Keeping it Real (8 page)

On the wardrobe door, which Sky once used as an overflow for her huge photo collection, just one pic was left. It showed Sky at the London Eye. Sky by herself.

I felt numb. I remembered that cool hair-flick. Sky Nolan, the independent operator. Sky was always the most ruthless Pink, but I never had her down as a person who’d just cut you out of her life without a backward glance.

“Look closer,” said my inner angel.

Goose bumps came up on my arms.

I’d forgotten a basic cosmic law which Mr Allbright made us learn in my first term. You can’t destroy energy. You can’t destroy anything which is real. And the hyperactive energy of four nutty twelve year olds on the loose - that’s real. Sky might look like she was totally alone, but the energies of those other laughing girls still fizzed and sparkled all around her.

I loved those mischievous sparkles; I loved that you could still tell we had our arms around Sky.

A tiny spark of hope lit inside my heart. If you couldn’t destroy energy, maybe you couldn’t delete a true friendship from the Universe?

I sat down where I could see her face and tried to keep my voice steady. “Sky, don’t die of shock. It’s me! It’s Mel! I’ve come back.” I felt my voice go husky. “Babe, I’m so so sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Sky ejected the CD and put in a new one.

I told myself she wasn’t blanking me on purpose and ploughed on, explaining that I was going to be in town for a few days, so if Sky had any problems I’d be happy to help, but I could feel all this hot embarrassment building up inside.

“I don’t know what to say,” I told Helix.

“You’re fine,” she said warmly. “Just talk normally.”

I wasn’t sure if there was a normal way to tell someone their dead friend had come back as an angel.

Sky was busy skipping through tracks. I wondered what music she was into now and if I’d like it.

Hitching closer to my unresponsive friend, I tried again. “This isn’t just a friendly visit, Sky. I’m here because the Agency - the guys who run the Universe basically - think you’re in trouble. They didn’t say what kind - they prefer us to figure stuff out for ourselves, but Jax is obviously spinning out of control. And what is going on with Karms? Why is she so fixated on this show—”

My friend practically tore off her headphones.

“I am so SICK of that girl and her poxy musical!” she burst out. “Does she think you’ll be watching them from the clouds?”

My heart almost stopped. It was like she was actually answering me!

Sky jumped off the bed in a rush and went to the window. She gave a scared laugh. “Great, now you’re talking to yourself, Sky.”

I rushed across the room. “Sky, listen to me! You’re not talking to yourself and I’m not in the clouds, babe - I’m standing right behind you. Can you feel those teeny angel tingles? That’s me!”

I’d just made things worse. Sky started flapping her hands, like a desperate fanning gesture. “This is SO sick,” she said in a kind of moan. “When you’re dead you’re dead. This is just in your head, Sky.”

“Weren’t you listening, fool?” I said lovingly. “I’m not a spook! I’m an angel. At least I will be, in about sixty thousand years, when I’ve—!”

Sky gasped and spun round. “Mel?”

There was pure shock on her face, but there was joy too, I swear; if we could have sat down and talked then, I truly believe things could have been different.

But the very next second, a hideous ring tone shattered the silence.

It literally made me see spots in front of my eyes. I was close to throwing up when Sky snatched up her mobile.

I felt our fragile connection snap like a thread. Only one thing makes a girl look like that, and that’s a boy.

“Yeah, I know, you’ve got mine,” Sky bubbled. “We must have swapped phones by mistake! They’ve all gone to Brighton. Yeah, in this weather! No, and I wouldn’t have gone if she had. Shut UP, you pig! I’m a big girl now, you know!”

Sky was lying on her bed now, acting kittenish. She creased up laughing. “I’ll make you pay for that! So are you coming to pick me up?” I heard her voice falter. “OK, well, I can probably find a cab. Yeah, about ten minutes.”

I watched numbly as she rushed round like a human whirlwind, dragging on her little top and skirt, pulling on high stretchy boots, putting in her hoop earrings.

Was this mystery boy’s call what my friend had been waiting for? Because there was no resemblance to the blank listless girl of five minutes ago. Grabbing her faux fur jacket, Sky slammed out of the flat.

I beamed myself after her, but Helix told me not to follow her any further.

I almost stamped with frustration. “This is Park Hall, Helix! Something bad could happen.”

“Something bad
has
happened.” Helix seemed incredibly sad.

“You don’t get it, this is what human girls do! This is normal behaviour on my planet. Human girls get boyfriends and fall in love, and suddenly nothing else matters.”

“Sweetie, what just happened in there is totally not normal.”

“Helix, when it comes to cosmic stuff, I’m happy to take your advice, but this is my world, OK, and I think I know it just a tiny bit better than you do!”

I was talking out of my angel rear-end. I didn’t understand anything that had happened since I got here. At least Jax and Karms were still recognisable as my friends, but as I watched Sky hurrying away into the dark, I felt like I didn’t know her at all.

The old Sky had big dreams. She’d seen what happened to girls in Park Hall and she wanted better. No way would she humiliate herself for some boy.

The snow was turning into sleet. I huddled inside Brice’s jacket. Something dark was hovering at the edges of my mind, and it was getting harder and harder to shut it out.

Chapter Nine

I
didn’t know it but I was just about to get a lift.

