No Angel

by Helen Keeble

  “Heya, all.” I grabbed at my bowl as Debbie slid her tray onto our increasingly crowded table. “Faith, can I sit here? I can’t find a free place.”

  “Something wrong with the one you came from?” Krystal said pointedly, jerking her thumb at Debbie’s recently vacated spot near Michaela’s table.

  “Yeah, the company,” Debbie said without a hint of shame. She put her elbow on the table, leaning over to smile at me in a way that made it clear she knew perfectly well that her pose gave me a great view straight down her shirt. “Hiiiiii, Raffi. I always thought you could do much better than that cow.”

  “Debbie,” Faith said, breaking off from her reminiscing long enough to give the newcomer a reproving glance. “It’s not nice to be mean about people behind their backs.”

  “Sorry, Faith. I’ll try to be a good girl,” Debbie said, still leering at me. “Even if I find it . . . very difficult.”

  I hoped Faith noticed how nobly I was ignoring Debbie’s assets. “It’s getting crowded in here,” I said to Faith. I could already see several other girls abandoning their places to make a beeline for our table. I lowered my voice, aware of all the curious ears surrounding us. “And I haven’t had a chance to tell you about last night yet.”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Faith murmured. “Right now, I need to catch up with my friends.” Her foot nudged mine under the table. “You know why.”

  Oh. Faith still thought she needed her stupid Peer Assessment votes, of course. I looked around to share an eye roll with Krystal and discovered that she was no longer sitting next to me. “Hey, where’d Krystal go?” With my angelic eyes, I caught sight of her slipping out the door. “Faith? I think she’s upset.”

  “I haven’t got time to worry about that now, Raffi,” Faith said, distracted. She turned back to her newfound best buddies. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  Leaving Faith to it, I wriggled my way through the converging crowds until I reached the exit. I caught up with Krystal slouching along the path outside the dining hall, kicking at stones. “Hey,” I said as I jogged up to her. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” Krystal muttered, hunching her shoulders. “Won’t you be missed at court?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Krystal shrugged. “You just crowned a new queen. And now everyone’s hurrying to suck up to her so they can get a shot at you.” She thrust her hands deeper in her coat pockets. “I thought you’d be in there lapping up the adulation.”

  My spluttered protest was cut short by a tap on my elbow. “Raffi?” said a hesitant voice. “You okay?”

  “Oh, hey, Lydie.” I nodded to the couple of girls with her, recognizing them as her roommates and fellow sandwich conspirators. “How’s it going?”

  “Same as always.” Lydie glanced around, then tugged me down closer to their level. “Did you really defeat Michaela?” The other girls huddled around us, gazing up at me in wide-eyed worship.

  Typical. The only girls I could inspire awestruck devotion in were prepubescent.

  “Yeah,” I said dispiritedly. Somehow my big moment of glory wasn’t turning out quite the way I’d imagined. I pulled my hat off to run my fingers through my sweaty hair, then remembered—too late—the reason why I was wearing it in the first place. None of the girls so much as batted an eyelid. I guessed my black halo had finally gone away, though I was stumped as to how I’d managed to sin in the past five minutes. “Something like that.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to fly back to heaven?” one of the girls asked, apparently in total seriousness.

  Krystal made a strangled noise that sounded a lot like a stifled guffaw. I shot her a dirty look. “I come from Milton Keynes,” I said. “Believe me, it’s not heaven.”

  “But are you going back there now that your task is done?” Lydie asked. She and all the other girls looked up at me with anxious faces, hanging on my next words.

  “My task isn’t done,” I said firmly. “I’m just . . . between jobs at the moment.”

  It was true. Faith still needed me. She just didn’t know it yet. It was obviously me who had to help her seal the Hellgate, not Billy-probably-got-hooks-for-hands-Bob. Why else would I turn into such an idiot around her? We were meant to be together.

  Now I had to think of some way to convince her of that fact.

  A mass sigh of relief broke my train of thought. I glanced around to find that all the girls were now eyeing me speculatively. “What?”

