Living the Dream (7 page)

“They’re not separate missions, OK? It’s like - Cody is the key for you, and you’re the key for Ambriel.”

“That makes sense,” I said straight-faced.

She giggled and she was totally my Lola again. “You’re right! I’m way too tired to be trying to have a conversation.” She gave me a hug. “Take care of yourself,
carita
.”

“Keep your phone switched on,” I warned her. “I’m going to need LOTS of advice, so you’d better be on twenty-four-hour standby.”

I closed the door and suddenly I was like:
phone
! I’d been so focused on my new mission I hadn’t thought to check my messages. A ridiculous
whoosh
! of joy went through me as I saw Reuben had left me a text.

hi angel girl hope u liked my tunes? 2 bad me had 2 cut things short, shd hau told u face 2 face but millie is NOT my gf, so I mite hav a question 4 u when I get back

When I’d finished my packing, I put on my PJs, but instead of going to bed I sat in the rosy glow of the cute handbag lamp Lola bought me for my birthday, reading Reuben’s text over and over:
millie is not my gf millie is not my gf millie is not

My head was full of my planet’s tragedies, yet I couldn’t seem to hold them all in my head and be happy at the same time. It sounds selfish, but for that one night I wanted to be happy.

I slotted Reuben’s CD into my player, found the first version of “Melanie’s Song” and settled back on my pillows. I closed my eyes as Reuben’s quiet, husky voice filled my room. I was still smiling to myself when the phone rang.

Chapter Nine

W
hen I heard those words -
missing in action
-everything went black inside my head: no thoughts, no feelings. I threw my coat over my PJs and ran out into the night.

I kept running, across the campus, out through the mother-of-pearl gates into the streets of the Heavenly City and I didn’t stop until I ran right in through the revolving doors of the Agency Tower.

The guy on the desk waved me into a free lift. It was only then, with floors flashing past, that I began to shake.

Now, surrounded by concerned faces, my mind still refused to take it in. I tried to understand how an all-powerful, all-knowing Cosmic Agency could LOSE one of its angels?

Sam said that that part of the world was known for its violent supernatural storms. One hit on Reuben’s watch, raging for hours, sending tonnes of snow and rock roaring down the mountain slopes, burying houses down in the valley, killing humans and animals, blocking mountain roads. When it died down, Reubs, the mother leopard and her tiny cubs had all vanished. Nobody needed to spell out who was behind it.

“We’re getting a search party together,” Sam told me.

“Put my name down.” It was a no-brainer. Reubs had toughened up since his first field trip to Earth; ancient Roman prisons, the slums of Mumbai, he’d seen them all and survived, but I needed to be there helping him.

“You can’t go, Boo. Not now.” Lola had rushed in with Brice just in time to hear.

“He’d come if it was one of us,” I said fiercely.

“Not if he was committed to saving a human. Not if he’d seen what we saw last night.”

Brice put his arm round me. “It’s OK, angel girl, I’ll go for you.”

“But your assignment—”

“Stuff the assignment,” he said grimly. “The Skin Walkers will wait.”

When Brice first came back to school, his clothes still smelled of Hell fumes. Now he was offering to be my stand-in. My eyes slowly filled with tears.

“I’m going with him,” Lola told me.

“Lola, you can hardly stand up!”

“I’ll sleep on the flight,” she insisted. “I’ll be fine.”

“Seems like Reuben’s got some good friends,” Sam told me.

“We’re the Cosmic Musketeers, isn’t that right, Mel?” Lola patted my cheek.

It’s what we used to tell each other when we first became friends; Lola, Reubs and I were going to be the three Cosmic Musketeers zooming through Space and Time saving humans from the Powers of Darkness. I just never imagined it would be Reuben who needed saving.

Sam immediately started making calls, putting together a rescue team.

“GO!” Lola commanded, seeing me hover. “Get some sleep. I’ll call as soon as there’s any news.”

When I finally lay down in my room in the dark, tiny electric-type tremors were still running through me. I think it was shock.

There was a sighing, golden breath. With the worst possible cosmic timing, Ambriel was back. I was too upset even to be mad. The angel silently pressed his thumb to my forehead and we were suddenly standing on misty green grasslands, which seemed to stretch on for ever.

There were other angels, tall luminous beings, going about some task that involved not singing exactly, but hair-raisingly lovely sounds. Some stood like motionless light beams in the mist. Like lightning conductors they were drawing raw cosmic energy down to this new planet. I could feel them weaving Heavenly and Earthly energies together, anchoring them deep inside the Earth’s core. It seemed like we’d arrived at a key moment in my planet’s evolution. The cosmic music was building to such a fever pitch I could literally feel it fizzing through the soles of my feet.

Then it happened. In a spreading, unstoppable tide of shimmering colour and scent, the prehistoric meadow bloomed with millions and millions of flowers. I stopped breathing. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

For the first time I saw the Creation angel’s stern face soften.
THIS was what we dreamed, angel girl.

My alarm beeped me awake. Stumbling around my room like a drunk, I started getting ready for my mission. Cody Fortuna, a girl almost as messed up as her century, needed a guardian angel.

Chapter Ten

Y
ou know when you feel really, REALLY lonely? You know how it seems like everyone but you is in a loved-up couple or a chatty little group? That’s how I felt that morning in Departures.

