Stargazing for Beginners Read online

  I try to grab Pongo’s collar, but he darts out of my reach, and then there’s a clatter of metal against concrete as the chair he’s tied to flips over. ‘Pongo!’ I yell, but he’s already dashing after the cyclist, dragging the metal chair along behind him.

  A waitress bursts out of the cafe. ‘That’s our chair!’

  Jackson grabs his skateboard. ‘I’ll get it!’ he says, pushing himself off.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say to the waitress, dumping Elsa on Rose’s lap. Then I run after Pongo as well.

  Up ahead, I can see him causing mayhem.

  The curving prom is packed with people enjoying the sun. It’s almost like a perfect scene on a postcard – complete with ice cream, chips and buckets and spades – only there’s a dog tearing through the middle of the scene, scattering holidaymakers in all directions.

  ‘Pongo!’ I shout, as an old lady screams and her husband makes a grab for the chair. ‘Pongo, stop!’ But he totally ignores me and I watch as he bounds along, head held high, clearly loving his run along the seafront … even if he is being slightly held back by the chair tied to his neck.

  ‘Stop that dog!’ Jackson calls, shooting along on his skateboard and making full use of the path Pongo’s cleared for him. ‘He’s a thief!’

  Suddenly, Pongo swerves up some stairs – he seems to have forgotten about chasing the cyclist – and the chair gets wedged between a bin and the wall. I hear a yelp, and by the time Jackson and I get there, Pongo’s lying in the sun with his tongue hanging out.

  Jackson leans on his skateboard, laughing and trying to get his breath back.

  ‘You are a bad dog!’ I say, as I untie his lead from the chair. ‘A very bad dog!’

  Rose appears next to us. ‘No he’s not,’ she says ruffling his coat. ‘He’s a little cutie!’

  ‘Rose,’ I say, ‘he’s not a cutie, he’s a baddie … And what have you done with Elsa?’

  ‘Annie’s got her,’ she says, throwing her arms round Pongo’s neck like he’s some sort of hero.

  We make our way back to Fusciardi’s, Jackson carrying the chair and Rose holding Jackson’s skateboard. ‘Sorry,’ I mutter, each time anyone gives me or Pongo a dirty look.

  As we get near to the cafe, Rose nudges me and says, ‘Look.’ Sitting on a bench, their hands wrapped round their drinks, are Ed and Bella. It’s almost like they’re lying in wait for us.

  ‘We got him!’ Jackson says, holding the chair triumphantly above his head.

  ‘Congratulations,’ says Bella, then she turns and whispers something in Ed’s ear.

  He frowns and shakes his head, but after another look from her, he calls out, ‘Glad you got your dog!’

  For some reason, this makes Bella collapse with laughter. There’s something about her laugh, how helpless it is, and how she’s looking at me at the same time, that makes me wonder if Ed’s told her about yesterday.

  I feel my cheeks burn and I start to walk faster, tugging Pongo along behind me, and then I hear Bella’s voice, rising loud and clear above the seagulls and the waves, saying, ‘Sooo embarrassing!’

  I’m not quite sure if she’s talking about me or Pongo, and I’m not hanging around to find out. She right. That was sooo embarrassing and the only thing that can make me feel better right now is a huge glass packed full of ice cream, cake and cream.

  We find Elsa slumped on Annie’s lap, chewing a wafer and staring at the sea. Annie’s arms are wrapped round her waist. ‘I like her,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t talk and she smells kind of milky.’

  ‘Doesn’t she!’ says Rose.

  Elsa looks sleepy so I leave her with Annie and sit down, only this time I twist Pongo’s lead several times round my wrist. We all go back to our melting sundaes.

  After a moment, Rose says, ‘Did you see that lady’s face? She went purple!’

  ‘Pongo made her drop her chips,’ I say.

  ‘She shouted, “Yobbo!” after you,’ says Rose.

  ‘I’ve never been called a yobbo before,’ I say.

  ‘I have,’ says Jackson, ‘loads of times,’ and for some reason this makes us burst out laughing. Elsa jiggles up and down on Annie’s lap and then she starts laughing too.

  ‘Oh no,’ says Annie, ‘I just realised something.’

  ‘What?’ says Jackson.

