by Annie Dalton
I unpacked my bags, singing along to my current fave single, a sweet little hip hop track called True Colours. After that, I had a shower, washing, conditioning and then drying my hair slowly and carefully. After that, I gave my little orange tree some overdue TLC, lovingly polishing every leaf with Leaf Shine. But there was still no sign of Lola.
“I’ll lie down for a minute,” I told myself. “I won’t go to sleep. I’ll just rest my eyes.”
The next thing I knew, my room was full of dazzling celestial sunlight. Someone had posted a message under my door while I was sleeping. With a rush of happiness I recognised Lola’s handwriting.
My soul-mate was back in town!
Guru’s chef must have been making their special chocolate brownies when I arrived, because the cafe smelled divine.
I heard a husky chuckle and spotted my friend’s mad dark curls over by the window. She was chatting to some real outdoor types, looking incredibly pretty in a cute red dress I’d never seen before.
Pure happiness fizzed up inside me. I planned to sneak up and put my hands over her eyes. Ta da!
Before I could reach her, Brice burst through the kitchen doors, waving a bottle of maple syrup. “Here you are, princess! You can’t eat pancakes without maple syrup.” He sat down beside her, draping an arm round the back of her chair.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“This isn’t happening!” I whispered. But it was.
My best friend and my old enemy were an item.
Chapter Two
I wanted to run but I was so shocked I couldn’t seem to move. Anyway, it was too late - Lola had already spotted me.
“Boo!” she shrieked. “Omigosh! I’ve missed you so much!”
I have no idea why Lola calls me Boo. She loves giving her friends crazy nicknames.
Lola poked Brice in the ribs. “Don’t just sit there you monster! Find her a chair!”
My soul-mate seemed to think everything was quite normal. Like, “Hey, I’ve just spent my entire holidays with a cosmic juvenile delinquent. No big deal.”
Well, it was a big deal to me. I was completely traumatised. So much so that I behaved like a complete child, blanking Brice and babbling to my friend as if we were alone.
“Guess what, babe!” I wittered. “I had this brilliant idea for Mr Allbright’s time project. And I’m thinking Victorian times, because they—”
“That’s great,” Lola said politely. “Though I have to tell you, after the summer we’ve had, schoolwork seems kind of irrelevant. Oh, Mel, I wish you’d come with us! We had such a fabulous time, didn’t we?” She beamed at Brice. “You should have seen us canoeing down that waterfall! Those canoes are unbelievably tiny, I don’t know how we both—”
“Tell me the details later,” I said hastily. “Look, about that project—”
“You’ve got to come with us next time!” Lola interrupted. “It’s SO sublime, isn’t it Brice? We used to take our sleeping bags outside and just lie staring up at the stars. Oh, but one night, something really funny happened.” Lollie gave her husky chuckle. “It makes me laugh just thinking about it!”
Just then Reuben came in. Unlike me, Reuben has a deeply forgiving nature. So when he saw our best friend openly sharing maple syrup with the thug who’d put him in the hospital, he didn’t seem to think anything of it.
Brice also seemed to think it was all water under the bridge.“Have my seat, mate,” he told Reuben. “They’re expecting me down at the Agency.”
“Why? Got an appointment with your probation officer?” I said spitefully.
Brice just blew me a kiss on his way out. Good riddance, I thought. Lola had started chatting to someone else about her holiday, but I didn’t want to hear any more about her and Brice gazing up at the stars, so I hastily hooked my arm through Reuben’s. “Reubs, I was just telling Lola about this idea I had for our project.”
“Can’t it wait!” he protested. “I literally just got back five minutes ago!”
I know, but they’re expecting us down at the Agency any minute and they’ll ask us where we’re going, so you’ve got to back me up and say we want to go to London in 1888.”
He looked suspicious. “What’s so special about 1888?”
“Oh, loads of stuff,” I said enthusiastically, to cover the fact that my mind had gone embarrassingly blank.
“Name one,” he insisted.
