Making Waves (3 page)

“Why do
I
have to bring it up?” I whinged. “Why can’t Lola?”

She went pink. “Because it would be better coming from you.”

I got my chance that night at the Babylon Cafe.

The Babylon is our new preferred place to go dancing. They have the best live music in Ambrosia, that’s like the vibey student area. But if you want to cool off or just chill with your mates, you can go outside into their magical gardens. They’re designed so they literally seem suspended in midair. At night they’re all lit up with twinkly white lights.

I’d gone out for some air when I spotted Brice in the shadows, watching the dancers. It was a warm night, but he wore his jacket collar turned up, and his hands were jammed into his pockets. Somehow Brice was always on the outside, looking in. The thought gave me a funny pang in my heart, because I still remembered how that feels.

I took a deep breath and went up to him. “Hi.”

“Nice dress.” There was absolutely no expression in his voice.

“Thanks. About this morning—”

Brice’s jaw muscles tensed. “It was a dumb idea.”

“It wasn’t. I was tired and crabby. I wasn’t thinking.”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

I almost stamped with frustration. “Could you just listen?”

”
You
listen,” he snapped. “You were right the first time. I am not the HALO type.”

“There isn’t a HALO type, fool! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’d love to enter the awards with you.”

“Yeah, right,” he jeered. “I saw how you both rushed to sign up.”

“I mean it! I’ve never won anything in my entire existence. OK, at my old school, I won a box of cheap chocs in a raffle. But I’ve never won an actual award. It’d be cool to win a HALO, like getting an angel Oscar.”

Brice scowled. “Have you finished your speech? Will you stop bugging me now?”

“No, actually,” I said sweetly. “I’m going to keep bugging you until you tell me what we have to do to enter.”

There was an interesting silence while Brice chewed at his lip, then he shuffled his trainers a bit, then he cleared his throat.

“Well ,for a start, we have to fill in a ton of forms,” he said cautiously. “The HALO judges might not accept us. They don’t always.”

“They will! I know they will!” I bubbled. “Oh, this is SO great! Let’s do it first thing tomorrow.”

“If you want,” he shrugged. “It’s really no biggie.”

Liar, I thought. This was obviously HUGE for Brice. I could tell he still felt really bruised.

You know that thing? That bimbo thing that I’m not meant to do any more? I think maybe I do it because I don’t know what else TO do.

I looked at him under my lashes. “Brice, how do HALOs work at high-school level exactly? At the angel nursery where I help out, the kids are doing really cute projects.”

“Perhaps you didn’t notice, but I don’t do ‘cute’,” he said with distaste. “We’d be in the advanced section, obviously.”

But I could feel him thawing slightly, so I did another Bambi-eyed flutter. “But I still don’t quite understand. What would we actually have to do?”

“We’d have to go on a blind date with destiny.”

I stared at him. “I have no idea what that means,” I confessed.

“We volunteer for an unknown mission,” Brice explained. “The HALO panel put their heads together to discuss our various strengths and weaknesses. On that basis, they decide what cosmic experiences are likely to stretch us and take us to the next angelic level, yadda yadda.”

“Yadda yadda,” I echoed, to show I was keeping up.

“They pick a suitable time and place, and off we go.”

“Sounds like quite a challenge,” I said in my most impressed voice.

“I think that’s the general idea,” said Brice. “Evolution and all that.”

“Well, definitely count me in,” I said enthusiastically.

He frowned. “What about Lola? Is she in too?”

“Oh, I really couldn’t say,” I said innocently. “You’ll have to ask her.”

He grinned. “Yeah right! Like you two don’t discuss everything*”

I blushed. Brice definitely wouldn’t want me to know about the night he and Lola got all romantic under the stars last holidays!

“Oh, look! Lollie’s over there by the fountains!” I exclaimed with relief. “You can ask her yourself.”

Brice sauntered over. I saw him and Lola deep in conversation through veils of falling water.

