Keeping it Real

by Annie Dalton

  The bus chugged away again, leaving Jax behind. “I will NOT let it go.” Karmen’s voice was shaking now. “No I’m not listening to you, Jax. Show up on Sunday or you’re in big trouble.”

  She rang off and stared unseeingly out of the window until we reached her stop. I followed her off the bus feeling like Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole. Nothing made sense.

  I’d just seen Karmen fighting for the right to embarrass herself in public. Shy little Karmen who used to be too chicken to ring out for a pizza! Meanwhile Jax, who’d always been a wee bit rough around the edges, had turned into the teenage harpy from hell!

  By this time it wouldn’t have surprised me if Karmen’s parents had become total nudists. I followed her nervously into the small terraced house, but to my relief, everything was exactly like I remembered. It even had that same homey, very faintly spicy smell.

  Mrs Patel had the Be Good Tanyas playing on the stereo as she prepared the evening meal. Karm’s parents were crazy about country music. They’d wanted to name their only daughter after one of those big-haired country singers, Dolly, Loretta-Sue, or whoever, but that didn’t go down with the grandparents, so they compromised with ‘Karmen Asha’.

  Karmen told me once that out of all the Pinks, her mum liked me best; Karms said she thought I had a sweet smile.

  I imagined what her mum would say if she knew who was sitting at their breakfast bar. “Karmen’s been telling me you’re an angel now, Melanie! Isn’t that absolutely fantastic! You must try some of these sweets. No, darling, eat as many as you like. That way I won’t be tempted! Got to watch my calorie intake, you know!”

  Over sounds of efficient chopping, Karmen and her mum chatted about what to buy one of the cousins for a wedding present.

  If you didn’t know Karmen, you could have been fooled into believing everything was normal. But I was deeply disturbed not to say confused. My Karms had to rush to the phone every five minutes to call her mates. Sometimes she’d ring each of us in turn just to ask which top we thought she should wear next day.

  Listen - I sat at that breakfast bar for over an hour and Karmen didn’t phone the other Pinks ONCE. But that wasn’t the most shocking thing. When it finally hit me, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed.

  Karmen wasn’t wearing our colour. That’s why she didn’t phone. That’s why the others refused to support her at the rehearsal.

  “Omigosh,” I whispered.

  The Shocking Pinks had broken up!!

  If it wasn’t for Helix I’d probably be sitting in the Patels’ kitchen today going, “Omigosh, Omigosh.”

  Unlike me, my inner angel has excellent control of her emotions. She said calmly, “This must be upsetting for you, babe, but we need to know what’s going on with these girls.”

  I tried to pull myself together. “Should I check Karm’s room?” I gulped. “Look for clues to her state of mind?”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” Helix agreed.

  I found clues all right, and they didn’t reassure me about my friend’s state of mind. GREASE posters plastered over the walls, a GREASE DVD cover beside the DVD player, a GREASE minidisc on top of her minidisc player… I could go on.

  “This isn’t being focussed,” I said in dismay. “This is being obsessed! This is Park Hall, Helix! IF they get this production together, which I doubt, they’ll be lucky to sell two tickets.”

  I don’t know why it took me so long to see the photograph - maybe because Karmen had put it in such a big fancy frame.

  It had been taken on our mad day out, minutes after we got off the London Eye. A helpful tourist took it with Karm’s digital camera. In the picture we’ve got exactly the same smiles.

  For some reason Karmen had put a scented candle in front of the picture, and a silk rose. The rose was bright shocking pink.

  I felt something slam shut inside my mind. Like, don’t go there. Lots of girls had candles and flowers in their rooms. It didn’t mean anything morbid.

  I heard the sound of a key turning in the front door. Karmen’s dad was home. He dropped his bag and went into the kitchen.

  “Friday night!” he sighed. “Two whole days of freedom!”

  I peeped out of my friend’s room in time to see him grab Karmen’s mum and dance her round madly to the Tanyas.