“Well, um - for one thing, Jack the Ripper was stalking the streets!” I remembered triumphantly.
“Doing what?” Reuben couldn’t have looked less impressed.
” Murdering people, what else! The Ripper has to be the most famous serial killer in history.”
Reuben’s expression went from blank, to confused, to totally appalled. “You’re kidding? They made someone famous because he murdered people?”
I took a deep breath, reminding myself that Reuben often finds it hard to understand human behaviour. “I suppose it’s because he was never caught,” I explained. “It makes him seem immortal, kind of; like he’s still out there somewhere.”
“But that’s really sick.”
“Hey, don’t blame me,” I snapped. “It’s history, OK! You can’t just pick out the pretty bits.”
“Well, you’ll have to count me out,” Reuben said to my dismay. “I promised I’d help Chase with this tiger conservation thing.”
I was genuinely shocked. I couldn’t believe Reubs was ducking out.
“But you have to come!” I wailed. “Mr Allbright said we had to work in threes!”
“Then find someone else.” Reuben glanced at his watch. “We’d better run. We’re due down at the Agency building in five minutes.”
The Agency, if you hadn’t guessed, is the angelic organisation which keeps the whole of Creation running smoothly, so the Agency building is kind of Angel HQ.
There are gorgeous buildings everywhere in this city, but the Agency Tower is truly fabulous. Sometimes I get the feeling it’s actually alive. It’s made of special stuff that changes colour constantly. With so much high-level cosmic activity going on inside, you can feel the vibes when you’re still like, streets away.
On the way downtown, Reuben and Lola were enthusiastically swapping holiday stories, but I didn’t join in. For one thing helping at a preschool camp didn’t exactly compare with canoeing down waterfalls or saving tigers. Plus Lola and Reuben were meant to be my best friends and they had totally let me down.
We went in through the revolving doors, flashed our IDs at the guy on the desk, and took the lift up to the floor where we have our Agency briefings.
Trainees were already crowding into the hall, and I somehow lost my mates in the crush. I spotted Orlando in front of me and felt a blush creeping up my neck.
Officially Orlando still goes to our school. Unofficially, he does a lot of hush-hush assignments for the Agency. Orlando’s a genius basically - not a twisted genius like Brice, the real thing. Ohh, and he is also really cute! He literally looks like an angel; the gorgeous kind you see in old Italian paintings.
Hmn, I thought. Maybe I could persuade dishy Orlando to be in our three? I was just about to take the plunge when Lola came dashing up.
“Boo, I’m so sorry! I didn’t have my school head on back there,” she said breathlessly. “Look, I trust you, OK. I’m sure we’ll have a great time in 1880 or whenever, and don’t worry about Reuben dropping out. It’s all sorted!”
“It is?” I said.
“Totally. I told Brice and he insisted on taking Reuben’s place. Isn’t that sweet!”
“Well, actually,” I croaked. “I don’t know if I—”
“Mel, relax. It’ll be great! Brice has changed. He really has!” She beamed into my eyes.
But I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to Jack the Ripper’s London any more, especially if I had to go with Brice.
Then I suddenly saw how this could work out to my advantage.
Right now Lola was seeing Brice through a holiday glow, whi
ch was partly my fault. I hadn’t been around to give her regular reality checks like a good mates should.
But if the three of us went on the same time trip, the cracks would start to show, and she’d have to see him for the charmless yob he really was. OK, this might not be so much fun for Lola, but she’d thank me in the end.
“That sounds like a fabulous idea,” I said brightly. “Let’s sign up!”
We joined one of the queues of trainees, waiting to register their choice of destination with junior members of staff. Yet again I found myself wondering why all the younger agents look so poker-faced. Would it kill them to smile once in a while?
The agent looked seriously startled when I told him our Time destination, but he dutifully typed all our data into his laptop and said it would take an hour to match us with a suitable human.
