by Sharon Jones
Lights twinkled on the opposite shore of the lake. Bowness came into view, blocked only by the trees on the intervening Belle Island, a place that strangely held no fear for her any more, even though it had been close to there that she’d nearly drowned.
Eventually, Michael pulled the car off the road, onto the grass, and stopped.
‘This is where we’re going?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows.
He cut the engine. ‘Yeah. This is it. Are you getting out, or what?’
Poppy opened the door and got out. The drop in temperature after the artificial heat of the car made her shiver. Michael had already popped the boot and was getting stuff out. He handed her a coat. Her coat, in fact. And a thermos flask.
‘This has been planned,’ she said.
He just returned her smile, slid on his own fleece, the one normally reserved for hiking up mountains, grabbed a picnic blanket and nodded towards the lake.
‘What is this?’ she asked, following him. ‘You fancied a three a.m. picnic?’
He glanced at his watch, then up at the sky and began unfolding the blanket.
‘Y’know how everyone thinks I’ve lost it? It’s drawn attention away from you! They haven’t noticed that you’ve cracked. You definitely need more counselling.’
He ignored her, but the smile had turned to a grin. He sat down on the blanket and rubbed his hands together. ‘You going to keep that hot chocolate all to yourself?’
She collapsed down beside him and handed him the flask.
‘You really don’t know why we’re here, do you?’ he asked.
Oh no! Was this something she was supposed to remember? Some weird anniversary of theirs? ‘Of course I do. I’m just faking surprise so as not to upset you.’
Michael did a double take then laughed. ‘Nahh. You haven’t got a clue.’ He poured out a steaming cup of hot chocolate, handed it to her, and started pouring out his own. At the same time, he glanced up at the sky and nearly poured it all down himself.
She giggled. ‘What are we doing here?’
He licked the spilt chocolate from his hand and took a sip. Again, his eyes flashed up to the sky.
‘You are soooo annoy—’ Just then, she saw something. A faint flash of light. She dumped the cup of cocoa on the grass and pushed herself to her feet.
Above them the skies were dark. The moon had nearly set but there were stars and planets and...meteors! There was another – just a faint whisper across the sky. And then another, clear and bright and beautiful. She gasped.
Arms wrapped around her waist and he rested his chin on her head. ‘I didn’t want you to miss it,’ he whispered, as if making too much noise might frighten them away. ‘It seemed important to Beth that you saw it.’
With everything that had happened, she’d forgotten about the Perseid meteor shower and the dream she’d had about her and Beth watching for meteors from the bluff. But Michael had remembered.
She got hold of his arm and squeezed tightly. She felt breathless with panic. She didn’t want to lose him, and yet at all around her lives were being extinguished – quicker than the light from a falling star.
Beth.
Maya.
Kane.
And Pete.
All gone.
‘In preparation, I’ve been reading about meteors,’ Michael said. ‘So I could astound you with my brilliance.’
She sniffed back a tear. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘Did you know that meteorites consist primarily of iron and that when one of them hits the earth’s atmosphere they reach temperatures of almost one thousand six hundred and fifty degrees Celsius?’
‘You sound like a Wikipedia entry.’
‘That’s probably because that’s where I got most of this from. I bet you didn’t know that in some parts of Europe, it was said that everyone had their own star, and when a person died, their star would fall to the earth.’
‘There’s a bit of a rush on tonight. What do you think? Coach crash? War, maybe?’
Michael turned her to face him. His wide eyes were sad, and just for a moment she saw the young boy she’d grown up with. The one who cried when his favourite Action Man lost a leg or they came across a dead rabbit on the side of the road.
He swallowed and his bottom lip trembled. ‘I keep wondering if there was something – if I’d done things differently—’
‘Don’t! You didn’t kill him. The police have said so. And you wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me. I’m so sorry, Michael.’
Hot tears spilled over her cheeks. He shook his head and brushed them away but there were tears in his eyes too. Then, as the sky exploded with flashes of light so bright that it looked like the entire heavens were crashing down around them, Michael leaned down and kissed her.
She’d waited so long for this kiss that tasted of tears that she had no intention of letting it slip away. She locked her hands around Michael’s neck, and just for a second, as her heart sang like it was free for the very first time, she saw Beth smiling, the silver of falling stars reflected in her eyes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It’s only when your first book is accepted for publication that you realise how many people contribute to its production so please forgive the long list of names to follow...
My first thank you must go to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and particularly to the organisers of Undiscovered Voices who really are in the business of making dreams come true!
Heartfelt thanks to my lovely agent, Jenny Savill, without whose careful eye and sound instincts this manuscript would never have made it to publication, and to Megan Larkin, Rebecca Frazer, Rosalind Turner and all the team at Orchard, for believing in Dead Jealous enough to give it a home, and for shepherding the book (and me) through the publication process. Thank you!
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Scooby pals and critique partners, particularly to Ellen Renner, without whom this story would have never been entered into Undiscovered Voices, and to Liz, Sarah, Teri, the whole gang from the Birmingham critique group and the crazy land of Twitter who have walked this road with me, and given me the best gift of all: their friendship.
