Stargazing for Beginners Read online

  Annie stares at me. ‘That frown’s come back and it’s bigger than ever.’

  ‘Yeah, well … I’m worried.’ For a moment, I think about telling Annie everything. Maybe she could make me feel better about Mum, just like she’s made me feel better about Bella and Ed … No. I don’t really know her and if I tell her; things will only get more complicated than they already are.

  Annie’s hand lands on my arm again, only this time her fingers don’t dig in. ‘Relax, Meg. I can get you out of school. It’s so easy.’

  Five minutes later, Annie’s forged note about my orthodontist’s appointment (investigative wisdom tooth work) has been signed off by Mr Curtis and the receptionist.

  ‘Wisdom teeth?’ she says. ‘Nasty. I imagine you’ll be needing tomorrow off as well.’

  ‘Maybe …’

  ‘Off you go then!’

  And that’s it. I’m walking out of school, a free woman. Well, as free as a fifteen-year-old can feel when she’s going to pick up her baby sister with her ‘nasty nappies’, whatever that means. I walk quickly down the high street, trying not to think about all the work I’m going to miss at school and reminding myself that Mum’s back in just five days.

  Even though five days feels like six years away right now, I can’t help smiling.

  Geek-rack. Annie doesn’t know what she’s talking about …

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘Here she is,’ says Dawn, dumping Elsa in my arms.

  Usually when I pick Elsa up, she gives me some sort of violent affection like scratching my face or grabbing at my nose, but today she just slumps in my arms and sucks her thumb. I put my hand on her red cheek. It feels dry and far too hot. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘She’s running a temperature. Your mum will know what to do.’ Dawn passes me her bag. ‘I’m surprised your mum sent her in because she obviously wasn’t right this morning.’

  ‘She ate all her breakfast.’

  ‘She had a temperature,’ says Dawn, folding her arms.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, because I think it’s what she’s waiting for. Then I turn and walk down the path.

  ‘Tell your mum not to send her back until she’s totally better.’

  ‘I will!’ I call back.

  I take Elsa straight home then ring Grandad. This time he answers.

  ‘She’s boiling hot,’ I say, tucking the phone under my ear and unbuttoning Elsa’s cardigan. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘When I’ve got a temperature I have a nip of whisky then go for a dip in the sea,’ he says. ‘Works every time.’ After I point out how spectacularly unhelpful this advice is, he tells me to give her Calpol, adding, ‘Babies love the stuff.’

  ‘Yep, we’ve got some,’ I say once I’ve checked the medicine cupboard.

  ‘Give her a bit of that and she’ll be back to normal in an hour. I’ll pop round and see how she’s doing.’

  My first instinct is to put him off, tell him she’s fine with me, but Elsa’s behaving so strangely that I would quite like to see him, no matter what madness he might bring with him.

  Elsa slurps the medicine straight down then I put her in her cot and she curls up on her side and watches me through the bars.

  ‘I’m going to sit on the bed and work, OK?’

  She rubs her face on one of her muslin cloths and carries on staring at me so I get out my speech cards and start reading through them, looking for places where I can ‘add pizazz’ or a bit more Meg … whatever that means. Every now and then I glance up at Elsa because it’s slightly unnerving how quiet she’s being.

  After an hour, I hear the front door click open and Grandad walks in. He’s wearing Lycra shorts and his anorak, which tells me he’s taking his bike on the Downs.

  ‘Where’s the patient?’ he says, going over to Elsa. ‘Hello, there!’ Elsa flops on her back and smiles up at him. Grandad sits on the end of the bed and puts his hand through the bars so he can stroke her forehead.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ I say.

  ‘Go on then. I brought round some cakes.’ He passes me a Tupperware box. ‘They taste better than they look.’

  I open the box and see a crumbly green mess. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘They’re made from foraged seaweed. Loads of vitamin C in them.’

  Grandad’s right. They do taste better than they look and while we drink our tea and eat green sludge cake, Grandad suggests various ways I can improve my speech. Basically his suggestions are ideas for costumes, because he thinks every situation in life is improved with fancy dress. I tell him that there’s no way I’m dressing up as a star, a planet or an alien, but that I will wear the necklace Mum gave me with the letter ‘M’ written as binary code.

