I quickly shove my homework notepad under my pillow and do a thinking face for her, as if I’m taking her offer very seriously.
Of course, if she was the real thing – a true, teeny fairy – these would be my wishes:
I wish I was less in awe of the angels, so I could ask more questions about who and what (and why?) they are.
I wish I could find out more about my mum, without upsetting Dad.
I wish I knew who the next person in need of angelic help was.
And, if I could wangle a fourth wish, I’d wish for yesterday’s school prankster to be caught quickly. I couldn’t sleep last night for thoughts of ghosts and ghoulies and poltergeists hovering and hiding round every corner of Hillcrest Academy.
‘Hurry up – I need a wee-wee!’ the fairy demands.
‘And I need any washing you have, Riley,’ says Hazel, standing in the doorway with a half-filled laundry basket.
You’ll notice there are no snatches of songs and sunshiny words for me. Just requests for dirty clothes and casual questions about how I’ve slept and how my day’s been, in her efficient nurse’s voice (since that’s what Hazel is). It’s not as if me and Hazel have a terrible relationship, but it isn’t exactly what you’d call cosy and close. I guess if you imagine everyone living in this house as one of those Venn diagram thingummies, you’d have me and Hazel in separate circles with Dad and Dot in the overlapping middle section.
‘Sure,’ I reply, and scuffle in the corner of the room for the T-shirt and jeans I dumped there the other day. ‘Here.’
‘Thanks,’ says Hazel, with a pleasant-but-not-totally-genuine smile. ‘Your dad’s making beans on toast right now, so it’s about five minutes to breakfast. OK, girls?’
I say yes, but the fairy doesn’t.
As Hazel bustles off, I turn to see what Dot’s up to.
And it isn’t good.
‘Dot – that’s mine!’ I say, hurrying over to grab the notebook that she’s slid out from under my pillow. Honestly, I can’t trust her to stop noseying around my stuff at the moment.
‘Actually, I want to be called Dorothea Madeleine all the time now, cos it’s more interesting,’ she announces, untroubled by me snatching my notebook back. ‘So what is all that stuff? It looks like spells!’
‘It’s just some ideas for a creative writing thing,’ I lie, tearing the page from the binder and scrunching it up in my hand. ‘But it’s rubbish really.’
With her five-year-old attention span, Dot is bored by the time the aimed paper ball clangs into the bin by the door.
‘Miss Harris gave me a merit for my very interesting questions yesterday,’ she trills, as she hippetty-hops over to my window, all thought of loo desperation suddenly forgotten.
‘Well done, Dot,’ I tell her, as I now gather up my schoolbooks for the day. I’d’ve scored minus three merits for my lack of astute questions yesterday, if anyone had been keeping an eye on me.
‘Dorothea Madeleine,’ my sort-of-stepsis corrects me, as she squashes her nose against the cool glass window. ‘Mr and Mrs Angelo are really nice, aren’t they, Riley?’
I’m guessing Dot’s watching our next-door neighbours right now, but I’m too busy searching for my other school shoe to go and look. Sarah and Frank Angelo do seem nice, though, and I find myself thinking about them sometimes. There they are, just a regular, normal couple who’ve fostered in the past, with no idea that some unknowable forces have deposited three extremely unusual foster children on them.
‘Aw, yuck! What are they doing that for?’ Dot suddenly groans, which nudges my curiosity enough to make me hop over to her, while yanking the found shoe on.
‘They’re only kissing!’ I say with a smile, as Mr Angelo goes to move the wheelie bins out for the refuse collection, and Mrs Angelo heads off to work.
‘Yeah, but it’s disgusting,’ says Dot, wrinkling up her nose. ‘Don’t you hate it when my mum and your dad do it?’
‘Well, I – I guess I don’t really mind,’ I answer vaguely, though it does bug me a bit. Mainly because it makes me wonder what it would’ve been like to watch Dad and my own mum kissing. Oh, to have the luxury of being disgusted by that …
‘Hey, Riley – look!’ says Dot, swiftly shifting to something else that’s caught her attention. ‘Look at what’s happening to Pearl!’