And finally, thanks to my mum, Denise Jones, for her endless support and dog sitting services!
Read on for an exclusive extract from the next Poppy Sinclair thriller…
DEAD SILENT
‘Are you sure you’re holding the map the right way up?’
Poppy tried glaring at Michael. Instead, a guilty smile inched across her face as she kicked at the pile of slush that had collected in the gutter.
Snowflakes the size of cotton wool balls drifted out of the night sky with haphazard elegance. Clumps of them caught in Michael’s dark hair and for a moment she could imagine that there was just the two of them, in some magical snow globe.
Michael stared at her, his face deadly serious and his gaze so steady that she knew the game was up. ‘Poppy, have you – by any chance – been taking us in the wrong direction?’ Before she could answer, Michael rolled his eyes. ‘You can’t put off seeing your dad forever. In case you haven’t noticed the cold white stuff, it’s snowing and I’d rather not spend the night out here.’
‘But don’t you think it’s pretty?’
Michael turned his face to the heavens as a smile tugged at his lips. He shook his head. ‘You’re unbelievable. Where are we?’
‘Not in Kansas any more.’
He grinned and leaned closer to her. ‘Where are we?’
‘Somewhere in Cambridge?’ Poppy said, shrugging and taking a step back.
Again, Michael advanced on her. ‘Where are we?’ He made a grab for the map. Poppy just managed to dodge him and set off running down the cobbled street. Her foot hit a patch of ice. She skittered to a stop as the weight
of her backpack combined with gravity to tug her towards the ground. A hand grabbed her arm just in time to stop her from toppling over and, before she could object, the map was snatched from her grasp.
Michael’s smile was victorious and just a little bit cocky. Oh, how she’d love to wipe that smile off his face – and maybe she would...tonight.
There was no room for them to stay at Dad’s and so he’d arranged for her and Michael to stay in guest rooms at the college where he worked. Student rooms. Where there would be no parental supervision. And that presented them with certain...possibilities. A shiver of nervous energy tingled up her spine.
Michael looked at her strangely. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
He smiled and brushed away a flake of snow that landed on her upturned cheek. ‘Please tell me you know where we are.’
Time to put him out of his misery. ‘That’s King’s College,’ she said, nodding down the alleyway.
Michael’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’ Her transgression was instantly forgotten. He stared open-mouthed like she’d just told him they’d found Atlantis. She grinned, grabbed his jacket and pulled him down the street, past a church with a squat golden-brick tower that looked like it had been squeezed in between other buildings, and a pub where people had spilled out onto the pavement, smoking and stamping their feet against compacted snow. The road opened onto a wider street, lined with shops on one side and King’s College on the other.
Poppy and Michael stopped moving.
Carefully placed streetlamps lit the stone façade. The college looked more like a film set than an actual building, let alone a place where teenagers drank, partied and occasionally picked up a book. Everywhere, the bone-coloured stone was adorned with archways, chimneys and intricately carved turrets that seemed to have been chiselled out of the billowing snow clouds.
She’d seen the pictures in the prospectus – Michael had kept it open on his desk for the last two months so it had been hard to miss – but the photographs hadn’t done the college justice. And for the first time she felt a small pang of jealousy that Michael might be living here in just over nine months’ time.
She glanced up at him. His lips were parted, and his eyes clouded with dreams of his future. She was happy for him – she really was. Going to Cambridge had been his ambition since he was ten years old. But a nagging, selfish voice couldn’t help complaining that after all the time it had taken for them to admit to each other that they were more than just good friends, he was going to leave. And come here. Without her!
‘It’s certainly impressive,’ she forced herself to say.
Michael nodded. ‘It’s only a building but...’ He shrugged.
‘There was an article in the New Scientist that said that listening to Bach can actually make you smarter – something to do with the structure and the intricacy of the patterns. I wonder if it’s the same with architecture. Because I’m pretty sure that just looking at that college could make you smarter.’
‘What about kissing smart girls? Does that make you smarter?’ Despite his smile, his brow creased and she wondered whether he too could hear the clock ticking down on their relationship.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.’
‘Nahh. Me neither.’
Poppy whacked the back of her hand against his stomach.
‘Oof!’ Michael groaned, doubling over like she’d lamped him. ‘Right, that’s it!’ He looked up and grinned from beneath the sodden fringe that flopped over his eyes.
Poppy set off, dodging between the groups of students huddled together, holding each other up after a night in the pub, their college scarves wrapped around faces and hoods weighed down with snow. She could hear Michael’s feet pounding the cobbles behind her, and a disgruntled someone shouting, ‘Hey! Watch where you’re going!’
She kept running, despite the way her feet were sliding off cobbles, and took the road she thought would lead to Trinity College. With every step, the straps of her backpack cut deeper into her shoulders and the freezing night air stabbed her lungs with icy little daggers. She wished she had left her Mac at home, and a couple of the books weighing her down. She was almost relieved when a hand grabbed her arm and yanked her to a stop. She giggled as her legs wobbled dangerously.