Yess! My ploy had worked!

I know! I’m in Heaven now. I should drop the airhead disguise, but sometimes it comes in SO useful!!

The judges did accept our entry as I somehow knew they would.

And now it’s confession time. On the day Mr Allbright was due to announce our time destinations for the HALO, I had genuinely good intentions, I really did! I was all set to take notes and ask questions. And believe me, I wish I had.

But when our teacher told us we’d be going to seventeenth-century Jamaica, everything else flew out of my head. I practically went into orbit!! I’m like, “Woo! I am SO packing my bikini!”

I literally didn’t hear another word anyone said!

I’d always felt a mysterious connection with Jamaica. Some of my friends at my old human high school had told me how amazing it was, and I’d often dreamed about going to see it for myself. But this was going to be SO much better! We were going to time-travel to this gorgeous tropical island, centuries before the tourist invasion. We’d see the island of Jamaica in its original unspoilt state!

I’d have loved to stay and chat about our mysterious Caribbean mission with my HALO teammates, but all three of us had appointments elsewhere. Lola had a singing lesson. Brice trudged off for his weekly chat with our headmaster, one of the conditions of his probation. And I help out at the angel nursery school most Wednesday afternoons.

I flew back to our dorm to change. I burst into my room, still buzzing with excitement and caught sight of myself in the mirror. For the first time I realised that I was clutching an official-looking Agency folder. “I don’t believe it!” I wailed. “This is so unfair!”

I’d been so busy daydreaming about tropical sunshine, I hadn’t noticed Mr Allbright give out our bios for the mission. An angel only needs a human cover story if she’s going to be visible.

I could forget about the cute bikini. Chances were I’d be going to Jamaica in a corset!! But like Reuben says, “You got to take the yin with the yang.” I decided that wearing a corset was a small price to pay for a working holiday on a paradise island.

When I got to the nursery school, the children were just finishing their yoga practice. They looked so-o sweet, sitting in the lotus position on their little pink mats! I have learned such a lot from those angel babies. They can be incredibly wise. They can also be incredibly naughty!

Their rehearsal for the preschool HALO show was a riot. Afterwards I helped Miss Dove clear up. “Thank you for helping, Melanie,” she said warmly. “I know the children are hoping you’ll come and help on the big day. Friday isn’t your usual day for coming in, but do you think you could make it?”

Being appreciated makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? When I feel like that, I’d do anything for anyone.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I beamed.

Next morning I woke with a bloodcurdling shriek.

I’d only promised to help Miss Dove on the same day we were due to fly out to seventeenth-century Jamaica!

If it was anyone else but those little angel kids, I’d have pulled a Houdini and wiggled out of it. But I owed them big time. I’d had some dark times when I first got here and Miss Dove and her preschoolers saved my sanity. I was desperately disappointed, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

Someone would have to take my place on the HALO mission.

I just hoped Brice would understand.

Chapter Three

T
wo hours later I was sitting on a patch of daisies outside the school library, sobbing my heart out. Reuben had tactfully brought me outside before I made a total fool of myself.

“I said there was still time to get someone else,” I hiccupped, “and he just went ballistic! He said I had ruined his chances of getting a HALO!”

“He’s just upset,” Reuben said calmly, “having one of those cosmic wobbles like we all do.”

I hunted for a fresh tissue. “Brice has wobbles?” I sniffled. “I don’t think so.”

“Mel, the guy’s only been back in Heaven a few months. When he came back his clothes still reeked of sulphur, remember?”

I blew my nose. “I know. Lola had to take him shopping,” I remembered. “He’s been through stuff I can’t even imagine.”

“Ssh, it’s going to be OK.” Unlike me and Lola, Reuben is pure angel, and though he doesn’t look particularly tough, he has this incredible inner strength that comes from having grown up in the angel bizz.

“I don’t know what to do, Reubs!” I wept.

