Making Waves
Authors: Annie Dalton
First published in Great Britain by Harper Collins Children’s Books in 2003
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 Michael Cooke, who showed me Cockpit Country and helped me to imagine wicked Port Royal and the Black River Morass. Grateful thanks to Curdella Forbes and Nadi Edwards for recommending books, and a big thank you to Maria for sharing her brilliant ideas
I
miss heaps of things about my old life. Funny little things, like the smell of the face cream Mum uses last thing at night. Plus of course there’s some fairly major stuff, like not being around to see my little sister grow up. Some days I miss Jade so badly, I’d willingly walk over burning coals to be with her for just one hour.
But you know one thing I really don’t miss at ALL?
All that posing humans feel they have to do! Why do people DO that? Nobody really wants to be a fraud, do they? I know I didn’t. Deep down I was desperate for my mates to like me just the way I was: bad habits, impossible dreams and all. Yet I kept up this big act, like I only cared about airhead stuff - style makeovers and shopping - and I wouldn’t recognise a deep thought if it bit me on the bum. WHY? Why didn’t I give my friends the chance to know the real Melanie Beeby?
I was just too scared basically. After my dad walked out, I didn’t have much faith in the real Melanie. (Kids always think it’s their fault, don’t they?) So I invented a new improved personality to hide behind. Like, “I’m so sassy. I’m the princess of cool!”
But humans weren’t designed to fake their way through life, and a couple of weeks before my thirteenth birthday, the cracks began to show.
The weather was foul this particular day, absolutely chucking it down, and my step-dad, Des, had offered me a lift to school. Unfortunately we got stuck at some road-works. We got stuck so long, it would actually have been quicker to crawl to school on my hands and knees. Suddenly I started stressing. You know, REALLY stressing. Telling myself I was going to be late again and this time it wasn’t even my fault. Telling myself I was stupid to stay up half the night, making elaborate birthday invitations for my friends. Friends who didn’t actually care. Friends who didn’t even really know me.
I think it was the thought of having to fake it through my own birthday celebrations that finished me off. I quickly stared out of the window, but all the little gasping sounds must have given me away.
I felt Des put a clean tissue in my hand. “It’s going to be OK,” he said quietly. “One of these days you’ll find a real soul-mate, and you’ll never look back.”
And without any warning, I was suddenly in the middle of this HUGE mystical experience! The gridlocked lorries belching toxic fumes, the giant diggers and earth movers, the workmen in their shiny rain slickers, the plastic supermarket bag that was randomly tumbling about in the wind, all started to shimmer with otherworldly light.
I couldn’t speak. I could hardly even breathe. How come I hadn’t known my world was this beautiful?
Then a workman gave me a cheeky smile and flipped his sign to read GO. The traffic queue started to move. The magical glow slowly faded, and I started feeling just a little bit silly. I decided it must have been a trick of the light. You see, back then, I wasn’t totally convinced that deep stuff like immortal souls or Good and Evil really existed.
Well, they do, as I was just about to find out!
The day after my birthday, I’d arranged to go shopping with my mates. My birthday cash was burning a hole in my pocket, and I was desperate to buy - I forget what, exactly. It’s irrelevant anyway. Angel HQ, a.k.a. the Agency, had made other plans…
One minute I was crossing the street, humming a carefree tune, then BANG! I was soaring through the air like a swallow, skimming over rooftops, whooshing through clouds, and not only was I not showing signs of slowing down, I was in danger of being scorched by passing meteorites!
I was having my first Out of Body Experience. Not to beat about the bush, I was seriously dead. A joyrider had knocked me down in the street. Apparently this was all part of some massive heavenly design which I’ll never entirely understand. The Agency must have had their guys invisibly watching over me for days. Quite possibly they were with me and Des in the car, when I was having my pre-birthday wobbles. The Agency never lets anyone die alone. They’re v. strict on that point.
But like most humans, I had some weird ideas about what happens to the recently deceased. Since I didn’t meet up with a dead relative, or zoom down a tunnel towards the Light, the D-word never entered my head! I just thought the usual scientific laws had been temporarily suspended for some reason. Why else would I be skimming through space as gracefully as I flew in dreams as a little kid?
I could hear strange and lovely sounds, like the throbbing of a huge invisible humming top. When I hear them now, I know I’m home. But to the old Mel Beeby, home meant a poky flat on a London housing estate, not a vast glittering void filled with cosmic sound FX!
