Stargazing for Beginners Page 6

  ‘Goodnight, Elsa,’ I say, backing out of the room.

  Even though I know she’s exhausted, she jumps to her feet and starts to shake the bars on the cot. ‘Mama?’ she says, and then she starts to cry.

  I feel a lump in my throat. ‘Elsa, I’m so tired. Just … go to sleep.’

  Her screaming starts before I’ve even shut the door.

  Then, in a horrible rerun of last night, I sit outside the room, my forehead resting on the door, listening to Elsa cry. She just won’t stop. She cries and cries and cries. After a few minutes, I try to do some coding for IT, but I find it impossible to concentrate on algorithms when my brain is being stuffed full of screams.

  When I was getting Elsa ready for bed, I didn’t have time to think about Mum, not properly. But right now, she’s all I can think about. It’s two in the morning in Myanmar. I wonder where she is: if she’s already asleep or if she’s sitting up late in a bar somewhere, chatting to her fellow volunteers. Or maybe she’s dancing on a beach … Mum once told me that nothing makes her happier than dancing under the stars. It makes my chest ache to imagine her happy to be free of us while Elsa and I are stuck here on our own.

  The ache in my chest grows as Elsa’s screams get more desperate. Pongo comes and stands next to me, putting a paw on my knee. A tear runs down my cheek. Angrily, I brush it away.

  ‘Pongo,’ I say, ‘if I can’t get her to go to sleep, how can I last until Mum gets back? There’s no way I can complete my mission. I might as well just go round to Grandad’s and give up on going to Houston!’

  Pongo barks, runs to the front door then runs back again. He nudges my hand with his nose. I rub my eyes with my sleeve. ‘You want to go for a walk?’ I say. And then I think, why not? Because I know just what will make me feel better, and, who knows, maybe it will make Elsa feel better too.

  Plus, anything’s got to be better than sitting here and listening to her scream.

  I open the door to Mum’s room and Elsa blinks up at me, her face red and furious. ‘Guess what?’ I say. ‘Let’s put a sock on that foot. We’re going stargazing!’

  SEVENTEEN

  It’s probably hard to get a happy baby in a sling, but when the baby is angry and fighting you, it’s almost impossible. Elsa wriggles like an octopus, but eventually I manage to squeeze all of her limbs into what I think are the right holes and I head out of the flat with her strapped to my chest.

  I don’t know if it’s the cold, or just how dark everything is, but as soon as we get outside Elsa stops crying, sticks her thumb in her mouth and looks around. I don’t think quiet has ever sounded so good.

  Pongo drags us down the stairs and towards the communal garden that rises above the hill behind the flats. We climb up, following the path that winds between the trees. Most evenings, Pongo and I come here for a walk before bed. Pongo chases rabbits and I look at stars through my binoculars. Even though loads of kids play here during the day, it’s deserted at night. I know most parents wouldn’t let their teenage daughters roam around in the dark, but Mum’s keen on ‘women living fearlessly’ – plus I’ve got a really big torch.

  In a few minutes, we come out of the trees and reach the top of the hill and I stand looking down over our town. ‘Do you like it?’ I ask Elsa, my voice loud in the silence. From up here, we can see all the way to Hastings: curving rows of houses, cars moving along the roads, even the swaying strings of light that line the seafront.

  Elsa pulls her thumb out of her mouth and stares around her. ‘Da,’ she says, kicking her legs.

  ‘Now look up.’ I lean back so she can see the sky. ‘That constellation is Crux and that’s Pleiades.’ Elsa’s eyes follow my finger as it draws a line through the sky towards the cluster of stars. ‘They’re babies, just like you, around one hundred and twenty million years old. Dinosaurs might have watched them burst into life.’ I look down and notice Elsa’s eyes are starting to close. Am I boring her to sleep? I start to sway from side to side as I list the Hercules constellations, and I watch her eyes narrow to thin slits, then shut completely.

  Amazing!

  ‘Pongo!’ I hiss into the darkness. He shoots out of a clump of bushes and skids to a halt in front of me. ‘She’s asleep. Let’s go.’

  We scramble back down the hill and creep up the echoing stairwell to our flat.

  In Mum’s room, I ease Elsa out of the sling and start to lower her into her cot. The moment her back makes contact with the mattress, her eyes shoot open and her face starts to crumple.

