Angel Creek

by Sally Rippin

  ‘Jelly?’ her dad whispered, as she reached the landing.

  Jelly froze. Did her dad know they were up to something? She turned around slowly.

  ‘I almost forgot. Stef called.’

  Jelly’s heart soared.

  ‘She wanted to wish you a happy Christmas. I said I’d get you to call back.’

  Jelly was torn. She desperately wanted to talk to her best friend. She had so much to tell her. And it felt like days since they’d spoken. But Pik and Gino were waiting downstairs and the angel was baking in the shed.

  ‘I’ll call her tonight.’

  ‘Really?’ her dad said. ‘You’re always complaining that you can’t get onto her.’

  ‘Gino and Pik are waiting for me. I have to go.’

  Jelly’s dad shrugged. ‘I’m glad you kids are getting along so well. I thought you’d gone off Gino a bit.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Jelly. ‘He’s okay.’ She scooted back downstairs.

  Gino had already brought Sophia’s pram around the back and Pik was almost wetting himself with excitement.

  ‘Shh, Pik, you’ll get us busted.’ Jelly tossed the sunhat into the pram. ‘We’ll have to go the long way round. There’s no way we’d get the pram over the back fence.’

  The old lady from across the road was sitting in the shade of her front porch as they passed. She was fanning herself with junk mail. ‘Buon Natale!’ she called out, waving so that the pale flesh underneath her fat arms jiggled.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ Jelly called back, without slowing down.

  ‘You taking your baby sister for a walk?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Good children.’

  Jelly giggled. Even Gino couldn’t hide a grin.

  At the hole in the fence, Jelly told Gino and Pik to wait with the pram while she fetched the angel.

  ‘Hurry,’ said Gino. ‘I don’t want those boys catching me here. Especially with a pram.’

  Inside the shed it smelled even worse than before. Jelly breathed through her mouth. The air was hot and dry. ‘Hey, little angel,’ she cooed, approaching slowly. It didn’t stir.

  Jelly had brought one of Sophia’s blankets with her. She tucked one side under the angel’s limp body and rolled it onto the blanket, folding in its good wing first. Gently she lifted the injured wing. It dangled loosely in her hand. The angel didn’t even flinch. Jelly leaned in close to its face, her heart beating fast. Then she heard them. Little raspy puffs like the swish of a skirt on dry grass. The angel was still breathing. She exhaled and picked it up carefully, holding it close to her chest. One of the angel’s eyelids floated open and its pale eye rolled back. It let out a tiny sigh.

  ‘I’m so sorry, little one,’ she said, tears pricking at her eyes. ‘We’re taking you to the creek to cool down.’

  Jelly carried the angel to the fence. Pik was squashing mulberries with his foot and Gino’s hands were slammed into his pockets, his shoulders stiff as he looked up and down the street. He lifted the fence and Jelly slid the bundle to them, then slipped through.

  Pik crouched by the motionless angel. ‘Is it dead?’ he asked in dismay.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Gino said, looking at Jelly for confirmation.

  ‘Yeah, it’s fine, Pik.’ But worry was flooding through her. Jelly folded the angel into the cramped space of the pram. She pulled the blanket up and placed the sunhat over its pale face. The angel didn’t make a sound.

  They pushed the pram along the street. Above them the sky was as white as bones. A tram clattered past but otherwise the street was empty. All the same, Jelly kept a lookout for Jack and Budgie and the other boy. She didn’t know what they’d do if they ran into them.

  Finally, they made it to the creek. The angel opened its eyes and lifted its head a little to sniff at the air.

  Gino pulled a rope from his pocket.

  ‘What’s that?’ Jelly asked.

  ‘You don’t want it to get away, do you?’ he mumbled, his cheeks flushing.

  Pik and Jelly watched, open-mouthed, as he tied the rope around the angel’s ankle.

  ‘Not too tight,’ Pik said softly. ‘You’ll hurt it.’

  Gino glared at him. When he was done, he looked at Jelly, challenging her to question him. Jelly turned away, pushing down her anger. It wasn’t worth the fight. She had got Gino to agree to bring the angel to the creek; that was all that mattered for now.