Then BAM! I was set down on solid ground. I was bewildered to find myself in a crowd of chatty teenagers who all seemed to be heading towards a pair of tall, very swanky gates. On the other side of the gates was what looked like an alarmingly posh high school.
Of course, by this time I’m totally reeling. I’m like, what on EARTH am I doing here! Then I saw the view. And you know what? It wasn’t Earth.
An exotic cityscape flashed and shimmered in the morning light: soaring glass skyscrapers, sparkling golden domes, curved roofs that looked almost airborne. It was like a city in the most wonderful dream you ever had.
Everything seemed so alive. Even the light was more super-alive than the kind I was used to. And the air! When I breathed in, I went tingly from head to toe. It smelled wonderful - almost, but not quite, like lilacs.
But the sign outside the school gates sent me into a spin of pure confusion.
I told myself it was just a wussy name. It didn’t mean this was a school for actual angels. And OK, so these kids looked incredibly happy and confident. And OK, so they all had a rather unusual radiant glow. They probably just had excellent skin-care regimes.
I know! I’m standing like,
six
inches away from the Pearly Gates, furiously trying to convince myself I’m not in Heaven!!
Sometimes I think I’d still be standing there, but just then another suspiciously radiant girl hurried past with her mates. Everything about this girl was familiar; her glossy black curls, her tough-girl walk, the sparky intelligence in her eyes.
And for the first time in years I did something that was NOT typical Melanie. I actually followed this fabulously cool person through the gates.
The two of us immediately fell into step. Not intentionally. It just seemed to happen. We kept exchanging astonished glances. Like, what IS going on here?
“Do I know you?” I blurted out suddenly.
And guess what? She was thinking exactly the same thing!
That’s how I met my soul-mate, Lola Sanchez, Lollie to her friends.
Obviously a person does NOT normally have to die to find friends, OK? This is basically a friendly universe. Great mates can turn up anywhere and everywhere; even my old hellhole comprehensive.
But I never knew this when I was alive. Plus, and this is pretty crucial, I didn’t actually know how to BE a friend. Like I said, I just knew how to fake it.
Luckily I was so shocked by my own death that for one life-changing moment, I forgot to pretend. This sparky stranger seemed like a long-lost part of me, and I wasn’t about to let her vanish!
It probably sounds as if I’m just telling you how Lola and I met up, as some kind of ice-breaker, before zooming on to something more major. I’m not. But I desperately need you to understand why Lola is so special to me.
Listen, Lollie has loads of friends. She’s a friend
magnet
! Yet from my first day at the Angel Academy, this hugely popular angel girl made it her business to be there for me - yes, ME! Encouraging me to do my best, letting me cry on her shoulder when I’d made yet another cosmic boo-boo, then ruthlessly booting me back out into the Universe to try again - and again.
Now that’s true friendship, right?
It was Lola who finally taught me I didn’t have to fake it to be popular. “Melanie, I have met teeny-weeny worms with better opinions of themselves,” she sighed. “So your papa left you. That was harsh, angel girl. But get over it, you’re in Heaven now. It’s time to lose that airhead disguise!”
Lola had only known me a few days when she said that, and already she knew me better than I knew myself! And this girl and I had SO much in common. Which is insane, since Lollie originally comes from the twenty-second century! Yet we had the same mad sense of humour, we loved almost exactly the same styles of music. And we regularly borrowed each other’s clothes.
I felt so lucky it almost scared me. I couldn’t quite believe I could be this lucky. Unfortunately, the day came when I had a totally good reason to feel afraid.
Our history group had been doing this huge project on ancient Egypt. Our teacher, Mr Allbright, decided it would be helpful to experience the vibes for ourselves. Omigosh, the hassle we had on that trip!! Not to mention the dust! The instant we got back, Lola and I dashed back to our dorms and showered like demons.
Now I was catching up on homey chores: watering my thirsty baby orange tree, checking through my post. Lola was sitting on my bed in her PJs, writing up her report.
Before she died and became an angel, my soul-mate lived in a vibey third-world city. Lollie herself is a mix of a dozen different nationalities: Portuguese, Dutch, African. She even has Mayan ancestry - can you believe that? Her granny told her that’s where she got her great cheekbones!