  “So, Raffi,” Lydie said slowly, “if you’re a guardian angel without anyone to guard at the moment . . . are you taking applications?”

  Chapter 22

  A week later, things were getting ridiculous.

  “Raf, this is getting ridiculous,” Krystal said, having tracked me down to my hiding place in an unused classroom. Scowling, she dropped a bundle of envelopes onto my desk. “Why are people shoving letters for you under my door? What do they think I am, your personal secretary?”

  “No.” I waved morosely at the notes already spread out in front of me. “They just can’t fit any more under my door.”

  “What are these?” Krystal peered over my shoulder with an expression of bemusement. “Love letters?”

  “Worse.” I slouched lower. “Prayers.”

  What started as a trickle had turned into a deluge. Every time I went back to my room, I had to fight to get the door open past the letters that had been jammed under it in my absence. They were always crumpled, soggy, and smeared from being clutched in nervous, sweaty palms. Some of them were practically illegible from tearstains. Some of them were barely a few words long. Some of them went on for pages, a pent-up torrent of words spilled onto the paper.

  . . . I should be grateful, at least I’m being left alone but it’s been a week since anyone spoke to me and I’m so lonely. . . .

  . . . I’m a fat, disgusting pig because I ate it even though I KNEW what she’d done to it, but she’d been stealing all my food for three days and I was just so hungry. . . .

  . . . Everyone thinks I’m so smart and that everything comes easy to me, but really I’m exhausted from getting up at 3 a.m. to study. . . .

  . . . If you’re really what they say you are, then please, please help me. . . .

  It was a relief to finally be able to show it to someone who was actually interested. Krystal’s expression slowly changed from grumpy to gob-smacked as I explained. “You’ve become guardian angel to the whole school?” she said incredulously.

  “Feels like it.” I raked both hands through my hair, staring glumly at the letters. “I started off just trying to help out Lydie and her friends, but somehow word got out. I had no idea there were this many unpopular girls here. Or that they had so many problems. What the hell am I supposed to do? Go around smiting the mean girls with my flaming sword?”

  “You’d make a lot of us very happy if you did,” Krystal said, reading over my shoulder. “But I take your point. I don’t think there’s much anyone can do about this stuff.”

  “Thanks. That actually makes me feel a little less like crap.” I rubbed at my eyes. I hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep recently. “I’ve been trying my best, but apart from using my angelsight to find stolen stuff, and occasionally freaking out bullies with unexpected eyes, I’ve made zero difference. Mostly the only thing I can do is listen. My suit is permanently damp from girls crying on it.”

  “So that’s why you haven’t been around.” Krystal was looking at me with a weird expression I couldn’t quite interpret. “I thought—never mind.”

  “Yeah, sorry I haven’t been able to hang out. Between this and all of Faith’s new friends hanging all over me, I’ve been completely swamped.” Something occurred to me. “Hey, where have you been? Why don’t you hang out with Faith anymore?”

  Krystal’s gaze slid away from mine. “Well, you know, Faith wants to regain her popularity. She doesn’t need someone like me dragging her down.” She shook her head. “What does she say about this?”

/>   I blew out my breath in irritation. “Faith says that the Hellgate can’t possibly be leaking anymore, now that the demon’s gone and Michaela’s stopped drawing pentagrams, so I should stop wasting my time worrying about the bullying and concentrate on more important things like who’s wearing what and where everyone’s sitting at dinner.” I sighed. “Is it normal to want to throttle your true love sometimes?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” Krystal said ruefully. “I want to throttle everyone most of the time.” She sighed herself. “So much for closing the Hellgate then.”

  “But we have to, Krystal. Look at all this.” I spread my hands to indicate the pathetic scraps of prayers. “It was never like this at any of my old schools. Okay, they were boys’ schools, but still. This can’t be normal. Not even for girls.”

  “For what it’s worth, I agree with you. Why do you think I believed Faith about the Hellgate in the first place?” She was quiet for a moment, flicking through papers. “But I don’t see what we can do. You can’t force yourself to be in love just because you think you should.”