  Jelly slipped off her sneakers and lifted the angel out of the pram. Its body lay limp but a thin hand slid out from the folds of the blanket and grasped her wrist. She carried the angel to the water. Gino walked alongside her, the end of the rope in his hand.

  When Jelly reached the milky edge she knelt in the mud and gently rolled the angel into the creek, supporting it under its arms. At first the angel drifted to the bottom, its feet and the tip of its wing sinking into the mud. But then she felt a jolt through its body, and the hand around her wrist sprang open. A sound like the wheeze of an old accordion burst from its chest and the angel’s eyes floated shut.

  Jelly took one hand out from under its sharp shoulder blades and scooped water onto its hair. Gritty water ran into the hollows of the angel’s face. Its silver tongue darted out to catch a trickle rolling down its cheek. As she watched, the angel opened its eyes, bright now, and stared up into hers. Jelly thought she glimpsed a smile flickering across its face. She smiled back. The angel’s eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment.

  Jelly stayed still, listening to the creek: the insects buzzing, water rushing, willows whispering. The angel’s good wing slowly unfurled and floated to the surface. Even the broken wing seemed to uncrumple and the gummy bandage was washed clean. Gino squatted on one side of her, holding on tight to the rope, while Pik lay on her other side, looking up into the clouds and humming to himself.

  After a while Jelly felt Gino tugging at the rope. ‘We’d better head back.’

  ‘We haven’t been very long,’ Jelly said.

  ‘Sophia might need the pram.’

  Jelly frowned and stroked the feathers on the angel’s good wing. She felt her irritation towards Gino flare up. ‘We always need to get back for something. I wish we could stay longer for once. Stupid Sophia. I wish she wasn’t around.’

  ‘Don’t wish that!’

  ‘Why not?’ Jelly said. ‘She’s annoying. Don’t pretend you don’t think so, too.’

  ‘She’s my sister. Don’t say things like that!’

  Gino’s reaction surprised Jelly. Usually he was the first one to get stuck into his siblings. Why was he defending his sister now?

  ‘All right,’ she said, kicking a stone into the water. ‘We’ll take it back to that horrible hot old shed then.’

  Jelly leaned forward to hitch the angel up under its arms. That was when she noticed. A group of brown speckled ducks was swimming towards them from the tunnel, slowly at first, but then paddling faster and faster. The angel twitched. A low whine came from the back of its throat and its head jerked from side to side. As the ducks scrambled for the bank, the angel began to moan. Jelly looked down to see what was wrong. She looked back at the tunnel and that was when she saw it: a flash as bright as lightning. It came and went so quickly that at first Jelly thought it was sunlight glinting off the water. But then, spilling out from the tunnel, came the strangest thing she’d ever seen. A long flat wave was rolling towards them, gaining speed as it approached. And, as if this wasn’t strange enough, the wave was moving against the current. The creek was flowing away from them but the wave was coming towards them. As it got closer the angel howled and jerked against the rope.

  ‘Get it out!’ Gino yelled, holding on tight.

  Jelly grabbed the angel’s slippery arms and pulled it out of the water. Pik clambered to his feet and ducked behind a tree. The wave reared up as it passed them, frothing and milky brown, almost reaching out for them. Jelly scrambled up the bank, dragging the angel with her. It squealed loudly and arched its neck towards the water, arms flailing. Gino went to
help Jelly and they carried the squirming angel to the pram. It hissed and lashed out with its bony fingers, but they wrestled it into the pram and finally it lay still, only its eyes rolling about. Jelly wrapped it tightly in the blanket and Gino buckled it in.

  They looked back. The water was calm again.

  ‘What was that?’ Gino’s eyes were wild.

  ‘Looked like a tsunami,’ Jelly said, her heart in her mouth.

  ‘In a creek?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, man, that was weird.’

  They looked at the angel. It was curled up tight, but its eyes darted from side to side. As Jelly leaned in to pull the blanket up, the angel clutched her wrist with its scrawny hand.

