Stargazing for Beginners Read online

  She laughs. ‘Don’t panic, Meg. You’ve still got three weeks –’

  ‘Two weeks five days.’

  ‘Just try it out in front of some friends. See what they think.’

  She says this like it’s the simplest thing to do in the world.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Definitely!’ she says, then she drops a pile of books in my arms. ‘Now be a love and hand these out for me.’

  FIVE

  Just as I’ve put down the last book, the other students bundle in. Bella bounces straight up to Ms Edgecombe. ‘Guess what, Miss!’ She waves a pink card under our teacher’s nose. ‘We’ve just got our tickets to the spring ball. We’re having it with the Year Elevens at a hotel, which is obviously a massive improvement on Year Nines in the canteen!’

  Miss examines the ticket. ‘Oh, God … I think I’ve got to go to that.’

  Bella nudges her. ‘You’ll love it, Miss. You can show us your wicked moves.’

  Miss shakes her head. ‘You’d be too intimidated. Now sit down and tie your hair back.’

  Bella slips the ticket in her pocket and joins me at our table. ‘All right, Megara?’ she says with a grin.

  ‘Meg,’ I say automatically. Bella Lofthouse is the only person in the world who ever calls me by my full name. Maybe she’s being friendly, reminding me that we’ve known each other for years … Or maybe she’s just laughing at my stupid Disney Princess name. It’s really hard to tell.

  ‘Nah, you’ll always be Megara to me,’ she says, then she starts bundling her hair up on her head. She takes a band off her wrist and fixes it in place. A few strands fall loose and, just like that, she looks perfect, like some girl in a film. Suddenly, she sits up a little taller. ‘Hello, here come the boys!’

  I look up to see Raj and Ed strolling towards us, hands in their pockets, their trousers narrow and their hair defying gravity.

  ‘Bella, you troll,’ says Raj. He comes up behind her and starts patting her down. ‘Give me my phone back!’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Bella shouts. ‘Get off me, you perv! Miss, Raj’s touching me up again!’ But Ms Edgecombe doesn’t even look up. As they carry on fighting, and Ed starts getting his stuff out and dropping it on the desk next to me, I feel myself almost shrinking into the corner, trying to make myself invisible.

  Ed King takes the seat next to me. He’s so tall it’s like a shadow’s fallen over me. ‘She’s not got it, mate,’ he says in his deep voice. ‘You’re wasting your time.’ He shares a quick smile with Bella and she winks back.

  Suddenly, Raj’s phone is forgotten and Bella’s talking about some picture she put on Instagram. ‘Show Meg,’ Raj says, and Bella’s phone is pushed in front of me. I can never stay invisible for long. ‘What do you think of Bella’s selfie?’ he asks, watching me closely and smiling in anticipation about what I might say.

  I glance at the photo. From all the bubbles surrounding Bella’s face, it looks like she’s in the bath. I try to work out the right thing to say, the thing that won’t make them a) laugh or b) think I’m weird. I shrug and say, ‘She looks clean.’

  ‘Clean?’ says Bella, bursting out laughing. ‘Classic Megara! I’m putting it in the comments.’

  OK. I failed.

  Raj rocks back on his stool. ‘Do I look clean, Meg?’ he says with a grin.

  ‘Right,’ says Ed firmly. ‘I want to work, so it’s time for you two to shut up,’ he points at Raj and Bella, ‘and for Meg to lend me a pen.’ He holds his hand out, just like he does every lesson.

  I find a biro in my pencil case and hand it to him.

  Ed studies it. ‘Haven’t you got a gel pen?’

  Across the table, Bella giggles.

  With a sigh, I swap the biro for one of my beloved inky gel pens.

  ‘Thanks, Meg,’ Ed says, whipping the pen out of my hands and turning straight back to his work.

  Halfway through the lesson, Ms Edgecombe starts handing round dominos and ping-pong balls. ‘We’re going to recreate the nuclear fission process,’ she says, ‘and I want you to work –’

  ‘In groups,’ says Bella. ‘Please, Miss.’

  All around the room, students demand to work in groups while I silently beg for ‘alone’.

  ‘I want you to work with the person sitting next to you,’ says Miss.

  ‘What?’ says Bella, scowling at Raj. ‘But I want to work with Woody!’ This is another of Bella’s special names – Edward – Woody – but unlike my Megara, when she calls Ed ‘Woody’ you know it’s one hundred per cent friendly.