Uh-oh.
Pearl is holding a stuffed black plastic bag destined for the wheelie bin. But – unobserved by her foster parents – she has a flurry of butterflies dancing around her head and shoulders. Pearl’s looking at them in wonder as they land on her hair, on her shoulders, on her free, outstretched arm.
‘She has this new perfume,’ I say quickly. ‘It smells just like flowers. Now go and get dressed before breakfast. Hurry!’
I grab Dot by her fairy-wanded hand and practically drag her out of my room and deposit her by the door to her own bedroom.
‘But where are you going? Can’t you help me with my woolly tights, Riley? They get in a tangle …’ she bleats as I thunder down the stairs.
‘I’ll be back,’ I call behind me. ‘Got to ask Pearl something about homework.’
As I hurtle out of the front door with a hurried yelp of ‘Back in a minute!’ – aimed in the general direction of Dad at the toaster and Hazel at the washing machine – I know I have to stop Pearl before she’s seen.
‘Hi, Mr Angelo, just got to speak to Pearl,’ I pant, as I zoom by him on the pavement.
‘Call me Frank!’ he says cheerfully, parking the black bin where it needs to go.
‘Oh, hello!’ says Pearl in pleased surprise when I stop breathless in front of her, sending the startled butterflies spiralling into the air.
‘That thing … there,’ I try to say, sounding anything but clear. ‘Making butterflies appear in winter –’
‘Oh! The bag smelled so bad – I just wanted something pretty to look at while I was holding it,’ she explains.
‘– or making Kitt sneeze yesterday,’ I carry on. ‘You know you can’t do that sort of stuff.’
Pearl’s smile fades and she looks crestfallen.
‘You sound just like Kitt … but no, I suppose I shouldn’t.’
I hate to spoil her fun, but I know from watching and listening to the angels that any kind of errant magic – the misuse of the skills – is wrong, for two reasons.
It weakens the angels’ power for the tasks they need to do, and, more importantly, it puts them at risk – they could be spotted.
And it’s not the first time Pearl’s done it. One time in the library, her fingers dreamily played with the dried, faded petals of some roses in a vase, totally unaware that her touch was bringing the flowers back to life, back to full bloom. Then there are the fingerprints she leaves behind, stains of fine, silvery glitter on doorknobs and taps, and trailed along walls when she’s daydreaming.
It’s the reason there’re so many crosses on her chart in the loft.
What will it mean for her if she keeps scoring worse than the other angels?
I guess that’s another question I’m too shy to ask.
Or am I?
Maybe sweet and ditzy Pearl – the angel that’s most like a normal, imperfect girl – is the person who might answer my questions for real.
Ready, steady, jump
BRINNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
‘That is a bad noise,’ says Kitt urgently, looking at me to explain another small gap in her normal-world knowledge.
All around us, students are doing one of two things – panicking, or giggling.
But whichever they’re doing, they’re all heading the same way – for the nearest exit.
‘It’s the fire alarm,’ I tell my friends, glad that it’s gone off now we’ve just finished lunch, instead of later in class.
Whenever we have a drill during a lesson, there’s always an uncomfortable scramble and jarring of elbows as we squash through the door, no matter how much our teachers yell, ‘Quickly but carefully! No jostling!’
>
‘There’s a fire?’ says Sunshine, seeming confused.
She turns her head this way and that, her flame-coloured hair tousling around her as I lead them the right way.
‘Maybe, or maybe it’s just a test, to make sure we know how to leave the building safely if there was a real emergency.’
‘So this could be a real emergency?’ Pearl suggests nervously as crowds of kids surf past us.
‘It’s not,’ Kitt suddenly says, her now navy-blue eyes dark with concentration, seeking out some sense of the situation.
‘So it’s a drill, then,’ I say with a shrug, as we follow our fellow students out into the fresh air.
‘It’s not that either,’ Kitt tells me very definitely.
I don’t want anyone to see the colour of her eyes, since they’re not her usual sky blue, so I steer my three friends over to a low wall round the nearby flower beds. It’s close enough to our class’s assembly point, but far enough away for no one to take much notice of us till Mrs Mahoney arrives to do a head-count.
