Feeling the Vibes (7 page)

We kept scanning the crowds, watching out for trouble.

One of the orphans gave an ear-splitting shriek. She’d seen the helium balloons tugging on their strings at the entrance to the fair.

We walked into a wall of noise. Bollywood tunes from tinny radios competed with music from merry-go-rounds and constant calling and cajoling from stallholders.

Nansi and Fareeda immediately ran to a stall selling the super-syrupy Indian sweets I remembered from family feasts with Karmen’s rellies. The girls didn’t have a rupee between them, but they seemed to enjoy just window-shopping, deciding which was their favourite.

“Laddoos are my best,” said Obi shyly.

Nansi pulled a mad face. “No! Gulab jamun!” She pretended to gobble them all up until the sweet-seller angrily shooed them away.

Tiny snowflakes sprinkled down on their caps and collars. The kids’ cheeks were pink with cold, but high as kites on fairground vibes they didn’t even notice.

Obi hugged himself with delight as he caught sight of his first real live elephant in this lifetime. The keeper was giving it a snack between rides. Obi watched enchanted as the elephant curled its trunk gently around a piece of squishy banana, posting it carefully into its mouth. The actual elephant was almost invisible under its gaudy finery: shocking pink silk tassels, gold-painted bells and whatever.

Obi’s face suddenly crumpled. “They’ve chained its legs! Why did they chain its legs?”

“They have to or it might charge into the crowd,” Fareeda explained.

“Why?” he asked again.

She shrugged. “Maybe elephants don’t like it when people make them do things they don’t want to do.”

“But why do people make them do things they don’t want to do?”

Obi had turned pale suddenly.

“They just do, OK,” sighed Fareeda.

I saw Obi really look at the elephant with its rusty chains. Then I saw him properly take in his surroundings: the claustrophobic street, garbage piled in front of doorways, an open channel running down the middle filled with stinking water and worse. His eyes anxiously returned to the elephant.

I understood then why he needed to live with the monks. Obi might be in a human body now, but he felt the suffering of the world just as much as if he was an angel. He needed to be protected from the world’s pain until he was older and stronger. Normal parents couldn’t do that. The monks, with their centuries old experience of training
bodhisattvas
, could.

The narrow street was getting unpleasantly congested as people streamed in. Anything could be lurking in a crowd this size, I thought.

Brice was tensely scanning faces. He’d felt it too, the fairground vibe subtly switching to something darker.

So had Obi. “I want to go back,” he quavered. “This isn’t a nice fair.”

“But there’s still loads to see,” Nansi objected.

“I’ll carry him.” Fareeda hoisted him on to her hip. “Shall we go and see the magicians, darling? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Fareeda was trying hard to act like a real mummy, even though she didn’t actually have one herself.

As we got closer to the end of the dead-end street, I felt uneasy. This felt too much like a trap.

We watched street magicians doing tricks with baskets, tricks with snakes, tricks with ropes in baskets that turned into snakes. Fareeda quickly got tired of carrying Obi and made him walk. He stumbled along looking bewildered.

The last magician sat in a dingy doorway, his bearded face in shadow, producing an endless stream of silk scarves from his sleeve. He did it slowly, almost lazily, like this was such a dumb trick he could do it in his sleep. In front of him was an old enamel tub with a rusting rim. The girls peered in, but it was empty.

As they turned away he called, “Don’t go. You haven’t seen my little ducklings!”

“He’s with them,” Brice rapped. “Tell Obi we’re going back.”

He hadn’t said pothole. The magician wasn’t a PODS, just a human working for the Dark Agencies.

“Obi, we’re leaving now.” I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart pounding.

Unfortunately Fareeda talked over me. “What ducklings?” she said scornfully. “I don’t see any little ducklings.”

The magician’s smile came and went in his beard. “You can’t see them because they haven’t been created yet.”

