Authors: Annie Dalton
Keeping it Real
First published in Great Britain by Harper Collins Children’s Books in 2005
This updated and revised edition published by Lazy Chair Press in 2013
Text copyright (c) Annie Dalton 2001
The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.
This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be leant, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form (including digital form) other than this in which it is published, and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is for Matt who was patient and clever, Claire for her sensitive comments, Andrea who kept me well-fed, and for all you undercover angels everywhere
I
‘d hate to shock any true angel believers out there, but before I died and became one myself, I didn’t really believe in angels at all!
I don’t blame myself too much for that. It’s a natural mistake to make, if you grow up in a part of London where they put security guards inside Santa’s Grotto to stop all the dads and big bros pinching the toys. In my neighbourhood, if you couldn’t break it, kick it, spray graffiti on it or nick it, it probably didn’t exist.
If I HAD believed in angels, though, I’d have told you they
definitely
had everything sussed.
This belief has caused me SOO much trouble. I made so many major bloopers when I got here. Even now just thinking about them makes me cringe…However I couldn’t exactly go back to being human, so I decided I’d just wing it. I winged my way so brilliantly through those first terms at the Angel Academy you have
no
idea.
I took weekend courses in v
.
deep subjects like soul retrieval. I picked up a LOT of fancy angel jargon. Seriously, if you’d seen me sitting with my angel buddies in our fave student hangouts, nodding solemnly as they chatted on about Dark Studies, I totally blended in!
During waking hours that is. Don’t know if you’ve tried, but you can’t actually
fake
it in your sleep.
I only had to lie down and close my eyes, and I’d go slap-bang into a terrifying nightmare. Like all bad dreams, the plots were kind of samey. Usually I was trying to rescue my little sister from the hideous evil beings who’d taken over my planet since I’d been dead.
When I wasn’t dreaming about my family, I dreamed about my old human mates. In dream after dream they angrily turned their backs on me - especially Sky who simply refused to understand why I had to leave.
I couldn’t understand it myself. I’d clamber out of my narrow little bed and go to stare out at the twinkling lights of the Heavenly City and I’d think.
Why me?
Did some sharp-eyed Agency scout scan every single pupil in every single classroom at Park Hall Community High School, scribbling comments on her clipboard. Nope, nope, nope.
Wait
! That girl at the back! The ditzy one touching up her nail polish, let’s take her!
I can’t honestly imagine anyone looking at the Park Hall Mel Beeby and seeing potential angel material. Yet I somehow scored an Agency scholarship to the coolest school in the cosmos and all my mates got left behind.
Here’s how it happened, you know, how I died.
It was the day after my thirteenth birthday; a bright, summery, completely happy day. I had a wodge of birthday cash in my purse and I was off to meet my mates for a BIG shopping splurge.
I glanced both ways, like you do, and stepped on to the pedestrian crossing just as an ancient Ford Fiesta screeched around the corner burning rubber. It was the last thing I saw: rusty metal and a white-faced boy gripping the wheel.
BANG!! The Universe went supernaturally quiet.
For a long moment nothing whatsoever happened. Then, to my surprise, I kind of slipped out of my body. It was effortless, like a pea slipping out of its pod.
Next minute I was soaring over the city; and I just kept on soaring higher and higher, until I soared right out of the solar system!
Strangely, the idea of turning back never occurred to me. It had something to do with the music: sweet throbbing chords which sounded as if they came from some giant humming top. I couldn’t help myself - I started flying faster and faster, with a growing sense of excitement. I remember having a childish thought that when the music stopped my cosmic mystery tour would be over. But when I reached the light fields where Heaven begins, the music didn’t stop; it just faded, weaving its otherworldly harmonies into the everyday hum of Heaven. And this was only the beginning of the cosmic mysteries…
Like, what are the chances of meeting your true soul-mate on your first day at angel school? Imagine two girls from two totally different centuries meeting outside those fabulous glimmery mother-of-pearl gates at the Angel Academy and
instantly
recognising each other. Doesn’t that give you goose bumps? You know the first thing Lola Sanchez said to me? “Do I
know
you?” That’s what it’s like when you meet a true soul-mate.