I was going to suggest that Lola and I spent the time shopping for new outfits. But before I could get the words out, Brice came schmoozing up, and Lola said apologetically, “Oh Mel, you don’t mind do you? I said I’d help Brice find some new jeans.” And before I could say, “Actually, I DO mind,” the two of them headed out of the door hand in hand.
I stared after them. Don’t over-react angel girl, I told myself shakily. Lola is a very tactile person, that’s all. She’ll hold hands with anyone. It doesn’t mean a thing. There’s absolutely no reason for your feelings to be hurt.
Luckily I remembered how in magazine advice columns they tell you to do something v. positive for yourself, so I took myself into town for a spot of v. positive retail therapy. And guess what! I went into The Source and found a delicious little vintage top which would give my hipster jeans and boots the perfect retro twist.
But when I walked back into the Agency Tower, I couldn’t believe my eyes. My soul-mate was waiting for the lift, wearing an identical top to mine! We stared at each other. “How totally luminous!” she screamed. “You got the same one!”
I went weak with relief. This was ultimate proof that Lola and I are spiritual twins, which meant that nothing and no-one could ever come between us.
“Where’s Brice?” I asked casually.
“Still shopping,” she said. “I’ve been telling him he should get some new stuff. His old clothes kind of smell.”
“Oh, right,” I said politely.
Lollie wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, some of the Hell dimensions are really whiffy, and it doesn’t wash out apparently. Anyway, fill me in on these Victorians, carital Michael is sure to ask questions.”
By the time Michael buzzed us in, Brice still hadn’t turned up, which put me in a real quandary. On the one hand I wanted Lola to know what a scumbag he was. But if he let us down, our Victorian trip would have to be called off.
Suddenly he came panting along the corridor.
“You’re late,” I said.
“No, sweetie, you’re early. I’m totally on time.”
I was going to tell him where to get off, but Lola said quickly, “Oh, good, you got that grey top. It looks great on you.”
Brice looked down at his grey hoodie as if he had no idea where it had come from. “What, this?”
“Come on, you guys” I said impatiently. “Michael’s waiting.”
I was genuinely shocked when I first arrived at the Academy and heard all the kids referring to our headmaster by his first name. But I soon discovered that Michael is not your average headmaster. This is because he’s an archangel, one of the immortal beings who oversee the running of Creation. Michael has special responsibility for Planet Earth, and has semi- permanent jetlag, poor guy, from zipping backwards and forwards between Earth’s major trouble spots. But no matter how tired and stressed he is, Michael knows exactly what’s going on with the kids at the Academy. And when he looks at you with those scary beautiful archangel eyes, it’s like he literally sees into your soul.
As usual he went straight to the point. “I’ll admit that I was slightly concerned at your choice of era. I gather it was your idea, Mel, and I wasn’t sure you’d realised all the implications?”
I’d been thinking the same thing, but now Michael had put it into words I felt v. hurt. He thinks I can’t hack it, I thought, but I hid my injured feelings by cracking a little airhead joke. “Hey, no way are we backing out. We might get to meet Sherlock Holmes!”
“Hate to shatter your illusions, angel girl,” Brice murmured, “but Holmes was a fictional character.”
I gave him my most poisonous look. “I did know that, actually.”
Michael was constructing miniature steeples with his fingers. “I felt relieved when I heard you were going to be the third member of the team,” he said to Brice. “I seem to remember you spent some time in this era.”
I guessed Michael was making a tactful reference to Brice’s murky PODS past. Brice just nodded, keeping his expression carefully blank.
“I’ll be frank,” Michael said. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d ask the girls to reconsider. But now you’re going, I know they’ll be in experienced hands.”
Oh, this is just great, I thought. Not only had my enemy been reinstated at the Angel Academy, now we were supposed to like, admire him for his dodgy past as a PODS agent!
Michael began shuffling the papers on his desk, a sign our interview was coming to an end. “This is an ideal opportunity for you to understand what makes this particular era tick. But as you know, some eras are especially tough to handle, so try to stay centred and alert. I’m expecting you to take good care of them,” he said to Brice.