  ‘Well you can’t,’ says Ed, clicking the lid down on my pen. ‘I’m with Meg.’

  ‘As usual,’ mutters Bella.

  Ed and I are always paired up. It’s because we’re both clever or, in Raj’s words, ‘total freaks’. Somehow, Ed manages to be a part-time freak, slipping in and out of the role depending on whether he’s in lessons or hanging out with his friends. For me, it’s a full-time position. I’ve often wondered what the difference is between me and Ed, and how he manages to pull off being clever and popular at the same time. Maybe it’s because he’s a boy, or maybe it’s because he’s captain of the football team and that sort of counterbalances how clever he is. Who knows. All I do know is that although Ed King and I are both clever, in every other respect, we are a million miles apart.

  He shakes out our dominos. ‘Meg, you fill in the sheet and I’ll set these up.’

  Immediately, I say, ‘What if I want to do the dominos?’ When the other two aren’t listening, I manage to talk to Ed. Just about.

  ‘Not sure about the answers?’ He looks at me, one eyebrow raised. ‘Need me to give you a bit of help?’

  ‘I know all the answers,’ I say, pulling the sheet towards me. Ed and I are in competition. Constantly. Our teachers started it but now we do it all on our own. I suppose I should find it annoying, but these ‘arguments’ with Ed are often the only conversations I manage to have at school.

  Ed’s shiny gold watch flashes as he places the dominos in the correct pattern. A few seconds later, he mutters, ‘U-235 atoms.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s the answer to question three. You look stuck.’

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘are you doing the dominos or the work sheet?’

  ‘I was only helping,’ he says with a sideways smile.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  Just as I’m writing down the final answer, something on Ed’s science book catches my eye. In one corner, he’s drawn an asteroid complete with lines to show it’s shooting through space. I glance back across the table. Raj’s putting the ping-pong balls in his mouth and Bella’s drawing a face on his bulging cheek. They’re pretty distracted so, quickly, I say to Ed, ‘Have you heard about it?’

  His hands pause over dominos. ‘Heard about what?’

  I point at his picture. ‘Asteroid TR7768. It’s two miles wide and it’s passing close to Earth.’

  He studies me curiously and I feel myself blush. I never usually talk to Ed about things like this – we bicker, that’s what we do – but seeing the asteroid in his book made me sure he’d have heard of it. ‘Asteroid TR7768,’ he repeats, a smile playing on his lips. ‘Well, my picture is supposed to be of a football.’

  I look back at the picture. A football? Of course it’s a football! My blush hits Mars proportions.

  ‘So tell me about this asteroid,’ Ed says.

  Across the table, Bella looks up. I turn back to my book. ‘It’s nothing,’ I say.

  ‘Hey,’ says Bella, banging her hands down on the desk. ‘Did any of you see that shark they found near Hastings? It’s massive!’

  ‘I saw it,’ says Raj. ‘Rows of teeth like Jaws.’

  ‘Woody, remember last summer,’ says Bella, ‘when you swam out to that dinghy?’

  He nods, keeping his eyes on the dominos.

  ‘It was probably circling under water, waiting to get you.’ She shivers dramatically. ‘I’m never swimming in the sea again.’


  ‘I heard it could have been a tiger shark,’ says Ed. ‘They’ve killed people.’

  ‘It wasn’t a tiger shark.’ I say, unable to resist correcting Ed.

  They all turn to look at me and I realise my mistake. ‘It was a porbeagle,’ I say quickly. ‘They’re harmless.’

  Bella sighs. ‘Please don’t make my shark story boring, Megara.’ She leans forward. ‘Talking of man-eating predators … Woody, do you want to know who’s asking you to the dance?’

  He laughs. ‘Not really, but I’ve got a feeling you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘Chiara Swift! She told me at break.’

  Ed shakes his head and smiles.

  Raj says, ‘Chiara’s all right!’

  ‘I told her no way,’ says Bella. ‘You’re my reserve in case I don’t get a better offer.’ She turns to me. ‘Who’re you asking to the dance, Meg?’

  I straighten up the worksheet. Here we go. I’ve been expecting this from the moment I saw her pink ticket. For Bella, the spring dance is the perfect opportunity to laugh at me because there is just so much I can get wrong: music, dancing, clothes, boys …

  Quickly, I say, ‘I’m not going.’ Best to nip this one in the bud.