  ‘Look at us.’ She shakes her head. ‘We’ve only gone and socially connected. Mr Curtis is going to be unbearable.’

  ‘To Biscuit Club!’ says Jackson, raising his milkshake glass. Rose and I join him and we chink glasses in the middle of the table.

  ‘No way,’ says Annie, shaking her head again. ‘Absolutely no way.’

  When Elsa and I get home, I do my usual checks and look at my texts, emails and Facebook. There’s nothing from Mum, but I do have a friend request, from Annie.

  I’m not Facebook friends with anyone from school. If I accept, then Annie will see that most of my ‘friends’ are telescopes or space agencies, and she’ll see the hundreds of moon photos I’ve shared. But then I realise that I’ll see what she loves too and I think I’d like to know that. Before I can change my mind, I click accept.

  So now Annie and I are friends. It’s official.

  She sends me my first message while I’m feeding Elsa pasta shapes. She posts a photo on my timeline of a man’s hairy bum. Below it she’s written: Thought you’d like to add this to your moon collection. I stare at the picture wondering what the Sussex Stargazers will make of it. Suddenly I get another message: Let me know if you want to see a black hole, you space freak. X Annie

  I’m smiling when I look up to see Elsa casually flip her bowl of pasta on to the floor. She hangs her head over the side of her high chair and watches as Pongo bounces around, gobbling it up.

  ‘That’s annoying,’ I say. ‘I haven’t got any more left so now you’re going to have to sit there while I make you some toast.’

  ‘Da?’ says Elsa, holding out a single pasta spiral to me. I reach out for it, but just before I can take it, she lets it drop to the floor then laughs like mad. I feel the usual prickle of annoyance, but then something new happens. I pick up the piece of pasta and hold it out to her. As her hand is reaching for it, I let it slip through my fingers.

  ‘Whoops!’ I say.

  Elsa’s head falls back and she laughs so hard that it’s impossible not to join in. Then I realise that the prickle has faded away to nothing.

  It’s amazing what a positive effect a hairy bum can have on your mood.

  THIRTY

  Back at school, Ed and I don’t talk about Saturday, and we certainly don’t share any lightning-quick waves. The first time I see him is in maths and he arrives after the lesson has started. A paranoid part of me wonders if he’s done this on purpose, but he doesn’t do anything else to suggest he’s avoiding me. In fact, it’s like the hair rubbing and electric shock never happened. Two minutes into the lesson, he leans towards me and whispers, ‘Got a pen?’ and that’s it. Everything’s back to normal, with Ed checking his score against mine in an equations test and casually asking if I’m ready to be ‘totally destroyed’ in the NASA competition as we leave the room.

  I’m actually more nervous about going to science and seeing Bella, and discovering if Ed’s told her about the Cool Cosmos show. But it’s business as usual and as the lesson goes on, and Bella squabbles with Raj about a calculator and calls me a ‘nerdasaurus’ for owning a pen with a spirit level, I realise Ed can’t have told her about Saturday.

  And I’m relieved, of course I am – if Ed had told her everything I’d done, Bella would have destroyed me – but I’m also left feeling a bit flat. I thought that something changed on Saturday, and that the way Ed and I had laughed and talked as we went round the science centre would transfer to school in some way. But it looks like I got that wrong: Bella and Raj are arguing, Ed’s rolling his eyes and joining in occasionally, and I’m just sitting here in silence, like I’m invisible.

  Nothing’s changed at all.
/>   THIRTY-ONE

  ‘Don’t talk to me, Meg,’ says Ms Edgecombe. ‘I need to concentrate on not killing anyone.’

  It’s the next day and I’m sitting at the front of the minibus beside Ms Edgecombe as she drives us to Sussex University. Not talking suits me as it gives me time to text Grandad to remind him to pick up Elsa. It also means I get to stare out of the window, watch the countryside fly past, and think about Little Acorns, or, more precisely, Dawn.

  I’m not sure if I’m being paranoid, but this morning Dawn started asking me questions about Mum. It felt like she was trying to catch me out. ‘Did you get Elsa’s bag ready today?’ she asked. When I told her that I put everything in and then Mum checked it, she narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Riiight,’ really slowly. Then she asked why Mum had stopped putting in organic baby wipes. ‘Too expensive,’ I said, deciding to stick to the truth.