  ‘It’s relevant, but it won’t make me look stupid,’ I say.

  ‘It won’t make you look anything,’ he says with a shake of his head. ‘No one will even see it.’

  We carry on talking about the competition and at some point Elsa falls asleep and starts snoring. It’s strange hanging out in Mum’s bedroom when she’s not here. It feels like she’s just in the kitchen or something. Her grey jumper is still draped across the corner of Elsa’s cot and her Tinker Bell nightie is poking out from under her pillow. Also, every now and then I get this faint Mum smell – a cross between mint tea and incense.

  We’ve moved on to exciting facts I could add when Grandad suddenly pulls a postcard out of his pocket. ‘I got this today,’ he says, passing it over. ‘It’s from Alice. Sounds like she’s enjoying herself.’

  On the front is a photo of temples rising majestically through the mist. I turn it over. All that is written on the back are the words, I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way! X Alice

  I stare at the words. ‘Well, she did know where she was going,’ I say. ‘She bought a plane ticket, got on a plane and flew to Myanmar.’

  Grandad laughs. ‘True, but I think she’s referring to her emotional journey rather than the physical one. She’s been wanting to get back into nursing for some time. Maybe that’s what she means.’

  I drop the postcard among the clutter on Mum’s bedside table. Grandad sees the look on my face. ‘What’s the matter?’

  I start collecting up all my speech cards and arranging them in order. ‘Mum knew how much I wanted to go to Houston. How come we didn’t have the money for that, but she could pay the airfare to go to Myanmar?’

  ‘I doubt she’s got the money to pay for that either. There’ll be a big credit card bill on its way soon. Alice doesn’t always think before she acts.’

  ‘Well, maybe she should.’

  Grandad looks up at me and frowns. ‘Don’t be like that, love. I know she’s doing her best.’

  ‘If she was doing her best she’d be here, right now, looking after Elsa, and I’d be at school!’

  ‘Meg, when Alice’s mum died, I was living –’

  ‘In a tree. I know, Grandad, you’ve told me loads of times.’

  ‘So Alice came to live with me and we hardly knew each other. I’d been abroad most of her life, popping back to see her every now and then. I did my best, but my best was rubbish.’

  I shake my head. ‘You’re always making excuses for her.’

  ‘No,’ says Grandad. ‘I’m just telling you what happened. I’d be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I criticised her for going away for two weeks – I used to go away for months, years!’

  ‘Well … you’re here now,’ I say quickly, ‘and just because you weren’t around when she was little, doesn’t mean she has to do the same to us. She could try.’

  ‘I think she is trying.’

  ‘Well, maybe she needs to try harder!’

  My voice comes out so loud that we both automatically look towards Elsa in her cot to check she hasn’t woken up. Grandad reaches out and pats my foot. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘And now you’re having to miss school, which you hate. Why don’t you go back in now I’m here?’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t. They think I’m having s
ome sort of tooth operation.’

  ‘Well, Elsa’s asleep, so how about I take Pongo for a walk, leave you to catch up with some work?’

  And get out of an awkward conversation, I think, but still I nod and say, ‘OK, thanks, Grandad.’

  Just as he’s leaving the room, he stops and drums his fingers on the doorframe. ‘I know Alice drives you up the wall, but have you ever wondered what life would be like if she was different?’ He raises one finger up in the air and says dramatically, ‘One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star!’

  Whenever Grandad speaks like this, I know he’s quoting someone and he’s expecting me to say who it is. I haven’t a clue about this one so I take a guess. ‘Was that Nietzsche?’ If in doubt, I always go with Nietzsche or Galileo.

  ‘Well done!’

  ‘And what you’re saying is …’

  ‘The greatest ideas and innovations are often the result of chaos.’

  ‘Yeah, and they’re also often the result of going to school and getting good GCSE results instead of sitting around in your mum’s bedroom looking after your sister!’ I flop back on the bed.

  He laughs. ‘Well, maybe,’ then he shouts for Pongo. ‘I hope he’s in a hunting mood. I fancy rabbit pie for dinner.’