He flushed. “I’ll do my best.”
I gave Michael my sweetest smile. “Oh, we’ll be fine! Lola and I are big girls now.”
As usual, the Departures area was a hive of mad activity. We queued for our angel tags, then we had to queue all over again for our Agency watches, then we had to hang about waiting for the maintenance staff to finish servicing our portal.
Finally we were able to step inside and the glass door slid shut.
I always get butterflies at this point and no wonder. We were going to be blasted from a world of divine beauty and harmony into the bubbling stew-pot of History. Lola normally relieves the tension by singing an upbeat little anthem that Reuben wrote for us. It starts, “You’re not alone, you’re not alone,” and it always makes me feel better. But today she seemed to forget about our little departure ritual. She just kept glancing nervously at Brice, like, “Oh, I hope he’ll be OK.” He seemed totally oblivious, listening to his headset.
So I sang our theme tune to myself in my head. “You’re not alone, you’re not alone.” I kept on stubbornly, silently singing it until we took off.
The inside of the portal lit up in a blue-white blaze of cosmic light, and the heavenly city fell away as we blasted through the invisible barrier which divides the angelic Light fields from the unpredictable and downright dangerous fields of Space and Time.
Entire centuries of history flew past in mere minutes, making gorgeous coloured patterns in the dark. As we drew closer to our time zone, the colours grew more intense. This time we made an impressively smooth landing. The portal door slid back and we stepped on to my favourite planet. Or rather, we floated.
I stared around me in shock. “What in the world—?”
We were in a desert so red it seemed to glow. The vegetation was like nothing on Earth. Spiky bushes with pink berries that looked fake. Stunted trees with pale papery leaves. A flock of birds flew past, their marshmallow-pink feathers perfectly matching the waxy pink berries. All the birds landed side by side on the same branch, making a weird little chuckling sound to themselves like birds in a cartoon.
The desert air smelled scorched and deeply alien, like I imagine it might smell on Mars. Perhaps it was Mars. That would explain the surprising lack of gravity.
Brice blew out his breath. “All right, I give up. Anyone know what we’re doing in Australia?”
“Australia?” I gulped. “Are you serious?”
The cartoon birds suddenly decided to turn t
hemselves the wrong way up. They just hung there, chuckling, letting the blood rush to their heads.
“Those are galah birds,” said Brice. “You find them all over Australia. The trees are eucalyptus, ditto. And this desert landscape makes me think we’re somewhere in the Northern Territories. Anyway that would be my guess,” he added awkwardly, as if we might think he was showing off.
“It feels so weird,” Lola breathed. “I feel like I could just float away.”
“Me too,” I agreed.
Even our voices sounded floaty, like voices in a dream.
“The Agency must have miscalculated,” I said in my floaty voice. “We’d better call them so they can get us back on track.”
Brice shook his head. “They don’t make that kind of mistake.”
“But Michael agreed we could go to Victorian London,” I protested childishly.
“So? For some reason they wanted us to come here first.”
“But why would they send us somewhere uninhabited?”
Brice sighed. “This land is hardly uninhabited. Aborigines live here for one thing. Plus there’s a road.” He pointed through the shimmering heat haze.
“I’d call that a track,” I said sniffily.
“Call it what you like. People made it and people use it. Herders looking for work on cattle stations, missionaries looking for converts, hunters, trappers, telegraph workers—”
I was just wishing I had something to throw at him when I heard rustling and panting sounds. A demented-looking figure came stumbling through the bush. For a minute I actually thought it might be a mirage, but suddenly he gave this heart-rending wail, “Someone please help me!” Then he crumpled across the track and went totally still.
We went skimming over to him, our feet barely touching the ground. I’d have worried about this if I’d had time, but we had a human emergency to attend to.
I stared down at the wild old man and felt myself shiver. Something terrible had happened to him. I don’t mean just physically He was like those trees you see that have been struck by lightning, all blasted and hollow inside.