  I’m glad Grandad’s picking Elsa up this afternoon. He’s a much better liar than me.

  Soon we’re turning off the dual carriageway and I see a jumble of buildings squeezed into a gap in the hills. ‘Here we are,’ says Ms Edgecombe.

  ‘It’s huge,’ I say. The university looks like a small town. It even has road signs directing traffic to the different departments.

  ‘First time you’ve ever been here?’

  I nod, staring at the looming concrete buildings. ‘First time I’ve been to any university.’

  She smiles. ‘I think you’ll like it, Meg.’

  Once we’ve parked, Miss leads us across the campus and I try to take in every detail: the sweeping lawns, the groups of students, the church that’s shaped like a circus tent. We pass a girl sitting on a wall, totally absorbed in a book. She’s all alone, but she doesn’t stand out or seem at all bothered. In fact, as I look around I see there are loads of students on their own.

  I feel more at home at this huge university than I do at school.

  A PhD student called Jolina meets us in the reception area and takes us to a door secured with a keypad and plastered with WARNING and DANGER signs. She explains that she’s going to give us a tour of a research lab. ‘Is anyone here interested in quantum mechanics?’ she asks. ‘Because that’s my passion.’

  Jolina is young, she’s wearing skinny jeans, she’s got a tattoo of a flying swan on the inside of her wrist … and her passion is quantum mechanics. I put my hand up, suddenly not caring that everyone has turned to stare at me. ‘I love quantum mechanics,’ I say.

  Jolina smiles. ‘Good,’ she says, ‘then you’ll like it in here, because we’re trying to build the world’s first quantum computer.’

  The lab is quite simply the most amazing place I’ve ever been in my life.

  It’s dark and crammed with lasers, computers and a mass of wires that twist across the ceiling and walls. Heavy plastic curtains divide the room into sections and a deep sucking noise echoes constantly throughout the lab.

  ‘That’s cooling the ions to minus two hundred and sixty degrees,’ says Jolina, raising her voice to be heard over the machine. ‘I don’t really notice the sound now.’

  She stops by a computer and points at the screen. ‘This is an atom I isolated this morning.’ She says this casually, like she’s talking about a cup of tea she made.

  We lean forward and stare at the single fuzzy dot. Ms Edgecombe laughs. ‘I never thought I’d see an atom!’

  ‘Does anyone know how small this little thing actually is?’ asks Jolina. No one speaks so she looks straight at me, the girl who ‘loves’ quantum mechanics. ‘Do you know?’

  I do, sort of. And because I feel like we’re in my world now, where being fascinated by quantum mechanics is normal, I clear my throat and start to talk. ‘There are three thousand million, million, million molecules in a drop of water,’ I say, ‘and each one of those molecules contains three atoms.’ Jolina nods so I carry on. ‘If you know there are around five sextillion atoms in a drop of water, you can almost understand how tiny that atom is.’

  Jolina says, ‘Beautifully put,’ and her smile gives me the confidence to carry on.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ I say, nodding at the miraculous dot, ‘because that is basically what every single thing in the universe is made of.’

  Someone leans close to me. I smell lemon and vanilla. ‘Calm down, Mega Knickers,’ Bella whispers in my ear.

  An icy feeling sweeps through me and all my excitement vanishes. Ed tuts, which only makes Bella laugh and say, ‘What?’

  Jolina’s started to talk about lasers, but I can’t concentrate on what she’s saying, and it’s not just because Bella made me feel stupid. Knowing that Ed has told Bella all about the workshop, and that they must have been laughing about me behind my back, makes me feel as alone as that buzzing atom on the screen.

  I fall to the back of the group, and watch the rest of the tour in silence. At the end, when Jolina says, ‘Does anyone know how many quantum numbers are needed to describe the properties of an electron in an atom?’ I look away.

  ‘Two?’ says Ed.

  Four, I think. It’s four.

  ‘No,’ says Jolina. ‘There are four.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  When the tour is over, we’re taken to a lab where we start defusing alien bombs and illuminating streams of water drops with a strobe. The teacher tells me I’m ‘a natural’ and even hands me a prospectus for the university. I hold the brochure on my lap as Ms Edgecombe dismisses everyone for lunch. ‘Make sure you’re back here in an hour,’ she says.