  I had a sudden painful longing for my own family. We had this big Friday ritual. I’d pick Jade up from her after-school club, we’d meet Mum out of work, then the three of us would go to the Cosmic Cafe. It didn’t look much from outside, but the food was out of this world. If he wasn’t on call-out, Des would join us later.

  I’d been trying my best to act like an angel on a mission, but now the ache was so strong, it was an actual physical pain in my chest.

  I want to see them.

  In a heartbeat I was standing on the street opposite the Cosmic Cafe, icy sleet blowing in my eyes and mouth.

  “Woo!” I said in awe. “Did I even say that out loud?”

  Next minute I was charging across the busy road, literally morphing through cars and buses in my desperation to get to them.

  To you they’d have looked like an ordinary London family in a cheap and cheerful cafe. To me, they looked like Christmas morning. I felt like I was going to explode with love. There they all were! Big bald Des pointing out something on the Specials board. Jade pulling on my step-dad’s sleeve. And Mum had totally changed her hair!

  “They’re so beautiful,” I whispered.

  Completely focused on the little scene inside the cafe, I totally didn’t register the otherworldly personnel carrier nosing up to the curb. I didn’t suspect a thing until two sinister reflections loomed up behind me in the misted glass. Next minute, hands gripped my arms, pinning them to my sides so I couldn’t move, and I was being dragged, screaming, away from my family.

  A hand clamped down firmly over my mouth. I felt myself helplessly lifted off my feet and bundled into a vehicle. The engine was still running. There was a swoosh and a clunk as the doors slid shut and we started to move off.

  I scratched and bit my unknown kidnapper thrashing about in my frenzy to get free. I didn’t even care if I poisoned myself with PODS toxins.

  “OK, bad joke!” a voice admitted. “Listen, I’m going to take my hand away on a count of three, but DON’T bite! I promised my girlfriend I’d get back to Heaven in one piece. One, two, th—”

  My eyes had been screwed tight shut. Now they flew wide open.

  “BRICE?” I said in disbelief.

  Chapter Six

  Hey check those, man, real angel tooth marks!” Lola’s boyfriend showed his hand to his mate, seeming almost proud.

  The other angel boy laughed. “Sure that’s an angel chick? Seems more like a hell vixen to me!”

  Brice waggled his eyebrows. “Mel can be quite feisty when she wants!”

  They went on joking over my head in that maddening way boys do all across the Universe. Now I was over the first shock, I was livid. I gave Brice a hard thump. “You gave me a heart attack, you pig!! I thought you were PODS!”

  He fended me off laughing. “I couldn’t resist, you looked so sweet and goofy, You were totally away with the fairies. “

  I just glowered. I didn’t tell him about my family. I couldn’t.

  Brice’s mate had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry, that was a stupid thing to do.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Hendrix.”

  Woo, I thought, he’s really fit.

  I shyly shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  I flashed an evil look at Brice. “What are you doing here, dirt bag, apart from scaring me out of my skin?”

  He looked slightly shifty. “Oh, you know, making the inner city a better place, beating Hendrix at pool.”

  “In your dreams!” Hendrix said cheerfully.

  “Omigosh, Hendrix, you’re an EA!” I realised suddenly. “I’ve got to report a cosmic anomaly at Park Hall High School. Some hell beastie got into my old school - and pooed, can you
believe?”

  I thought I saw a weird look pass between them.

  Hendrix said quickly, “We’ll get someone on it, don’t worry.”

  The angel carrier had been accelerating steadily while we were talking. Suddenly there was a violent lurch and I was virtually thrown into Hendrix’s arms as the van began hurtling through traffic at breakneck speed.

  “I should buckle up sweetheart,” Brice advised. “Unless you enjoy cuddling Hendrix. Jools is a bit of a speed freak.”

  I hastily unpeeled myself, pulling a hideous face at Brice. “Does he always drive like this?”

  “She,” Brice corrected.

  “And yes, Jools only drives in top gear,” grinned Hendrix.

  She was now driving the wrong way up a one-way street. It was a heavenly vehicle, and therefore totally harmless to human road users, but I had to cover my eyes. We finally screeched to a stop.