  ‘Sagitta,’ I whisper, holding her close again, ‘Aquila, Lyra, Cygnus …’ I put Elsa on Mum’s bed and lie next to her. ‘Vulpecula, Hydra, Corona …’ Even though I’m still wearing my school uniform, I reach down and pull the duvet over us. ‘Corvus, Ara, Serpens …’ The mattress dips as Pongo jumps on the bed, turns twice then flops against my back. I manage to mutter, ‘Lupus,’ before my eyes close and the three of us fall into a deep, deep sleep.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘What did you do?’ whispers Annie. It’s break time and we’re both sitting at the back of the detention room again.

  ‘I was late to school,’ I say. It was having a shower that did it. To keep Elsa safe, I strapped her in her pushchair and put her in front of CBeebies. At some point, Pongo must have stepped on the controls because when I came out of the bathroom they were both watching Jeremy Kyle. Now I’m in my second ever detention, but that shower was so worth it: I smell lovely.

  Annie shakes her head. ‘No, I mean what did you do at Mr Curtis’s Biscuit Club after I left?’

  ‘We ate the famous biscuits and looked at pictures of Jackson’s cat.’

  She narrows her eyes. Overnight she’s cut her fringe so that it comes to a point between her eyebrows. With her pale eyes and black eyeliner she looks a bit like an alien. ‘So, basically a massive waste of time.’

  ‘Jackson had photoshopped teachers’ faces on to every cat picture.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘And put hats on them.’

  ‘Oi, you two!’ Mr Curtis is glaring at us. ‘This is a detention, not a coffee morning.’

  ‘We’re working on our supportive brainiac network, Sir,’ Annie calls back.

  ‘I don’t want any networking in detentions, Annie,’ he says, ‘just an uncomfortable silence.’

  She smiles sweetly at him and mimes zipping her mouth shut. Mr Curtis gives her a thumbs up, but the second he turns back to his computer, she whispers to me. ‘Annoyingly, I really want to see those cats with hats.’ Then she rests her chin in her hand and goes back to her book.

  Which is why I’m not surprised to find her sitting in H4 when I arrive before lunch. Once again, Jackson gets a beanbag while we sit round him on chairs. ‘It’s like I’m a king,’ he says, stretching out, ‘and you’re my peasants!’

  ‘Or you’re our dog,’ says Annie, ‘lying at our feet in the dirt.’

  Mr Curtis interrupts them. ‘I thought we’d start with an energiser called Grab the Finger. Basically, you stretch your hand out to the side and –’

  ‘No way,’ says Annie, shaking her head. ‘I’m not grabbing anyone’s anything.’

  ‘OK, how about Fear in the Hat?’ says Mr Curtis. ‘You write down one of your personal fears and put it in a hat. It’s great at creating group cohesion.’

  ‘Sounds good!’ says Rose.

  ‘Nope, sounds terrible,’ says Annie.

  I’m with Annie on this one – I’ve just got too many personal fears right now.

  ‘Is there anything else we can do, Sir?’ she asks.

  ‘Well, you could write dictionary definitions for each other. That’s something that’s worked well with other groups. So I might be: Curtis, Tristram –’

  ‘Tristram?’ bursts out Jackson. ‘Are you having a laugh, Sir?’

  Mr Curtis ignores him. ‘Curtis, Tristram. Proper noun. 1. Only child, born in Norwich, East Anglia. 2. Aficionado of history with a passion for the First World War. 3. Ornithologist.’

&n
bsp; ‘A horny-whaty?’ says Jackson.

  ‘An ornithologist,’ he says, scowling.

  ‘Someone who studies birds,’ I mutter.

  ‘That’s what I said!’ laughs Jackson.

  Annie sighs deeply. ‘Sir, when do we get the biscuits?’

  Mr Curtis puts his hand protectively over the box. ‘After you’ve written your definitions.’

  ‘All right,’ she says. ‘We’ll do the dictionary thing. I’m working with Meg.’ Then she leans over and gives me a little punch on the shoulder. I surprised to realise that I’m not that fazed by the idea of working with Annie. In some ways she’s got an even bigger mouth than Bella, but at least she’s honest and I can tell if she’s laughing at me or not. Bella’s a lot trickier to work out.

  Mr Curtis explains that we need to interview our partner before we write a definition that sums them up.