Michael’s cheeks were blotched red and he puffed out clouds of steam like a racehorse that had just won the Grand National. He grinned, and before she knew what was happening, he’d pushed her up against a shop window, his lips were on hers, and his hands were seeking her body through the padded waterproof.
All the breath that was in her disappeared, creating a vacuum; a need stronger than she’d ever felt for anyone or anything. It made her head whirl and her heart dance. Don’t stop, she wanted to tell him. Don’t ever stop. But he did.
Michael broke the kiss and stepped back. His eyes were wide and just for a second, she thought she saw that same need in him, and like a black hole it sucked her closer to him.
He looked away, took a deep breath and brushed his sopping hair out of his eyes. ‘Come on,’ he said, with an almost shy smile. ‘It’s this way, isn’t it?’
She took his warm hand and they walked up the winding street in silence as if neither one of them knew what to say about what had just happened.
When they’d first started going out the kissing had been a bit awkward. They’d been so careful with each other, as if after years of being best friends they were frightened of breaking this new thing that they had. But four months later that fear had melted away. And now after five months it had been replaced with something dangerous and even more scary: need.
The snow was falling more heavily now, whirling around them so fast that it was hard to see beyond the dance of the snowflakes. They tingled against Poppy’s cheeks and cooled her kiss-bruised lips but she felt dizzy, like she was falling with them; tossed around on waves of wanting that seemed to creep up on her and then drown her. Would tonight stop her from feeling so overwhelmed by all of this? If they just did it would she feel less out of control?
‘It’ll be OK,’ Michael said, softly. And for a second she thought he was talking about tonight. Oh God, did he know? Had he guessed why she’d really wanted to come with him?
‘Terms here are really short. And then when you go to Manchester next year we can see each other at weekends.’
Oh. He was still thinking about that. ‘Yeah,’ she agreed, although she doubted it would be that simple.
He squeezed her hand. ‘Hey, I think this is it.’
Ahead of them was a strange building of red brick and golden stone. Between two turret-like towers was an arched oak door and above that a statue of a king who had gained a few extra pounds where the snow had clung to his waistline. The scene reminded Poppy of something from a book: the gateway to another kingdom, another world. A world she knew nothing of.
Dad’s world.
She sighed. She’d almost forgotten that she was about to see Dad.
Tension knotted in her spine. Her feet stopped moving. Michael stopped too. He’d just turned to her when a smaller door to the right of the main entrance opened and that Other World spat out three of its creatures.
The first was a dark-haired guy dressed in a tuxedo and bow tie that was partly undone, like someone had tugged on it, but not quite managed to unknot it. He tripped out of the door, turned and held his hand out for the next: a girl with ice-blonde hair and a red dress that, although floor-length, was slit almost to her waist and left very little to the imagination.
The last guy had on a dinner jacket similar to his compatriot, but this guy had finished the look with a black gangster hat and two bottles of wine that swung from his hands like he was about to juggle with them. Instead, he took a swig from one and handed it to the girl.
She put the bottle to her lips, threw back her head and drank. Sh
e shuddered.
‘Was this from the dining room? Tastes like cat piss!’
The guy laughed as she turned the bottle upside down. The yellowy white wine poured out onto the ground and where it met a patch of white snow it did indeed look like something, or someone, had taken a leak.
As the last drops drained, the girl’s gaze connected with Poppy’s. She threw the empty bottle back to the gangster and walked slowly and unsteadily towards Poppy and Michael.
‘Well, what do we have here? Tourists?’
Poppy and Michael exchanged a wary glance.
‘I’m here for an interview,’ Michael piped up.
Snowflakes sparkled in the girl’s long, straight blonde hair, making it appear almost as white as her bloodless skin. She had the face of a doll; wide blue eyes, sweetheart lips framed by flawless porcelain.
The girl stopped in front of them and those large blue eyes examined Poppy’s face like someone would a painting. Her expression remained fixed: inquisitive, almost perplexed. Then her gaze slid over to Michael. She was almost as tall as him and seeing this beautiful and unworldly creature toe-to-toe with him made Poppy slightly nauseous.
The girl reached up a hand and caressed his cheek.
‘The face of a poet,’ she murmured, as if lost in a dream.
Michael swallowed, but said nothing.
Suddenly she whirled around. ‘Snow!’ she squealed excitedly, as if noticing the weather for the first time.
‘What are you doing?’ one of the guys called to her, as the girl ran to the roped-off triangle of ground that Poppy imagined had once been grass before becoming a snowdrift. She hopped over the chain-link barrier and, without hesitation, flung herself backwards into the snow. Not worrying what she might be showing to the world, she began flapping her arms and legs, carving out the wings and gown of a snow angel. But her skin and hair was so pale that she seemed to disappear into the white, leaving only the red dress a bloodstain against the snow.