  ‘Why not?’ Ed says.

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He says this innocently enough, but I’m sure a look flies between him and Bella and I can’t shake the feeling that they’re laughing at me.

  Which might be why I blurt out, ‘It’s what I was just talking about – the asteroid. It’s passing by Earth on the night of the dance.’

  Bella says, ‘And this rock is more important than the dance, because …?’

  My mouth goes dry. How have I been drawn into this conversation? ‘Well, it’s two miles wide … If it hit Earth, it could wipe out a country.’

  ‘But presumably it’s not going to hit Earth?’ says Ed.

  His ‘presumably’ makes my next sentence fly out of my mouth. ‘No, but we might see a dot of light pass by, and if it does I will see it with my friends at the science centre.’

  ‘And your friends are …?’ Bella asks.

  How do I make this sound good? Basically they’re my grandad’s mates, a group of middle-aged men who meet up to boast about the size of their telescopes. ‘My friends,’ I say, choosing my words carefully, ‘are in the Sussex Stargazers club.’

  Bella’s eyes go wide. ‘Let me get this straight. Instead of going to the dance you’re going to watch a dot of light, at the science centre with a bunch of old people?’

  She’s pretty much summed it up. I force myself to hold my head up high. ‘It’s called a star party,’ I say.

  Bella grins. ‘Megara, everything you touch turns to nerd!’ Then Raj bursts out laughing and Ed joins in too.

  SIX

  After school, I fit in another hour in the library before I head home. I walk up the hill, through the estate, then climb the three flights of stairs to our flat. As soon as I push open the door, I notice how quiet it is. Usually I’m hit with Mum’s Ibiza anthems, or a crazy mash-up of singing, TV, crying and barking, but right now the flat is silent.

  Perfect. I can practise reading my speech out loud without anyone listening to me.

  I drop my bag on the floor and go into the front room. I know the start off by heart so I clear my throat, focus on Mum’s poster of a green Buddha, and say loudly and clearly, ‘To me, space means freedom …’ My voice echoes round the flat and sounds so embarrassing and Meg-ish that I immediately forget the next sentence. Panic rushes through me and suddenly the Buddha’s saintly smile looks like a supressed sneer. This is ridiculous! If I can’t speak in front of a piece of paper, how can I ever expect to speak in front of human beings?

  I take a deep breath. I can do this … But I’ll just have something to eat first, something high-energy like peanut butter on toast.

  I step round the paddling pool, noticing that Mum’s emptied it at some point, then go into the kitchen, and that’s when I see the note on the fridge: Meg, don’t forget to collect Elsa and Pongo from Grandad’s. Ta! Xxxx Mum.

  I’d forgotten all about Mum going to the airport. Looks like that’s the end of my rehearsal time, unless I want to do it in front of Elsa and Pongo. Actually, that’s not such a bad idea …

  I ring Mum’s mobile to check when she’ll be back, but as soon as the call connects, ‘Let It Go’ starts playing from the living room. I follow the sound until I find Mum’s phone shoved under the sofa. Then I kick my way through the mess on the floor and grab my keys. I’d better go straight round to Grandad’s. I might not want to babysit Elsa, but Grandad can’t really be trusted with babies. He’s easily distracted and has a love of both bonfires and flammable liquids. Not a good combination.

  I find Grandad lying in front of his cooker, surrounded by tools. ‘Hello, Love!’ he says, glancing up. ‘Come to pick up your sister?’

  ‘Yep … What’re you doing?’

  ‘Attaching the cooker to a gas canister,’ he says, scratching his wild grey hair. ‘I haven’t got any instructions, but I think I can work it out.’

  I pick up the adapter then sift through the tools in his toolbox until I find the right wrench. ‘Pass me the hose,’ I say, then I crouch next to him and get to work – no way am I sitting on his filthy floor. Grandad lets his chickens wander wherever they like and Pongo’s his only vacuum cleaner. Mum and Grandad are eerily similar in their attitude towards housework. Compared to the flat and Grandad’s house, my bedroom is an oasis of cleanliness.

  As I attach the adapter, Grandad lights one of his roll-ups then picks up a crossword puzzle. ‘Looking forward to Saturday?’ he asks, catching my eye.