  She jumped. ‘Oh, it scared me!’

  The angel’s lips opened and closed, but no sound came out.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Gino, look. I think it’s trying to talk.’ But when the angel saw Gino, it snapped its mouth shut and turned its head to the side.

  ‘I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘It was before.’

  They watched the angel for a while but it lay still.

  ‘Maybe I was wrong,’ Jelly said.

  They pushed the pram to the school, all of them lost in their separate thoughts. The angel didn’t stir.

  At the fence Gino and Pik left to take the pram back before anyone missed it and Jelly carried the angel to the shed. It was still hot inside but at least the angel felt cool. She laid it down on the old grey blanket and whispered in its ear. ‘What was that in the creek, little one? Was it coming for you?’

  But the angel rolled away from her and curled into a ball. Jelly stroked its hair and blew on the back of its neck. Soon its eyes drifted closed and its breathing slowed. She waited until she was sure it was asleep then tiptoed out of the shed. Already the sun had shifted lower in the sky. Even though the heat made her head pound, Jelly ran all the way home.

  11

  the storm

  That night the bad things started to happen.

  Jelly was nearly asleep when a storm rolled into the neighbourhood. Usually thunder didn’t scare her but this was so loud it shook their house like it was made of paper. Jelly lay awake and rigid in her bed. Gino and Pik were asleep on the floor.

  There was another mighty clap of thunder and at the same time a flash of lightning flooded the room. Normally, Jelly counted the seconds between the two to see how far away the storm was, but this time the sound and the light appeared at exactly the same moment. The closeness of the storm made her skin crawl.

  Jelly kicked off the sheet and stepped over Pik’s sleeping body to get to the window. She pulled back the blind. Another flash of lightning struck and it was as if the electricity shot right through her, entering through her eye sockets and exiting through her toes. She stumbled backwards, blinded, and fell over Pik onto her bed. When she opened her eyes her vision was gone and pain split through her head like an axe.

  ‘Mum!’ she screamed. ‘Dad! I can’t see!’

  By the time everyone in the house had been woken, Jelly’s vision had returned and she had an almighty headache.

  ‘Migraine,’ her parents concluded.

  ‘I had them as a teenager, too,’ her mum said, dampening Jelly’s forehead with a cool washcloth. ‘It’s hormonal, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But I’m only twelve!’

  ‘You’re half-Italian,’ Zia said, smiling. ‘Italian girls mature early. You’ll most likely get your women’s business soon. That’s exciting, isn’t it, love?’

  Gino made a face like he was dry-retching and Jelly squirmed.

  ‘Get Jel a glass of water, Gino,’ Mum sighed.

  ‘What business?’ said Pik, jumping up and down on her bed. ‘Will I have business, too?’

  And even though a herd of elephants were pounding through her head Jelly couldn’t help but laugh. ‘No, Pik,’ she said. ‘You can’t have everything.’

  Outside, thunder and lightning were still crashing around and a howling wind rattled the windows. Great silver ropes of rain lashed at the glass.

  ‘Well, it never rains but it pours,’ joked Jelly’s dad.

  ‘Everyone back to sleep now,’ her mum said. ‘Everything will be better tomorrow, I’m sure.’

  But she was wrong. Very wrong.

  12

  finders keepers

  That night Jelly’s dreams were filled with angels. She recognised the big one from her dream the night before. It was flashing in and out of the storm clouds as bright as lightning. Each time it swept over Jelly’s house its mouth opened wide and ground-shaking thunder rolled out. Jelly and the baby angel huddled in the little tin shed, sheltering from the storm. Rain pelted the tin roof and streams of water ran down the leaky walls. Jelly felt water begin to puddle at her feet. She looked up at the ceiling but couldn’t see where the rain was getting in. Then she turned. The baby angel was crouched silently beside her, mouth wide, rain pouring from its eyes in a river of tears.

  When Jelly woke, Gino and Pik were still asleep on her floor, but she could hear someone moving around downstairs. She lifted her head slowly from her pillow and was relieved to find that her headache had disappeared along with the storm. Remnants of her dream hung around her like cloud vapour. She thought of Nonna waking up all alone in the hospital and then of her angel in the little shed. She needed to find a way to check on it that morning. She was hoping it hadn’t been too frightened by the storm.