Queuing for my angel tags I got stuck behind three newbie trainees going on their first school field trip to Earth. Their glowing, excited faces made me feel about a million years old. A group of celestial agents wearing First World War army uniforms were cracking jokes with their colleagues. You’d never think they were setting off to one of the most hellish battlefields in Earth’s history.

At last Al, my fave maintenance guy, gave me a wave. “We’re ready for you, doll,” he called.

I felt a rush of panic.
I wish I wasn’t going off to Earth all by myself
.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and started walking briskly towards the huge bay where the time capsules were waiting. Suddenly I heard someone calling my name. I was astonished to see Michael hurrying towards me.

His rumpled silver-grey suit looked like he’d slept in it as usual, and as usual, his beautiful archangel eyes were full of the recent human troubles he’d seen, but the concern in his smile brought hot tears into my eyes.

“I wanted to wish you luck,” he said quietly, “and to thank you for agreeing to be Cody Fortuna’s GA. This morning you must be wondering if you made the right decision. I just want you to know that this mission -well, it’s bigger than you know.” He briefly touched my hair. The inside of my head turned deep sparkling blue as the jolt of archangel energy sizzled down my spine. There must have been a billion other places Michael urgently needed to be, but he waited, calmly smiling, until the door to the fragile-looking capsule slid shut and I was blasted out of Heaven.

In my shimmery glass pod, hurtling through the Light Fields, I composed endless texts to Reuben. I told him to stay strong, that we’d find him no matter where the PODS had taken him. Typing words on to the tiny screen, making myself believe he’d get to read them, felt like the only thing that stopped me going mad with worry.

The time pod dropped me outside a large white-painted house on the outskirts of Bethesda. Someone had planted dwarf daffodils in pots. A chilly breeze ruffled their petals. Through a lattice fence, I saw kids shooting basketball hoops in the back yard.

I was relieved. This place looked OK. Celia Lee had really come through for Cody just like she’d promised. Now all I had to do was find her a decent foster family (ie not PODS related) until her mum got better. As missions go, it was unusually straightforward. I had no worries at all.

On my way in I passed a grumpy security guy flicking through one of those lurid shocker mags, like My Stepmom is an Alien or whatever. Another new kid was being shown over the home. She looked a lot like Sheridan, all emo-style hair and eyeliner. Maybe she could be a friend for Cody?

I found Cody in her room. She was by the window, watching the basketball players without seeing them. The charcoal-grey knitted beanie made her dark eyes seem even larger and more soulful.

It was strange meeting Cody Fortuna in person. I’d been kidding myself I already knew her, when all I really knew was snippets of personal history, not Cody the human being at all. I took deep breaths, centring myself so I could more easily tune into her vibe. Mr Allbright says that’s the best guide to someone’s state of mind.

Lonely
, I thought. This girl was so absolutely lost it made me shiver. What was it she was needing and missing so badly? Did she even know?

I always get stage fright the first time I’m alone with a new human. Mr Allbright says this is normal. He says we have to remember this stuff WORKS. It’s worked for aeons. To calm myself, I retied my boots and reminded myself of my original plan: to help Cody unlock her forgotten potential, inspiring her to become the magical girl she was always supposed to be. If an underachieving schoolgirl can become an angel, anything’s possible, right?
Cody Fortuna is an angel in waiting
, I told myself.
She just doesn’t know it yet.

My first step was to stop her hiding away in her room. “Hi, sweetie,” I said tentatively. “I’m your stand-in guardian angel. Hopefully you’re feeling my vibes? I just spotted another new kid going into the social room. I think she’d be glad of some company.”

I saw Cody’s expression change. “Can’t fester away in here my whole life,” she muttered. “May as well meet some of the other losers.”

I followed her down the corridor to the social room where the new girl was flipping gloomily through TV channels. They eyed each other cautiously.

“Hi,” said Emo Girl. “So what’s this place like? It’s a dump, right?”

Cody shrugged. “I’ve just been here like, two hours.”

The girls started discussing music. They couldn’t exactly go, “You know what? My life just fell apart.” “Hey, mine too!” So they chatted awkwardly about Pink and Linkin Park.

The social room was as you’d expect, well-worn chairs and sofas, tired pot plants, curling movie posters, a pool-table. Then,
whoosh
! - it had a seven-foot-tall angel in it!

I was v.v. surprised! Surprised Ambriel had followed me to Bethesda AND that I was pleased to see him. Mostly, though, I was puzzled. Creation angels don’t do one-to-one interaction with humans, the same way my angel buddies and I don’t zoom around tinkering with Earth’s biosphere or whatever. So what the sassafras was this hugely powerful cosmic being doing dropping into a children’s home?

At this exact moment, actually, he was examining a drooping umbrella plant with the kind of horror I would personally reserve for the destruction of the rainforest. (Not to diss pot plants, but you can always buy another one, right?)

I saw Ambriel stretch out his hand. It was almost like he couldn’t help it, like he was being pulled by the silent suffering of this unexciting house plant. His long shimmery fingers softly touched the dull brittle leaves and I saw millions of green sparkles go into the plant. Just their colour alone made the room come more alive. I watched, holding my breath, as the ailing plant slowly straightened up from the roots, then ping! - out popped a crowd of vibey little shoots!

Ambriel gave a satisfied nod, then saw me and gave me a slightly embarrassed smile. I gave him a cheeky thumbs up. “Nice job, Ambriel!”