  ‘Bit nervous,’ I say, ‘but I’m trying not to think about it.’ On Saturday, I’m helping Grandad do a workshop at the science centre. He’s done them before and usually I just watch from the audience, but this time I’ve volunteered to be his assistant. Although I haven’t told Grandad this, I’m hoping that passing him balloons in front of an audience will take me a step closer to using my voice in front of an audience. That’s the plan, anyway.

  ‘You don’t need to be nervous,’ he says. ‘You’ll just be standing at the back and keeping me organised.’ He nudges me and grins. ‘You and me, Meg, blowing kids’ minds about the cosmos … and blowing stuff up. I can’t wait!’ He lets the ash from his cigarette drop on the floor.

  I stare at the glowing tip of his cigarette and try to imagine me standing in front of all those kids … Hang on, I’m staring at the glowing tip of a cigarette!

  ‘Grandad, tell me you’ve turned the gas off …?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ he says, waving the smoke over his shoulder.

  I snatch the cigarette out of his hand and stub it out. ‘It’s not fine.’ Just then, I hear a shriek from outside. ‘Is that Elsa?’

  ‘She’s exploring the garden.’

  ‘Grandad!’

  ‘What? I couldn’t keep her in here with me when I was smoking and doing this dangerous job. Anyway, Pongo’s looking after her.’

  ‘Pongo’s a dog and Elsa’s … what, one and a half years old?’

  ‘No. Wasn’t it her birthday a couple of months ago?’ For a moment, we try to work out exactly how old Elsa is, but we give up when she starts to cry.

  I find her sitting in some daffodils, her hands and hair full of soil. Pecking the ground next to her is one of Grandad’s bantams (also covered in soil). When Elsa sees me, she stops crying and starts to laugh and pump her arms up and down, saying, ‘Buc, buc.’

  Is she being a chicken? Who knows … I pick her up, holding her away from me, and carry her back to Grandad. ‘Where’s Elsa’s pushchair?’ I say.

  ‘Your mum dropped her off in the car.’

  Great. Elsa weighs a ton. This is going to be one long walk home. Then I spot Grandad’s ‘funky’ Union Jack shopping trolley. Would I be breaking some sort of baby rule if I put Elsa in there? Actually, I don’t care if I break a baby rule, I can�
�t let anyone from school see me with a baby in a shopping trolley.

  ‘Looks like I’ll have to carry her home.’ I pass her to Grandad while I get Pongo’s lead.

  Elsa stands on Grandad’s lap and tries to grab at his crossword puzzle. ‘What’s “Colourless gas; atomic number eighty-six”?’ he asks.

  ‘Radon.’ I take Elsa and her muddy fists cling on to me. I shrink away, but she just holds on even tighter. ‘You knew that,’ I say. ‘Stop giving me the easy ones.’

  Elsa lets go of my jumper and goes for my hair.

  Grandad’s hands creep towards his fags and lighter. ‘Five letters,’ he says. ‘ “Utter confusion”.’

  ‘Chaos!’ I shout as Pongo drags me towards the front door.

  SEVEN

  By the time we get home, Elsa and Pongo have both done a poo. Pongo did his by the bus stop – which was very embarrassing because I had to put Elsa on the pavement while I cleaned it up – but Elsa saved hers for when we were going up the stairs. She went quiet, stared into the distance, then turned red. ‘Gross, Elsa,’ I say. ‘We’re nearly home. Now I have to hold you and your poo.’

  ‘Da,’ she says, hitting my face with a sticky fist.

  Mum had better get back soon. As far as I’m concerned, Elsa and Pongo both belong to her. I couldn’t believe it when she told me she was pregnant. I suppose a part of me thought it might be cool to have a sister, but a much bigger part of me thought, how can we fit anyone else in the flat? Officially, we’re not even supposed to have Pongo here. Mum saw him on a website called Hungarian Hounds and – quote – ‘fell in love with his scars’. To get him, she lied and said we had a garden, which meant that when they came to do our home check we had to pretend to live at Grandad’s. She didn’t need a home check to get Elsa; she just went to Glastonbury, met a Spanish man called Angel and came back pregnant.

  I know from the silence when I open the door that Mum’s still not back. As if she can sense Mum’s absence, Elsa starts to cry, so I put her down in the mess in the living room and open the nappy bag. Time to change my first ever nappy. ‘Please be quiet,’ I say, trying to remember how Mum does it.