Just in time – Sunshine’s eyes are darkening too.
‘Quick, face me!’ I tell them, so that Sunshine and Kitt look my way. (And realize, with surprise, that I’m taking control of the situation.)
Pearl’s not acting the same as her foster sisters, though. Instead of becoming still, going inside herself, she is hurriedly scanning the organized chaos and the teeming crowds all around us.
‘Pearl … concentrate,’ Sunshine says softly.
‘But –’
‘Pearl!’ Kitt says a little more insistently.
Pearl hasn’t heard or has chosen not to listen; she’s stepping into the throng and is gone.
‘You stay here – I’ll get her,’ I tell Sunshine and Kitt. I’ve just caught sight of Pearl’s stubby blonde plaits as she weaves between bobbing waves of identical blazers.
I hurry after her, muttering quick ‘ ’Scuse me’s, and then practically stumble over two hunkered-down girls surrounded by a circle of onlookers.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her!’ one of the onlookers is saying, sounding panicked.
‘I think she has that thing … what do you call it again? When you can’t breathe properly?’ says someone else.
One of the girls on the ground is panting and wheezing. It’s Marnie Reynolds.
Pearl is the other girl. She must have been doing some seeking of her own and found Marnie in trouble, and is now crouched down beside her, smoothing her hands across Marnie’s sleek, dark, bobbed hair.
She’s calming her with the warmth, of course.
And, of course, I know what’s wrong with Marnie. Having a nurse in the house has its downsides – we have to watch every hospital telly programme going, even if it’s just so Hazel can moan about how unrealistic it is – but it does mean I can spot a medical condition when I see one.
‘Do you have an inhaler on you?’ I say, getting down on my knees and talking directly to Marnie.
Marnie nods, her breathing already easing slightly thanks to Pearl.
‘In my bag,’ she wheezes.
I grab the backpack next to Marnie and rummage through, quickly finding her asthma pump and handing it to her.
Marnie’s tiny nod is thanks enough before she concentrates on taking deep, holding breaths from the inhaler.
‘Is she going to be all right?’
‘Will she be OK for her party?’
‘Should we call an ambulance?’
‘You don’t think she’d cancel her party, do you?’
‘Is this happening cos she was stressing out about the fire alarm?’
Questions and comments burble above us, but, like Pearl, I’m just concentrating on Marnie.
‘OK, people, can we back up a little and let me through, please?’ I hear our PE teacher, Mrs Zucker, call out. ‘How are we doing, Marnie?’
Mrs Zucker crouches down beside us, gently pushing Pearl’s hands away, which is OK, as her job is done.
Marnie is now more herself, and begins to tell Mrs Zucker that – as someone suggested – panic about a possible fire had brought on her asthma attack.
Me and Pearl – we’re listening, but, like the other girls, we do as Mrs Zucker asks and step away, then find ourselves suddenly standing with Sunshine and Kitt. They’re both staring intently at their sister.
‘Is it her?’ Sunshine asks, without a sound.
Those quiet words send a thrill rippling through me.
It’s Marnie. That’s what Sunshine means. She and Kitt think we’ve found the next person who’s lost their shine. Isn’t that funny … Pearl sometimes seems the most careless and least dedicated of the angels and yet she’s the one who –
‘Riley! C’mere!’
My elbow has been grabbed.
‘You’ve got to see this – for News Matters,’ Woody urges, yanking me, dragging me away from the throng.
With the jumble of students blocking his view, I don’t think he’s even aware anything was wrong, that one of his classmates was ill back there.
‘See what?’ I ask, stumbling reluctantly after him, tripping over feet and dumped schoolbags.
The thing is, I like Woody, but I’ve got mixed feelings about him since yesterday’s News Matters meeting. It’s cos of the photo he showed everyone on his phone. It was good, really good, and that’s my problem, since –
‘Just hold on – it’s inside,’ he interrupts my thoughts, aiming for an open door that leads into the language block.
‘Hey! I’m not going in the building!’ I tell him, trying to wriggle free. ‘Are you deaf? There’s been a fire alarm.’