  “But that’s the thing. I am still crazy about Faith. I mean, she drives me nuts, but whenever I’m actually with her, somehow none of that matters. But I can’t even tell her how I feel. Either she’s surrounded by other girls, or a teacher is dragging her away to do some chore. I can’t get a minute alone with her.” My shoulders slumped. “Not that it would do much good if I did. All she cares about is Billy-bastarding-Bob and his stupid text messages.”

  Krystal’s forehead furrowed in thought. “Maybe if I helped you write a poem or—” She broke off as I groaned and thumped my head on the desk. “Hey, it was only an idea.”

  “A good one, actually, and I’ll take you up on it later. But at the moment, angel duty calls.” I stood, jerking a thumb at the ceiling. “Someone’s crying in one of the bathrooms again.”

  Krystal’s eyebrows rose. “Raf, there’s always someone crying in the bathrooms.”

  “Well, there shouldn’t be. I’m gonna go check it out.” I was already gathering up my stuff. “Can you cover for me with Ms. Oleander if I don’t make it to Biology in time?”

  “Always asking for favors.” Despite her words, Krystal smiled. She gave me a clumsy, friendly shove. “I’ll think of an excuse. You go be a hero.”

  I took the stairs two at a time. Ms. Oleander, usually good-natured, had been getting a bit snappish with me recently, so I didn’t want to be too late to her class. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take long to console the sobbing girl. From my experience over the past week, I knew that mostly all the social outcasts wanted was to know that they weren’t alone.

  Then again, maybe this particular girl didn’t need me, because by the time I reached the second floor, another girl had already joined her in the bathroom. I hesitated, focusing my angelsight on them, trying to work out if I should just leave them to it . . . and realized exactly who it was crying her eyes out in there.

  Michaela.

  I hadn’t seen her at all lately, apart from in our shared classes. Even there she now sat alone at the back and kept her head down, never speaking to anyone. No one spoke to her either. The school rumor mill was still buzzing with stories of how Michaela had totally flipped and driven all her former friends away with unprovoked, vicious insults. I’d kept silent through all the speculation, hiding my smug grin.

  Yet here was Suzanne, rubbing her back and trying to calm her hiccuping sobs. Was Michaela’s defeated behavior just an act? Was she secretly rallying her forces? Keeping watch in all directions to make sure no teachers were approaching, I tiptoed to the bathroom door and put my ear against it.

  “—don’t care,” Suzanne was saying. “Put on a big, fake smile and beg that airhead Faith to let me join her Cult of Nice? As if. You’re worth ten of her.”

  Michaela pressed her palms against her eyes. “I told you, I can’t give you anything. Not anymore. Just go away and leave me alone.”

  “What, you think I only hung out with you for your money? Stupid cow. My mum could probably buy your family.” Suzanne mock-punched Michaela’s slumped shoulder. “I like you because you don’t give a shit about anyone. It’s not like you to be so soggy. So what if your boyfriend dumped you? He’s a moron.”

  Thanks, Suzanne.

  “He’s dangerous,” Michaela said in a low voice. “Stay away from him.”

  “Raffi?” Suzanne sounded bemused. She scrutinized Michaela in concern. “If he’s slapped you around, then I’ll beat him up myself. Anyway, you don’t need to worry about me panting after him like the rest of those idiots. He may be pretty, but I’m not going to suck up to that bimbo Faith just to get near him.” She handed Michaela a wad of tissues. “Now stop sniveling and put your game face on. You gonna let that idiot Faith swan around like she owns the place? You gonna let her win? Come on. You can still take her out. I know you can.”

  Michaela took a deep breath, straightening. She stared at her own reflection. Under her drying tears, her face had gone cold and hard. Her black eyes were as blank as a shark’s. “Yes,” she said. “I can.”

  Chapter 23

  Loosen up, Raffi.” Faith bounced on her toes, which—given that she was wearing a skintight cropped running vest and very, very brief shorts—was tremendously unhelpful in loosening any part of me. “Ms. Hellebore always keeps a close eye on the league games. It would be silly for Michaela to try anything this afternoon.”