  I clambered out of the angel carrier on jelly legs, then rubbed my eyes. I’d walked down Matilda Street just about every day on my way to and from school, and never once seen this elegant shimmery house. That’s because it was an Agency house which had been invisibly slotted into a shabby human terrace.

  “I had no idea we had houses on Earth!” I breathed.

  “There’s a few,” said a warm voice. A girl swung down from the driver’s seat. She wore a long rainbow-striped scarf draped over her combat jacket. “How many are there now, Hen?”

  Hendrix shrugged. “It must be in the thousands now. Oh, this is Jools, who was completely against us kidnapping you by the way!”

  “I was,” she sighed. “But Brice—”

  “—is a terrible influence, I know,” I joked.

  With her big boots, old combats and an even older cap jammed over beaded braids, Jools was probably not your nan’s idea of an angel. But she did look exactly like a lot of girls I’d known in Park Hall. EAs usually like to adopt the styles and cultures of their local human community.

  Jools held up her angel tags to a device on the wall. There was a brief, intensely blue, shimmer. The door slid open and Brice, who seemed to think he was an honorary earth angel, grandly ushered me inside.

  I was blown away. I couldn’t believe I was still in the middle of a twenty-first century human city. The vibes in the Agency house were so pure I could have been back in Heaven.

  An angel girl in combat gear came hurrying down the stairs. “Oh hi,” she smiled, before disappearing into one of the downstairs rooms.

  I heard a steady hum of voices coming through the door.

  “That’s the EA communications centre for this area,” Jools explained. “Like the Angel Watch centre, but much smaller, obviously.”

  I peered curiously round the door and saw twenty plus agents at their work stations, jabbering quietly into headsets. “Where did the incident take place?” one agent was asking her caller. “Any signs of You Know Who? OK, we’ll got you some backup. Do the best you can until then

  “We’ll show you round properly later,” Jools promised. “Right now you could probably do with a rest.”

  “I’ll carry that,” Hendrix said, taking my bag.

  “You think you’re so smooth,” Brice told him.

  As they shepherded me up flights of stairs, I was trying to take in the sheer scale of the Agency safe house.

  In one open-plan area, trainees calmly worked at computers which had up to ten different streams of cosmic data racing hectically across their screens at any one time. Next door a lone trainee was minding banks of monitors, all of which showed local trouble spots. One had a split screen which showed the same house from different angles.

  “That house used to be a vet’s,” I said in surprise.

  “Those were the good days,” the trainee said grimly. “The life forms that live there now aren’t exactly man’s best friend.”

  I felt a shiver go through me. “PODS live there now?” I’d taken my little sister past that house on the way to her tap lessons.

  “Officially it’s inhabited by humans,” Hendrix explained.

  “Just not any you’d like to meet,” Jools commented.

  I’d met humans like that on previous missions: people so closely involved with the Dark agencies, they were half-PODS themselves.

  “Much activity today?” Hendrix asked the trainee.

  He shook his head. “Just the usual.”

  We toiled up a final flight of stairs. A boy angel was pacing the landing with his mobile. I heard him saying, “No, since he started with the kick boxing, he’s much more confident, like a different boy…”

  I followed the others into a big student-style sitting room. Two angel girls looked up and smiled, then went back to chatting. A boy was stretched out on one of the sofas, apparently asleep.

  I’ve seen EAs in just about every time you can think of, but seeing them in my old neighbourhood made me so happy I wanted to cry. I’d been rubbing shoulders with angels all those years and I didn’t even know!

  I LOVE my job, I thought tearfully. I have the best life ever.

  “Can anyone else smell that stink?”

  I came back to Earth to see Jools screwing up her nose in disgust, and for the first time I noticed her tiny star-shaped stud.

  “Mel found hell turds at the school,” Hendrix said super-casually.

  Her expression changed. “Not again,” she said half to herself. She turned, flashing her warm smile. “Mel, I hate to be a pain, but I think you picked up something whiffy on those beautiful boots.”