He shook out a blue silk scarf. People gasped as it became a glittering stream of water pouring into the tub. “First we have to bring these little spirits from the Light realms on to the material plane,” he said, smiling at Obi, “and for that I need an assistant with very special powers.”

“Walk away from the man, Obi,” I said firmly and calmly. “He’s not a nice man and we need to leave right now.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” the magician was saying. “You do have very special powers, don’t you, little one?”

Obi nodded solemnly. “Aksherly I do,” he whispered.

“Will you help me with this very important mission?”

“Yes, I will.” Obi went like a trusting little lamb.

“Don’t make me tell you again, Obi!” I was literally shrieking at him now like I’d have shrieked at my little sister, Jade. “Come away THIS MINUTE or there’s going to be BIG TROUBLE!”

I could see a genuine struggle going on in Obi. The
bodhisattva
in him knew he should listen to his guardian angel. But the four-year-old totally couldn’t resist a special mission involving baby ducks.

“I will just help bring the little baby ducklings safely to Earth then I will come, OK, Melanie,” he said guiltily behind his hand.

“No, it’s not OK, Obi! I need you to leave NOW!”

The magician produced a cone of paper from inside his shirt. A puff of bright pink smoke came out. The crowd gave a little collective “Oooh!”

“It’s a trick!” I said desperately. “It isn’t real magic—”

“Obi!” Brice spoke in his coldest, most scary voice. “Listen to what Mel’s telling you. Do what she says, OK?”

Obi gave us a mean four-year-old’s glare and edged closer to the magician. If it had been Jade I’d have dragged her away screaming if necessary. But to do that I’d have to materialise.

“Too many humans,” Reuben said, reading my mind. “You’d cause a riot.”

It was mad! Our baby buddha was suddenly acting like a normal stroppy toddler and we had no clue how to handle him!

“Think!” Brice blazed. “There must be some way to disable this scumbag.”

“A net,” said Reuben. “An energy net. We can drop it over him.”

“Drop it over
who
?” Brice sounded frantic. “It makes a difference.”

“Over the scumbag. Stop him sucking Obi into his energy field.”

We all frantically visualised a shimmery net, like a giant butterfly net floating down over the magician, but it just broke up into ugly-coloured pixels.

Brice swore. “It isn’t working. WHY isn’t it working?”

Reuben tugged at his dreads. “The creep’s plugged his energy system into Obi’s. He’s tapping into his
bodhisattva
energy and using it to fight us off.”

“Omigosh,” I wailed. “Then they’ve got him.”

“Because you are such a special little boy I’m going to let you use my magic powder,” the magician said in his wheedling voice. “I want you to put a little tiny sprinkle into this bowl.”

Throughout human history, the PODS have always used corrupted humans to do their dirty work for them, but I’ve never seen a human who adored being used as much as that magician.

Obi sprinkled very carefully and PING! A tiny jet black duckling was swimming in circles around the bowl.

He shot us a look of pure awe and delight. “Wow! I just made a baby duck!” he whispered from behind his hand.

“You haven’t finished yet!” the magician said, rubbing his hands. “We don’t want our little duckie to be all alone in the world, do we? He needs little friends. Can you count to two? Can you sprinkle twice more?”

His syrupy voice was so fake it would have made a puppy puke, but by this time Obi had totally lost touch with his own instincts.

“I can count LOADS more than that!” he said proudly.

I saw people smiling. The other street magicians had child assistants, but none of them was as cute as Obi.

Obi carefully sprinkled the magician’s powder once, then twice and PING! PING! there were now three teeny black ducklings swimming in tiny anxious circles.

Obi let out a shout of laughter, literally stomping with glee. “Now I made THREE!”

If you were four and hugely overexcited and you had some magic powder left, what would you do?

“I’m going to make just one more little baby duck,” Obi announced to the crowd.

“Obi, I swear if you don’t come with me I’m going to—!”