‘Riley, it’s fine,’ he tries to reassure me. ‘I just heard Mr Bradley telling Mr Thomlinson that it’s another hoax. Mr Thomlinson said he’s just waiting for all the classes to assemble and then he’ll make an announcement that everyone can go back in.’
I guess it is OK if the site manager has told the deputy head that it was just some kind of false alarm.
‘But, if we go in there, I won’t be at the assembly point with the rest of my class,’ I try to explain to Woody. ‘And Mrs Mahoney will go crazy at me if –’
‘Look, Mr Edwards will sort it out with her,’ Woody insists. ‘You’ve got to do this for the school newspaper. Who else can take the photos, except you?’
That last bit swings it for me. My problem with Woody was this – I was asked to be in charge of photography for News Matters when I had zero confidence, zero shine. Taking photos, being with the angels … they’d both helped stop me from fading. I guess I was worried Woody might take that away from me, whether he knew it or not. Seems like that was the last thing on his mind.
‘Right – show me,’ I say to Woody, as I grab my camera from my bag.
‘Great! It’s along this way,’ Woody says, bounding through the open door and lurching right, with me at his heels. ‘Check it out!’
I nearly crash into Woody’s back as he stops dead, splinters of glass crunching beneath his shoes, beside a smashed and activated fire-alarm button.
‘It’s not the button,’ he tells me, his face flushed with excitement. ‘Look here!’
My instinct is to point the camera first, and it’s only as I focus on the image on the display that I see it.
Red writing, small and scrawly, just underneath the plastic casing of the alarm button.
DID I MAKE YOU JUMP? it reads.
‘Yes, you did.’ I mutter my own quiet words, as my shaky finger presses click – and my heart thud, thud, thuds.
Bittersweet and blue
The angels love being up high.
It’s why they like Folly Hill as much as I do.
It’s why they all chose to share the loft next door rather than have a bedroom each.
It’s why they persuaded – possibly with the use of magic – Mr Angelo to build them a treehouse in the huge chestnut tree almost as soon as they moved in.
We’re there now, after school, hunkered down in our great woo
den nest. As it’s getting colder these days, Mrs Angelo has given us a bunch of old cushions and blankets to snuggle up with.
Away from prying eyes (and ears), it’s the perfect place for an ordinary, real-life girl to talk to her extraordinary angelic friends about what exactly is going on with all things super-strange at school.
Well, it would be, if we didn’t have company.
‘My name is Dorothea Madeleine Marshall,’ announces Dot, scrambling up the ladder and on to the mostly level floor of the treehouse, followed by her best buddy, Coco.
Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl stare at Dot, possibly wondering why she’s just introduced herself to them, since they all know each other already.
‘Yes, it is,’ Sunshine says in the momentary silence after my sort-of-stepsister speaks. Sunshine is always very polite.
‘She’s fascinated by names at the moment,’ I try to explain. ‘It was something she was talking about in her class.’
‘My mummy and daddy named me after my two grannies. One was born in Greek and one wasn’t,’ Dot explains proudly (and badly).
‘And my mummy called me after an old lady that invented perfume,’ Coco chips in with her story.
She means the famous fashion designer Coco Chanel, I suppose.
‘Why are you called your names?’ Dot demands, looking directly at Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl.
‘We chose them, of course,’ Sunshine says with an easy smile.
‘We named ourselves after things we liked,’ Pearl adds happily. ‘Sunshine is so beautiful, kittens are lovely and pearls shine so prettily. And Bee –’
Uh-oh. Since when have babies named themselves?
Sunshine and Pearl don’t get it, but Kitt does. I can see the instant worry and panic in her eyes, as the two other girls make it stunningly obvious that they’re not normal.
‘Er, giving yourself a new name – it’s a foster-kid thing,’ I fib on the spot, wondering how I can elaborate on the lie some more.
But I don’t have to.
‘Oh, OK,’ Dot says with a carefree shrug, happy enough with that explanation, just as it is. Thank goodness for five-year-olds having the attention span of a brick.
Angels in Training Page 4