  She slipped on clean shorts and a T-shirt, stepped over Gino and Pik and crept out of the bedroom. On the landing, where a cool breeze drifted from the open back door, she realised how stuffy and hot her bedroom had become and how, after only two nights, it already smelled like boys.

  Jelly’s mum was dressed and drinking coffee at the kitchen table. She looked up from the newspaper as Jelly came down the stairs. ‘How are you feeling, love?’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She held out an arm and Jelly folded herself into her mother’s side. She didn’t bother reading the paper over her shoulder; there was never any good news. And even the comics weren’t funny. ‘I’m going to see Nonna.’ Her mum stroked Jelly’s cheek with the back of her hand. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

  Jelly couldn’t think of anything she’d like more than to see Nonna with her own eyes, to spend the morning with her mum. But she was worried about the angel. Should she stay or should she go?

  Part of her wanted to forget the angel was there, to pretend they had never found it; the responsibility had almost become more than she could bear. But she knew she couldn’t leave it alone in the shed, and she didn’t want Gino to look after it. She didn’t want to give him any more reason to think it was his. Her mind whirred.

  Perhaps they should take it back to the creek? Jelly didn’t know how long it would be before she could get Stef over to see it. And maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to show other people anyway? The longer they kept it the more chance that someone else would find it. Those Northbridge High boys. Or adults! Adults would take it away and want to do experiments on it or put it in a museum or something. She couldn’t let that happen.

  Zia’s voice at the top of the stairs startled her out of her thoughts. She was calling for Jelly’s mum in a low, urgent voice. Her mother shot up from the table and Jelly followed.

  ‘It’s Sophia,’ Zia said, pulling at her hands. ‘Come and see.’

  They crept into the study where Sophia was sleeping and peered into her cot. Sophia’s eyes were shut but her mouth was open and she was breathing quickly. Even in the half-light Jelly could see what Zia was worried about. Mum gasped. All over Sophia’s skin, an angry rash had broken out. In places, it had blistered, and in the folds it was red and raw. Her dark hair was matted against her temples and sweat dribbled into the creases of her neck.

  Jelly’s mum put a hand on Sophia’s forehead. ‘She’s burning up,’ she said, her voice straining to remain calm. ‘I think we should ta
ke her to the Children’s. Jel, you’ll have to stay here to help Dad with the boys.’

  ‘But,’ Jelly said, ‘what about Nonna?’

  Her mum frowned and Jelly flopped down onto the landing, filled with disappointment. She hadn’t expected the decision to be made for her this way.

  Within minutes they were gone. Jelly’s dad helped them to the car then clumped back up the stairs in his boxer shorts. He sighed and roughed up Jelly’s hair on the way back to bed. ‘Strange days,’ he said. ‘Strange days.’

  Gino appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. ‘Where did Mum go?’ he yawned.

  ‘Sophia’s sick,’ Jelly said. ‘They’ve taken her to hospital.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her? What happened?’ The words tumbled out barely in the right order.

  ‘How should I know?’ She marched downstairs. ‘I’m going to take the angel some food before the others get up. You can come or not.’

  ‘Wait.’ Gino ducked back into her room to get his shoes.

  ‘Don’t wake Pik,’ Jelly warned.

  The rain had turned the creek bank to mud and they skidded and slipped down to the bike path. The plastic bag Jelly had filled with grapes and apricots bumped against her thigh. The creek was high and the water roared furiously, dragging everything in its way. The family of ducks that lived near the tunnel were paddling hard not to be swept downstream, and the narrow beach where they had sat the day before had disappeared, swallowed by the storm.

  Before they turned down the side of the school, she checked for Jack or Budgie, but there was no one about. As they drew close to the shed, Jelly heard a soft banging and scraping against the tin wall. They paused and Gino looked at Jelly.

  ‘I think we should take it back to the creek,’ she said.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘It doesn’t belong to you, Gino.’