  ‘He catches more squirrels than rabbits.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ he says, then he gives Elsa a last stroke on the head and clips on Pongo’s lead. ‘We’ll be back in an hour or so.’ Just before he goes, he turns and raises his fist in the air. ‘Poyekhali, Meg!’

  Poyekhali. It means ‘Let’s go’ in Russian and it’s what Yuri Gagarin said the moment his rocket blasted off from Earth and he became the first human being to visit space. Basically it’s Grandad’s motto for life; he’s got it tattooed on his arm, and so has Mum. I bet she took a look at it when she got on that plane to Myanmar.

  Usually I’d shout, ‘Poyekhali!’ back, but right now I’m feeling that my family could do with a bit less adventurous spirit. Instead, I say, ‘Watch out for badger holes,’ and Grandad’s punched fist dissolves into a wave.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  With Elsa asleep and Pongo out with Grandad, the flat is unusually quiet.

  I take advantage of the unexpected free time and have a long bath, then I sit on the floor next to Elsa’s cot and start writing an English essay. Every now and then I stick my hand through the bars to feel her forehead. At some point, I get distracted by Facebook. Annie’s sent me a picture of a skull-shaped asteroid and her message reads: I’ve found something we can both appreciate.

  I go on her page and lose myself looking at her life, or at least the life she wants to share. She’s got a lot of friends and I recognise some of them from Sixth Form, and she seems to be into animals, living or dead. She reposts pictures of badly stuffed animals, and there are also films of donkeys wagging their tails and puppies wearing clothes. Oh, and her rats. She might have as many pictures of her rats as I have of moons.

  I send her a picture of Kleopatra, an asteroid shaped like a dog’s bone. A few minutes later she replies: OMG! We have so much in common!!!

  That’s when I remember Elsa. This time when I rest my hand on her forehead it feels far hotter than before and her cheeks are bright red. I take her temperature and the thermometer reads thirty-nine degrees.

  That can’t be good. I check a few websites and they all seem to agree that you need to contact a health professional if a baby’s temperature goes over forty, but I can’t do that. What would a doctor say if they came round here and found us on our own? Before, when Elsa’s been ill, Mum’s taken her to the out-of-hours surgery at the hospital, but a fifteen-year-old can’t turn up with her baby sister with some lame story about her mum’s slipped disc.

  I try Grandad’s mobile but it goes straight to voicemail, and there’s no answer at his flat. He said he’d be back ‘in an hour or so’, but he’s already been gone for over two. I stare down at Elsa as I try to decide what to do. She’s started making these whimpery noises like she’s halfway between being asleep and awake. I put the thermometer on her forehead and this time it reads forty. I can’t wait for Grandad – who knows what’s distracting him. I’m just going to have to get Elsa’s temperature down myself.

  I lift Elsa out of her cot and lie her on Mum’s bed. Her head flops to one side, but she still doesn’t wake up. I take her out of her sleep bag and pull open the poppers on her Babygro. Without touching her, I can feel the heat radiating off her chest.

  ‘Elsa?’ I give her shoulder a shake. ‘Wake up. I’ve got some yummy medicine for you.’

  Her eyes flutter open, but when she sees me, her face crumples and she starts crying. It’s not her usual scream, but something much weaker. I try to squeeze the medicine into her mouth, but she shakes her head and half of it ends up dribbling down her chin.

  ‘Now you’re going to be sticky and hot,’ I say, trying to hide the panic that’s building up inside me. I get her to drink some water from a sucky mug, but then she pushes it away, and carries on crying.

  ‘Elsa.’ I lie next to her and hold her foot. I don’t want to get any closer in case I make her even hotter. ‘I know you feel horrible but it’s really a brilliant thing that you feel this ill.’ Still whimpering, she sticks her thumb in her mouth. ‘Really!’ I say. ‘You have an infection and your amazing body is fighting it. Right now, your inner core,’ I draw a circle on her chest, ‘is getting hotter. Your body is killing the bacteria and viruses inside you.’ She grabs hold of my finger. ‘See, you’re already getting stronger!’