Nearby windows started to rattle in their frames as an Agency motorbike roared up. The rider took off his helmet and I saw spiky dark hair with blond flashes.

“Good, you’re still here,” Brice grinned. “Hop on and I’ll take you back.”

I was so upset I had to take it out on somebody.

“I’m a trainee agent, Brice. I don’t need someone following me around like my big brother. I told you I’d do this by myself.”

“And I respected your wishes, darling! But Jools was worried we forgot to tell you the security code. She didn’t want you to be locked out.”

“You just use your tags - she showed me.”

He looked sheepish: “The others were concerned, all right? They didn’t think you should be out alone on your first night back. Anyway, can you imagine what Lola would do to me if anything happened?”

I gave a reluctant giggle. “True. You’d have to leave Heaven.”

“At least!” he grinned.

Brice tossed me a helmet. He seemed uneasy now, as if he was wondering whether to tell me something. He took a breath. “Actually, before we go back, there’s something I want to show you.”

“O-kay,” I said wearily. “I’m an angel. I don’t need to sleep.” That’s the theory; though personally sleep is one human habit I’m in no hurry to give up.

My hands were so cold it was hard to fasten my helmet. This was my first time on any kind of motorbike. I nervously clambered on.

Brice gunned the engine. Next minute I was scorching through the sleeping city on a celestial motorbike, with my arms wrapped round a Dark angel.

We were travelling at such supersonic speeds, that my old neighbourhood was mostly a blur. After a while I gave up even trying to figure out where I was. Privately, I longed to be tucked up with a milky drink and a hot water bottle.

Several hair-raising minutes later, Brice brought the bike to a halt by the battered Bell Meadow street sign. After he’d helped me off the bike, he just stood beside the sign, blowing on his cold hands, apparently waiting for me to figure something out.

“What did you want to show me again?” I asked through numb lips. I was desperate to speed things up, so we could get back in the warm.

“The school, darling, the school,” he said wearily.

“I’ve seen my school, thanks,” I flashed. “I went to this hellhole, remember!”

Brice grabbed my shoulders, turning me forcibly until I was facing our school annexe with its tacky bridge.

I forgot all about being cold. I actually took off my helmet, as if that would help the vision go away. “What is
that
?”

Disturbing lights and shadows flitted to and fro across the bridge between the annexe and the main school. I felt like I was seeing two buildings mixed up together: my grim real-life comprehensive and something ghostly, alien and wrong.

There was nothing human on that bridge, yet I could hear childlike voices floating from the school, children’s voices spookily remixed by the Powers of Darkness.

Other spine-chilling noises drifted out. I don’t know if music has an opposite? It was like they’d got the evil building contractors in and they were listening to Hell FM.

“But how—?” I couldn’t seem to get my head around it.

“Your school seems to have sprung a cosmic leak,” he said bluntly. It sounded almost ordinary how Brice phrased it - a minor plumbing problem.

I tried to swallow. “The school kids can’t see this, can they?”

“Not yet.”

“Not
yet
? This is going to get
worse
!” But Brice didn’t reply and I was too scared to ask again.

For a few moments we watched the eerie lights coming and going across the bridge.

What were they
doing
in there?

And how must those vibes be affecting Park Hall’s kids? They had to try to study inside that horror five days a week. They had to get good grades and figure out what they wanted to be when they grew up.

“Did it just, you know, happen?” I gulped.

Brice had jammed his hands under his armpits, trying to thaw them out. “We still haven’t cracked that one. Maybe the PODS thought it would be interesting to open a crack in human reality.”

“Brice! That must be how the hellhound got in!”

“There’s not just one, darling,” he sighed.

My heart gave a little bump. “How many then?”

He shook his head.

The thought of unknown numbers of hell beasts roaming the corridors just curdled my blood.

My mind flashed back to my premonition when I first arrived - that my two worlds were just about to collide. But I had never ever imagined…

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. “Brice, Omigosh - if hell dogs are getting out of the Hell dimensions—”

I saw he’d been waiting for me to figure this out.

“That’s our worry,” he said quietly.

I swallowed. “No, that would never - that can’t be right.”

“It isn’t
right
, angel girl. But if we don’t find a way to stop it, these kids will find themselves wandering out of their school into…” his voice tailed off.

“Brice, you’re freaking me out! Into what?”

His expression was unreadable. “Another school, angel girl. Just not school as you know it.”

I thought I might be sick.
I went to this hellhole remember
! It felt like my thoughtless remark had boomeranged back like a hex. Park Hall Community High School was now officially twinned with a high school from Hell.

Chapter Ten

B
y the time I finally crawled under the covers, I was too upset to do more than doze. I’d crash asleep, then almost instantly shoot bolt upright, my heart racing. No bad dreams, no scary flashes of girl fights or hell schools - just unbelievable horror, mixed with a weird haunting guilt. Like I’d done something so bad it could never be put right.

After a while I heard Jools tiptoeing around in the dark.

I raised myself groggily. “More fights?”

“Off to do the dawn vibes,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

I sat up. “No, I’d like to come if that’s OK.”

I hadn’t a clue what ‘dawn vibes’ were, but I had the feeling they’d do me good. I jumped into some jeans and Jools lent me a warm top, plus her roommate’s parka, so dawn vibes obviously happened out of doors.