Beside myself with worry I actually tried to grab him. My hands went through him as if we were both made of clouds. Totally ignoring me Obi emptied the rest of the powder into the tub. Like teeny stones, the ducklings sank below the water leaving a single wispy feather floating on the surface.

Obi stared at it in disbelief. “Where are the little ducks?”

The magician was suddenly looming over Obi like a genie uncoiling from a bottle. “I said
twice
, you stupid child!” he hissed. “You made the magic go wrong!”

The colour drained from Obi’s face. “I didn’t
mean
to,” he whimpered. “I didn’t mean to make it go wrong.”

“It’s too late to be sorry,” spat the magician. “You used your special powers to murder those little creatures.”

People in the crowd looked fascinated but not yet worried. They just assumed Obi was in on the act.

Except for Fareeda. Her eyes were full of angry tears. “Leave him alone, you creep!” she yelled. “Bring his little birds back right now! You’ll give him nightmares!”

The magician did his creepy smile. “I didn’t bring those innocent creatures into this world and I can’t bring them back.”

“Then you’re a rubbish magician!” she yelled. “Come on, Obi, we’re going.”

The magician shook his head. “First he must see what he’s done!” Plunging his hands into the water he brought out three bedraggled, dripping little corpses and dramatically held them up.

Obi let out a wail. “Oh no! I really killed them!”

“Seize him!” cried the magician. It all sounded like part of the act but was really a signal to the waiting kidnappers.

Obi turned and ran.

I raced after him, but he was instantly swallowed by the crowd. Reubs and Brice came skidding after me.

The magician’s cronies were scanning the fairground trying to see where the
bodhisattva
had gone. One of the men had a ragged red cloth tied round his head. Fear and superstition were written across his face. Who knew what lies the PODS had put into his mind?

My heart almost jumped out of my mouth as I caught sight of Obi a few stalls away. Terrified in this sea of strangers, he’d simply frozen, not knowing where to run.

“Obi,
wait
!” I screamed. “I’m coming!”

I saw him spin round at the sound of my voice, frantically searching for me in the crowd.

The red-cloth guy spotted him at the same moment. He had a piece of rope or wire in his hands as he moved in stealthily like a trapper.

I couldn’t breathe suddenly. The crushing pressure on my chest was so unbearable I thought I might literally pass out. The fairground started to ripple and stretch like fabric. I was gasping like a fish, trying to get oxygen into my lungs.

The air went dark, a silky greenish kind of darkness, almost luminous, as if a storm was coming. For an instant I saw Obi outlined in the silky green light, like a terrified character in a cartoon. Then he was gone.

Chapter Nine

T
he PODS got our
bodhisattva
. Who do we need to talk to?”

We were in a cafe used by the local angels as a meeting place. Brice’s blunt announcement caused an immediate uproar. Obi had been lost on their patch and their honour was at stake. Brice was in bits and trying to hide it. I was just in bits.

Reuben, though, was still thinking like an angel. “I don’t think the PODS got Obi,” he said very quietly.

Brice looked ready to thump him. “Of course they’ve freaking got him! Who else would know to kidnap a
bodhisattva
? We
knew
we were being set up and we have been.”

“They meant to snatch him, yeah,” said Reuben in the same level tone, “but they didn’t get him. I’m sure of it.”

“And the ripple FX, what was that, Northern Lights?”

“Don’t know,” Reubs admitted. “But not PODS related.”

Brice yanked at his spiky hair as if he wanted to rip it out.

“Maybe it was mind games, like the ducklings?” I said.

I felt like I was floating above my own head, peering down in bewilderment through the swirls of steam and cigarette smoke. Still in shock, I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure I’d even spoken aloud. I actually jumped when Lalla said, “Mel might be right. If they made it look like he just vanished, POOF, you wouldn’t bother to look for him. That’s how they’d see it.”

“It wasn’t mind games,” said Reuben firmly. “I don’t know what it was, but that was real.”