’ He got a crumpled sheet of paper out of his pocket and passed it to Bel. ‘It says “Stop US experiments, come to the debate at 2 p.m. today”. I ask again, what US experiments?’
Bel smoothed out the sheet of paper and glanced at it. It was a flyer from an environmental group called Oz Protectors, which she had never heard of. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. She looked at Jonny and smiled sweetly. ‘But really, Jonny, I’m surprised. Someone gave you a piece of paper and they didn’t want your autograph?’
The Oz Protectors – a group of five young people – were having a busy morning. They were putting leaflets through the doors of all the houses they could in Adelaide to encourage people to come to the public debate at the conference centre. Two members were in the town centre, handing out leaflets to passers-by. The other three – Timi, his girlfriend Amy, and her brother Joseph – were driving around the suburbs.
They’d started with the big, grand houses near the botanical gardens. As the three campaigners walked up long drives past sweeping lawns, they had met people leaving for work or collecting their mail. Some of them even chatted before taking a leaflet. Further away from the botanical gardens, the houses became smaller and more closely packed. The residents here were less friendly, but perhaps that was because Timi, Amy and Joseph were starting to look a bit frazzled in the heat. They had already been trudging up and down roads for two hours and Timi’s battered red Golf didn’t have air conditioning. Their yellow campaign T-shirts, which had started the morning crisp and fresh from the printers, were stained with sweat and smudged with red dust. Amy’s long blonde dreadlock braids were curling up in the heat.
But still there was more to do. Timi parked his car in yet another street. Amy handed him a bottle of water and he drank a few mouthfuls before passing it to Joseph in th
e back seat and getting out of the car. The others joined him at the back door and loaded up their canvas satchels with leaflets before settting off again.
The houses here, built in the 1960s, were small and close together. They showed neglect: a lot of the white paintwork was peeling; the tiny front gardens were overgrown.
Timi stepped over an upturned rubbish bin to put a leaflet through a front door. The curtains in the window were closed, but as he lifted the flap of the letter box, a fat woman in a faded floral dress pulled the curtain aside and looked at him suspiciously.
As Timi stepped over the bin again, his phone rang. He didn’t take it out, but peered into his trouser pocket to look at the screen. It showed that he’d received a text with a picture attachment. He’d get it out later to read; there was something about the area that made him uneasy about showing an expensive new phone.
Amy ran over to him from the other side of the road, her dreadlocks bouncing. She looked excited.
‘Wez just texted me. He managed to give one of our flyers to Jonny Cale just before he went on air!’
Timi’s handsome Korean features wrinkled in disgust. ‘I don’t see what he’s getting so excited about – Jonny Cale’s an idiot.’
‘Oi, you!’
They turned round to see Joseph hurdling a small white gate. He’d dropped his bag and was running in the direction of their car, shouting. Before he could reach it, the engine coughed into life and the car door slammed.
Timi and Amy gave chase but they were too slow. They stared in disbelief as the red hatchback roared off down the road and screeched round a corner, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.