  Once everyone else has gone, I go out into the corridor. I find Ed leaning on the wall opposite, waiting for me. He stands up. ‘Ready to work on our presentations?’ he asks.

  I look at him. I’d forgotten all about that. Right now, Ed doesn’t look like someone who would ever allow a balloon to be stuck to his hair. He just looks like the tall, good-looking boy who for years has either ignored me or tried to beat me, depending on what’s suited him best.

  I shrug. ‘OK.’

  ‘So where shall we go?’

  ‘Wherever.’ I know I sound rude, but I don’t care. ‘Here?’ I say.

  ‘Here? In this corridor?’ He laughs. ‘Let’s go to that cafe we walked past.’

  ‘Fine,’ I say, and I follow him outside, across the lawn and up a flight of stairs.

  We stand outside the crowded cafe and students pass us, looking curiously at our uniforms. ‘Do you think this is OK?’ he says, hanging back.

  I look at the prices on the menu. ‘It’s fine,’ I say, pushing open the door. ‘Come on.’

  After Ed’s bought sandwiches and crisps, and I’ve got a hot chocolate, we find a free table. Even though the cafe’s busy, it’s strangely quiet because so many of the students are working. I get out the roll I brought from home, my phone and a pad of paper. ‘So,’ I say, ‘do you want to go first? Read through your notes?’ I write ‘Ed’s Presentation’ at the top of a piece of paper.

  ‘Was your dog OK?’ asks Ed.

  I look up. For a moment I don’t know what he’s talking about. Then I realise he’s talking about Pongo’s dash along the sea front. ‘Oh, yes, he’s fine. Have you brought your stuff with you?’

  ‘You had to look after your sister again, didn’t you?’ I nod and Ed plays with the wrapper on his sandwich. ‘I didn’t realise you were friends with Jackson and Annie.’

  I look at him. ‘We’ve not got long. We should get on with this.’

  He starts to open his sandwiches, then puts the packet down. ‘Look, Meg, are you angry with me, or something?’

  I feel my cheeks start to go red so I stare out of the window. The whole of the university is stretched out in front of me. I watch a girl and boy kick a football backwards and forward across a road. When I can be sure that I can speak in a normal voice, I say, ‘I suppose I didn’t like what Bella said.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘the Mega Knickers thing.’

  ‘Right. Mega Knickers.’ I look back at him. ‘I mean, did you tell her everything?’
/>   ‘About Saturday? Um …’ Now it’s his turn to look embarrassed. ‘Quite a bit, but I didn’t know it was some kind of secret.’

  ‘You didn’t think she might go on about it?’

  He opens his crisps. ‘Well, I know she’s got a big mouth and she likes making people laugh, but –’ he shrugs ‘– she usually knows when to stop.’

  ‘She never stops. She’s been saying stuff like that for years and you laugh along with her.’

  He sits back in his seat. ‘If it bothers you so much, why do you never tell us to shut up?’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say!’

  Something about the way I say this makes him put down his crisps and look up at me. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you go around school with your friends, laughing at people, and –’

  ‘No we don’t!’

  I can tell he’s getting angry, but I’m angry too. He didn’t call me ‘Mega Knickers’ back in the lab, but he might as well have. ‘You laugh at me in science all the time!’

  ‘That’s called trying to be nice, Meg. You never speak to us so what are we supposed to do? Just ignore your silent, lurking presence?’

  ‘My what?’

  A man at the next table turns round to stare at me; Ed leans back and does this smug smile. ‘Bella’s right about you.’

  ‘Why? What does she say?’

  ‘That you’re uptight. I told her you’re not – or at least you weren’t when you were running around that tent throwing things in flour – but at school you never even crack a smile. You need to lighten up, Meg, and …’

  ‘And do what?’ I say loudly.

  ‘Let your hair down!’

  A rush of irritation sweeps through me. ‘Yeah? Well, Annie’s right about you!’

  He raises one eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

  ‘She says you look down your nose at everyone and do this all the time –’ I raise one eyebrow and attempt to do his one-sided smile. Ed bursts out laughing. ‘See?’ I say. ‘You’re doing it right now!’

  ‘Well, it looks like we’re both friends with someone who doesn’t know when to be quiet!’