  She had a point, but not even the watchful, looming presence of Ms. Hellebore could ease the knot of tension between my shoulder blades. “I still wish you’d let me hand those knives in to your mother yesterday. I’d feel a lot better with Michaela locked up and awaiting expulsion.”

  “I don’t want Michaela expelled. I want to redeem her. I’m sure once she’s recovered from the trauma of being possessed, she’ll let me become her friend—oh, look, there’s our team! Kate, Debbie, over here!”

  A small group of girls loped toward us, all wearing the same looks of eager anticipation as Faith herself. They did a bit of a double take when they saw me standing next to her. “Hi, Raffi,” Kate said, sounding uncertain. “Are you playing in the league this term, then?”

  “Yeah, last-minute decision.” Normally, there’d be no way I’d voluntarily give up my precious free time for some dumb sports league, but until I knew what Michaela was up to, I wasn’t leaving Faith unguarded for even a second. Still, at least this “voluntary extracurricular activity” was worth a lot of extra credits. The way my grades were going, I needed them. Apparently, so did a lot of other people, as practically the entire year group had gathered on the playing field. I scanned the crowd. “Hey, where’s Krystal?”

  “Krystal Moon?” said a girl I didn’t know, wrinkling her nose as if I’d asked for the location of the nearest sewer. “Who knows? Or cares?”

  “She never participates in the league,” Faith said to me. “It’s pretty impossible to compete without a solid team behind you.”

  “Ooh, that reminds me!” Debbie tore herself away from her rapt contemplation of my biceps to look eagerly around at everyone. “Guess who is competing alone this year?”

  “Michaela,” I said with utter certainty.

  Debbie looked a bit disappointed at such a flat reception to her juicy piece of gossip. “Oh. You heard?”

  “Lucky guess.” I caught Faith’s eye. “I told you it was a good idea for me to come and watch your back.”

  “Wait, you want to join our team?” Kate said. All the girls exchanged rather dubious glances.

  “Trust me, Raffi will be brilliant,” Faith said, with touching if totally misplaced confidence in my innate masculine prowess. “With him on our side, we’ll definitely win. Right, Raffi?”

  “Er,” I said. Every memory of being picked last for teams came flooding back. “I’ll—do my best.” It wouldn’t be so bad, I told myself. This was a girls’ school, after all. I probably had way more experience at team sports than any of them, no matter
that said experience mainly consisted of being ritually humiliated by other guys. “So, uh, what are we actually playing—”

  An earsplitting whistle cut me off. “Ladies and gentleman!” thundered the deep voice of Ms. Hellebore from the other end of the crowded field, making us all wince at the volume. Just as well she didn’t have a megaphone. “Attention, please! The first game is about to begin. Let us all take a moment to review the rules.” She lifted her hand above her head, one finger extended. “What is the first rule?”

  “NO RULES!” all the girls yelled back at her.

  I blinked.

  Ms. Hellebore unfolded another finger. “What is the second rule?”

  “NO MERCY!”

  I . . . was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

  “What is the third rule?”

  “NO PRISONERS!”

  Ms. Hellebore clapped her hands together like a crack of thunder. “The territory consists of the south side of the school grounds! The game lasts until sunset, and the last team standing takes all. Remember, there are no prizes for second place!” She waved at a stack of boxes behind her. “Come collect your starting equipment and then get your butts in gear! MOVE OUT!”

  Girls converged on Ms. Hellebore as if it was the opening day of Christmas sales. Faith too made a beeline for the teacher. Fighting my way through the maddened crowd, I caught up with her as she rummaged through a crate. “What sort of game is this?” I yelled into her ear.

  Faith turned, an utterly gleeful grin on her delicate face and a very large gun clutched in her hands. “The name of the game,” she said, handing me the weapon, “is War.”

  Scantily clad girls, mud, and me.

  Throwing paintball guns into the mix just made it even more of a fantasy scenario. I was certain that most guys would have chewed off their own right arm for the chance to be where I was. At the moment, I would gladly have traded my own right arm not to be where I was. If I still had a right arm. I wasn’t quite certain on that point.