  “Oh, I thought I could—!” I nervously inspected one boot sole, hopping to keep my balance. “Oh, no, I did!” I wailed. “This is SO embarrassing!”

  “Just give them here,” Hendrix offered with a laugh. Holding my boots carefully by their tops, he gallantly whisked them away.

  Jools started madly spraying everything in sight with some kind of heavenly Febreze. “You must think I’m so rude,” she said apologetically. “I just have this incredibly sensitive sense of smell.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d trekked hell dog poop into an angel house!

  “I tamed a hell puppy once,” Brice said with a straight face.

  My poopy boots were instantly old news. Every angel in earshot stared at him in horror. Even the boy who’d been snoozing sat up open-mouthed.

  Jools giggled nervously. “Brice, I never know when you’re joking!”

  “It’s true,” he insisted. “He was a smart little guy. Answered to his name and everything.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” laughed Jools. “What did you call him? Fluffy?”

  “I called him Bob,” Brice said with dignity.

  “Why would anyone call a hellhound Bob?” spluttered the boy.

  “You think I should have named him Fang?” Brice snapped. “He was a little motherless puppy, man!”

  Jools suddenly looked horrified. “My manners! Did we even introduce you?”

  I shyly shook my head.

  “We’ve given you such a terrible welcome,” she wailed. “First the guys kidnap you off the street then we tell you have stinky boots, and then we don’t even— OK, let’s do it now. This is Delphine, this is Tallulah, and Sleeping Beauty here answers to Dino.”

  I stood there in my socks, nodding and smiling, but absolutely no info was going into my brain.

  “When did you last eat, angel girl?” Brice interrupted.

  Hendrix had reappeared with my decontaminated boots. “I could murder a pizza personally - how about you guys?”

  “You get pizza?” I said amazed. “You don’t just live on trail mix?”

  “Don’t talk to me about that stuff!” said Jools with feeling. “Girl, it gives me the worst wind!”

  I creased up laughing. “Doesn’t it!”

  Minutes later Jools and I were in the shared kitchen, hungrily tearing up pizza. The boys were eating theirs in the TV room.

  “I’m so grateful I ran into you guys,” I told her happily.

  “It’s great cosmic timing,” sh
e smiled. “My room mate is actually away on a course, so you can have her bed - if you don’t mind sharing,” she added quickly.

  “Are you kidding? I was worrying I’d have to sleep in a doorway!”

  Jools was carefully picking off her sweet corn. “Is it OK to ask what you’re doing here?”

  “You can ask,” I mumbled through too-hot pizza. “All I know is my mates are in some kind of trouble.”

  “Have you managed to hook up with them yet?”

  “Not hooked up, exactly,” I sighed. “I’ve seen two of them.”

  Jools was a natural-born listener, giving me her total attention as I described the disturbing changes in my friends.

  “You’re sure they’ve broken up finally and for ever?”

  “It certainly feels pretty final,” I sighed.

  Jools looked sympathetic. “It happens.”

  I nodded unhappily. “I know, I know, people move on.”

  “Is that how it feels? Like they just moved on?”

  I bit my lip. “Actually it doesn’t.”

  While we were talking, Brice wandered in with Hendrix and a couple of boy EAs.

  “So where are we going, girls?” Hendrix demanded. “It’s Friday night! We can’t just stay in eating pizza!”

  “There’s that new club down the road,” Jools suggested. “They’re getting that DJ - what’s his name again?”

  “Ruff Justice?” Brice said unexpectedly.

  “How come you always know this stuff?” I marvelled. “You only got here like about sixty minutes before me!”

  “You’ll come with us, won’t you Mel?” Jools asked hopefully.

  I shook my head. “It’s been a really long day.”

  Brice patted my head. “Mel’s going to curl up in her jammies, aren’t you, and reread the intro to the Angel Handbook?”

  I swatted him. “I got to chapter two, for your information!”

  “You did well!” Jools laughed. “That book is so heavy going.”

  This is exactly why Lola and I are going to write our Cosmic Survival Guide, but this is still a big secret between me and my soul-mate, so I kept my lips v. firmly sealed.