  For the next hour, I lie next to her, obsessively touching her forehead and checking her body to make sure she’s not got any rashes and slowly, slowly, her temperature drops. Eventually she drifts off to sleep. As I listen to her ragged breathing, I find myself thinking about what Grandad said. What if he’s right? What if Mum can’t help putting herself first and going off and leaving us because that’s what happened to her when she was little? If that’s true, then does that mean that I’ll be like that when I grow up? No, I think, because I’ll never have children and that way I’ll never make anyone feel as scared as I feel right now.

  I look at Elsa. Her arms are flopped above her head and she’s stretched out like a starfish.

  A horrible thought creeps into my mind. What if it’s too late to stop the pattern? What if I’ve already become that person who turns away from people? I remember what Ed said, about how I ‘never even crack a smile’, and how I refused to let Grandad come and stay round here. I feel a tightness in my chest and I stroke Elsa’s damp hair off her forehead. I thought my loneliness was temporary, but what if I’ve got it for life?

  I put my finger back in Elsa’s hand. Even though she’s fast asleep, her fingers curl around it and hold on tight. It feels like she’s never going to let go.

  We must fall asleep like that because when I wake up a bit later, we’re still holding hands. I ease my finger out of her grasp then put her back in her cot. The thermometer says her temperature’s down to thirty-eight, so I put a blanket over her and stand there looking down at her.

  Suddenly, there’s a bang and a clatter as Pongo and Grandad come into the flat.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, love,’ Grandad says as he bursts into the room. His cheeks are rosy red and he brings a bit of the cold night air in with him. ‘I was out for longer than I realised, then I discovered one of the chickens had escaped –’

  ‘Shhh!’ I say, nodding towards Elsa.

  ‘Ah, been sleeping the whole time, has she?’

  I think back over the trauma of the past few hours. ‘Kind of,’ I say.

  ‘I thought I’d make us fried egg sandwiches – Pongo didn’t catch a rabbit or a squirrel – and that I might stay here tonight, help you keep an eye on Elsa. What do you think?’

  I pull Elsa’s blanket up so that it’s covering her hands. Then I turn and look at Grandad. ‘I think that’s a really good idea.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

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nbsp; I wake up the next day to find the electricity turned off and Grandad trying to mend a broken light in the living room. Once I’ve helped him fix the light, and Elsa’s woken up happy and cool, Grandad goes home to look after his chickens, leaving a trail of destruction behind him – newspapers are scattered across the kitchen floor (he went through the recycling searching for a crossword), my toolbox is tipped over in the front room, and mud and leaves are scattered over the carpet from his walk with Pongo.

  It doesn’t matter. I’ve decided to take the day off to look after Elsa and it won’t take me long to tidy up. It was nice having him here this morning. Messy, but nice.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take her?’ Grandad asks as he leaves the flat.

  Elsa’s hands tighten round my neck.

  ‘A day off school won’t kill me,’ I say. I know that what Elsa needs is a calm, quiet day at home, and Grandad’s incapable of doing either calm or quiet.

  Even though Elsa hasn’t got a temperature any more, she’s sleepier than usual so in between watching Peppa Pig and building towers, I have a lot of time to think. I think about Mum being my age and going to live with her dad, a man she hardly knew, and I think about Elsa. When she’s fifteen, I’ll be over thirty! That’s so old …

  I realise I’ve never included Elsa in any of my big plans for the future. I try putting her in a few of them, just to see how it feels, but it’s hard because I don’t know what she’s going to be like. As the day goes on, though, I realise that there are some clues about who grown-up Elsa will be. Stubborn, I think, as she refuses to put on the red socks I’ve chosen. When I watch her study a jigsaw piece, then turn it and slot it into place, I see that she’s already clever. And when I’m lying on the sofa and she’s playing, she tries to feed me increasingly bizarre things – my phone, a fairy, her shoe – and the more surprised I am by what she produces, the more she laughs.

  Stubborn, clever and funny.

  I decide I’m looking forward to meeting future Elsa. And just like that, I realise I can see Elsa and I together in the future. Mum might bring her to visit me at university and I could show her the experiments I’m working on … Or we could go to Chile together to see the Giant Magellan Telescope. It’s supposed to be finished in 2025 and will be ten times more powerful than the Hubble telescope. Elsa will be eleven and I’ll be twenty-five. I know Mum will let me take her.