  ‘I’m actually looking forward to doing this,’ says Annie, smiling at Mr Curtis. She’s using a voice I’ve never heard before, a sweet, gentle voice. It’s a bit creepy. ‘But do you know what would make this even better, Sir?’

  ‘What’s that, Annie?’

  ‘A cup of tea to go with those biscuits.’

  ‘Two sugars for me,’ says Jackson.

  ‘Do you have soya milk? I love soya milk!’ says Rose.

  Mr Curtis shakes his head. ‘I’m not allowed to make you drinks.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ says Annie. ‘The head makes them for me all the time.’ Then she gives him a look, a look that tells him his life will be so much easier if he just goes to the staffroom and makes us all a cup of tea.

  He sighs and tears a sheet of paper off the pad in front of him. ‘I’d better write down what you want.’

  After he’s left, I say, ‘Do you think he’ll get in trouble?’

  ‘Nah,’ Annie says. ‘Anyway, it’s not like you tried to stop him.’

  ‘I guess I really want a cup of tea,’ I say, fighting a yawn. Last night I may have had a couple more hours’ sleep than the night before, but Elsa still woke me up stupidly early. ‘Shall I interview you first?’

  ‘If you must,’ says Annie.

  I go through all the usual ‘getting to know someone’ questions and Annie gives the briefest possible answers, occasionally saying, ‘Next,’ if she doesn’t like one of my questions.

  After I ask her what her favourite colour is, she rolls her eyes and pulls a pen out of her bag. ‘My turn, I think. Clark, Meg. Proper noun,’ she says as she writes. ‘Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way. Any brothers or sisters? Where were you born? Got any pets? Blah blah blah.’

  ‘One half-sister,’ I say, ‘Australia and a dog.’

  She taps the pen on her lip. ‘Interesting … I mean the bit about Australia. Are your mum and dad Australian?’

  ‘No.’

  Annie continues to look at me, just waiting for me to say more.

  ‘Mum was in Australia when she had me,’ I finally say. ‘She was travelling.’

  ‘And your dad …?’

  ‘Never met him.’

  After a second, she says, ‘Most beloved object?’

  Annie has this way of speaking, like she expects to be obeyed, which is why instead of saying ‘my phone’ or ‘my laptop’, I go with the truth. ‘My Orion binoculars.’

  ‘Are you an ornithologist too?’

  ‘No. I look at stars and the moon.’

  ‘Through binoculars? I didn’t know you could do that.’ She jots down a few more notes. ‘Where would you go if you were invisible?’ She asks this without looking up.

  ‘I couldn’t be invisible.’

  ‘Just answer the question, Meg.’

  ‘If I was invisible, which I never could be, I would board a space shuttle and fly to galaxy NGC 660, although that’s also impossible because it’s forty-five million light years away and –’

  ‘Stop,’ Annie says, holding up a hand. ‘What is your life’s ambition?’

  ‘To become an astronaut.’ The words fly out of my mouth.

  Annie bursts out laughing then stops when she sees my face. ‘Hang on,’ she says. ‘You’re not joking?’ I shake my head and her eyes widen. ‘But unless you’re five, that’s a terrible ambition because you’re never going to achieve it! Why set yourself up for failure?’ She’s starting to enjoy herself now. ‘I mean, how does one even become an astronaut?’

  I know the answer to this. ‘You get a first class degree in a suitable subject – engineering, maths, physics – then a further degree, then you either train to be a pilot or an engineer. I’m going to train to be a test pilot, and then –’

  ‘You, a test pilot?’ Annie throws her head back and cackles. ‘No offence, but you’re not exactly action hero material, Meg!’

  I shake my head. ‘You need to be technically minded, controlled, calm. I could be a test pilot.’

  Something about the way I say this makes her stop laughing. ‘You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted.’

  My words hang in the air for a moment, then she says, ‘Don’t you think it would be lonely, up there in space?’

  I think about how I feel when the bell rings for break or lunch and I know I’m going to be on my own, and the hours I spend alone in my bedroom over the weekend. ‘I don’t think loneliness will be a problem,’ I say.

  Annie’s eyes narrow. ‘What happened to that friend of yours? The one with all the red hair?’

  ‘Harriet? She moved to New Zealand.’

  ‘Bummer … So, do you still hear from her?’