I should probably explain that soul-mates aren’t like, an exclusive angel phenomenon. People run into their soul-mates on Earth all the time. But on Earth there’s an unfortunate complication known as the Powers of Darkness.
For reasons of their own, the PODS would prefer it if humans never hooked up with their soul-mates. They’d prefer you never to have any friends full stop. They want you to feel you can’t trust anyone, EVER, most of all they don’t want you to trust yourself. It’s harder to recognise a soul-mate if you don’t feel good inside your own skin. It’s also harder to
be
a soul-mate.
Don’t get me wrong, my human mates and I did our best to look out for each other. At times Sky and I were so close we were almost like sisters. But we always kept that teeny-tiny something back, at least Sky did; like, deep down, she didn’t actually trust you.
But Lola and I had total trust between us from the start. All friendships, have their ups and downs, even in Heaven, but when you trust someone, you get through it, right?
Considering my soul-mate comes from a vibey city a hundred years in my future, it’s unbelievable how much Lola and I have in common. We literally chat away non-stop about anything that jumps into our heads, from purely frivolous stuff like, should we just give in to fashion and get those cute forehead jewels (like a few of the older angel girls are wearing again at school), or is that too totally angel for words, to huge cosmic topics like Space and Time.
I have
never
been able to get my head around the concept of two kinds of time. I’m sorry but to me ‘Time’ means the system I learned in primary school, which we do use in Heaven mostly. But apparently there’s also Cosmic Time - like, the Boss of time -which can just kick in, totally overruling the first kind, if, but only
if
, the Universe decides…
I have a good reason for telling you all this. I must have been at the Angel Academy for well over a year when it finally dawned on me that I hadn’t had a birthday!
I know! I’d attended other kids’ celebrations. I’d actually organised Lola’s. Yet it never seemed to be my turn.
I tried bringing this up with my friends, but you’d think I was spying for the Dark Powers the way everyone fobbed me off. They reckoned it was something I had to discover for myself.
This is one of the things about angelic life that makes me want to scream. Everything has to be a Big Mystery! What if I didn’t discover it for myself? Was I supposed to stay thirteen for ever?
One night, I was watering my baby orange tree, in a real grump, when for no reason a memory from my human life came flitting into my head.
It was my little sister’s fourth birthday. All afternoon, Jade and her pre-school playmates charged around our flat leaving a trail of torn wrapping paper and burst balloons. Finally the littlies went home clutching goody bags. When I went into Jade’s room later, to say goodnight, she was staring dreamily out of the window into the dark. She turned to me with an awed expression. “Mel, the moon is
smiling
. It knows it’s my birthday!”
And I knew exactly what she meant. On your birthday you don’t just feel special to your friends and family, you feel special to the entire Universe! It was this memory that finally pushed me over the edge. So what if I hadn’t solved the Big Mystery? This angel’s birthday was seriously overdue!!
I reached for my diary and flipped it open. Picking a Friday at random, I daringly circled it in sparkly felt-tip. Sorted!
I ran to Lola’s room to tell her I was having a birthday party at Rainbow Cove, which was the first venue to pop into my head. I had no idea how she’d react but to my surprise and relief her face lit up. “Yay, an excuse to go shopping!”
I spent the evening on the phone inviting everyone I could think of. Nobody raised an objection. They just went “OK, cool!” Our best buddy Reuben said he and Chase would organise the music and lighting. Finally I phoned Mo, who runs Guru, our fave student hangout, and asked if he’d take care of catering. He said he’d be delighted!
I’d have given myself a DIY b-day months ago, if I’d known it was going to be this easy.
Suspiciously
easy is what it was.
Maybe it’s just me and birthdays? Something cosmic always seems to happen on or around mine. But I never imagined that my first heavenly birthday would make all my most terrifying nightmares come true.
T
he Saturday before my official birthday, Lola and I scoured our fave department stores for suitable party clothes. As the birthday girl AND the birthday girl’s best friend, we obviously had to look especially divine. In the end I bought the sweetest slip dress in shimmery lilac. Since it was a beach party, I was planning to wear my dress with flip-flops, but v. v. cosmic flip-flops, decorated with big sparkly stars,