  I’m not sure if Annie’s still interviewing me. I think about the emails that used to arrive from Harriet every day, and how we would Skype most evenings; I’d be in my pyjamas ready to go to bed and Harriet would be about to go to school full of stories about ‘crazy Kenzie’ and ‘hot but boring Ethan’. But then her emails got shorter and shorter, and I’d send two or three before I got a reply and when we last Skyped I could tell from her face that it had become a chore for her, like speaking to her nan or something.

  I sent her an email a month ago, but I haven’t had one back. ‘I still hear from her,’ I say. ‘She’s loving it over there.’

  Annie nods, then says. ‘Last question: tell me a secret.’

  ‘That’s not a question.’

  She points her pen at me, narrows her eyes and says, ‘Meg Clark, do you have any secrets?’

  I know I could say anything. Tell her I once stole a Twix or that I’m scared of the dark, but for some reason I don’t want to do this because I can tell Annie is genuinely interested in my answer. She’s genuinely interested in me. I glance around then say, ‘I’m on a secret mission.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you!’

  Annie smiles, then Mr Curtis is backing into the room, sloshing tea over his hands and yelping. As he passes round the drinks and broken biscuits, we finish writing our definitions. I notice that as Jackson and Rose read theirs out, Annie is still writing mine, crossing words out and frowning.

  ‘Lovely!’ says Mr Curtis in response to Rose’s description of Jackson. ‘Now, let’s hear what an Annie Demos is.’ He looks expectantly at me.

  ‘Demos, Annie. Proper noun,’ I say. ‘1. Born in Watford. 2. Only child. 3. Avid reader with a dislike of human beings, tuna and school. 4. Owns two pet rats, called Alice and Mabel.’

  ‘Yep. That’s me,’ says Annie.

  Mr Curtis turns to her. ‘And how do you define Meg, Annie?’

  She clears her throat and sits a little taller. ‘Clark, Meg. Very proper noun. 1. Born on a journey and in possession of half a sister. 2. Cosmic explorer whose feet are stuck firmly to the ground in sensible shoes.’ She pauses and her eyes flick from my lace-up shoes to the badges on the lapel of my blazer. ‘3. A blazer-wrapped, award-studded human computer whose friend went down under. 4. A fan of facts. 5. A geek with a secret.’

  For a moment, no one sp
eaks. Rose’s eyes flick between Annie and me.

  ‘That’s it,’ says Annie, crumpling the piece of paper up just like she screwed up the note in detention. I see it fall to the floor.

  ‘Thank you, Annie,’ says Mr Curtis. ‘That was powerful stuff and I think we can all agree that the ice is well and truly broken.’

  ‘Smashed to pieces,’ laughs Jackson.

  ‘I liked it,’ I say quickly.

  ‘Really?’ says Jackson. ‘You like being called a geek?’

  I shrug. The way Annie just said it, it didn’t sound like an insult. ‘I’m used to it,’ I say.

  ‘I’m afraid our time is up,’ says Mr Curtis. ‘We’ll be building on what we’ve achieved today on Friday …’ He trails off. Annie’s already leaving the room. ‘… And perhaps then we can do some trust exercises.’

  ‘Any possibility of getting us Party Rings?’ asks Jackson, heaving himself off his beanbag. ‘They’re my favourites.’

  As Rose thanks Mr Curtis for ‘the delicious cup of tea’, I pick up Annie’s definition of me and slip it in my pocket. I might be feeling painfully aware of my shoes right now, but everything she said was true, and, as she pointed out, I am a fan of facts.

  Plus, since Harriet left, that’s the first time I’ve felt like someone actually gets me … And what makes it even better is that I think I’m starting to get Annie too.

  NINETEEN

  I manage to avoid a fine at Little Acorns by being the first out of French and running all the way across town. I dodge nimbly around disability vehicles and scooters, and force myself to keep running even when I get a stitch. Thanks to athleticism (and a shortcut I’ve discovered through the Co-op carpark) I manage to get to Little Acorns with one minute to spare.

  After I’ve picked up Elsa, I buy food and nappies. Just one bag of shopping takes our money under a hundred pounds. I nearly buy a Crunchie but decide I can’t waste a single penny, just in case we have an emergency.

  Over dinner, Grandad declares that I’m totally in control of my mission and tells me to cross out today’s square on the chart. I can’t tell him I’ve still got to get through the worst bit of the day – Elsa’s bedtime – just in case he insists on coming home with us.