Reuben thought for a moment. “What does Helix say?”

Helix is my official angel name. It’s a really big moment when a trainee gets his or her true angel name. But Helix is also like, my inner angel, and I’m meant to tune into her when things get rough. Unfortunately, when things get rough I find it hard to believe I even HAVE an inner angel.

“You tell me,” I choked. “You’re the real angel. I’m just a - a faker!”

He just smiled. “Rubbish. Your inner angel is always online.”

“If you say so,” I snuffled.

I shut my eyes and took slow, deep breaths. The Angel Handbook said it was hard to connect with your inner angel if you were upset. After a few minutes, the centre of my chest began to feel like I’d swallowed a tiny hot potato and it was still trapped halfway down. It seemed like Helix was equally keen to get in touch with me!

When I opened my eyes some time later I felt stunned. “She says Brice
needs
me. He and Lola are both going to need me on this mission.”

“Problem solved,” said Reuben cheerfully.

I sighed. “Not really. Even Helix couldn’t tell me how I can be in two places at once!”

My buddy rolled his eyes. “Remind me what that big A on your jacket stands for again? You’re a celestial being, Melanie! Time is not a problem.”

“It isn’t?” I said bewildered.

Apparently it wasn’t. Reuben suggested a v. sensible alternative scenario. Lola and Brice would go ahead as planned. I’d keep my promise to my baby angels, jump into my seventeenth-century corset, sprint downtown to the Agency, catch the first available portal and join the others in the sun. Sorted!

“The time technicians will get you there a few hours after Lollie and Brice at most.”

I was stunned. “You’re a genius!”

“Thanks,” Reuben said modestly. “You’d better tell Brice, so Mr Allbright can make arrangements.”

“Brice could have told me this,” I said suddenly.

Reuben gave me a lopsided smile. “He must have thought you knew.”

I went cold. Brice didn’t realise I was being dense. He thought I was fobbing him off with any old excuse. He thought I genuinely didn’t want to go!

“Gotta go!” I said urgently. “Later, Reubs.”

I went hunting all over the campus, but Brice had totally gone to ground. Then just as I’d given up all hope I saw a familiar figure in an outsized hoodie trudging out through the gates.

“Brice - wait!!”

He waited with a bored expression.

No one does “bored” quite like Brice. He’s like a porcupine, always putting up sharp prickles. But I told myself I wasn’t going to let him get to me. This time I’d get it right.

“I’ve, um, just been talking to Reuben,” I began brightly.

“And I should care because?” Brice said coldly.

And BOSH! My good intentions went out the window just like that!

“You should care, you thick bozo, because Reuben has just this minute reminded me that I’m a celestial being. Which means I could still be on your stupid HALO team, assuming you still want me. So do you or don’t you? I haven’t got all day, you know!” I was literally yelling into his face.

Brice looked genuinely shocked. “You’re being unusually forceful.”

“Yes, I am,” I snapped. “That’s because I’m sick of tiptoeing round you, like you’ve got some fatal disease, you moron.”

He gave a startled grin. “That’s a fine way for a celestial being to address another celestial being!”

I glared at him. “OK, then: jerk, creep, dirtbag. Take your pick.”

The grin vanished. “Your point being?”

“My point being that real friends don’t tiptoe round each other.”

There was an electrifying pause.

“Friends?” Brice repeated.

I smiled down at my shoes. “Obviously there’s still a way to go. But if trees can turn into diamonds, anything’s possible, right?”

I could feel Brice looking at the top of my head. “OK, Mel Beeby, future friend,” he said softly. “What’s the game plan?”

Confession time. No,
really
, BIG confession time.

I TRULY intended to read my bio. The night before our mission, I actually curled up in my uncomfortable school armchair and opened the first page, but then Lola popped her head round the door to see if I fancied a takeaway. She hadn’t read her bio either. So we both went into total denial mode and ordered this massive feast from the Silver Lychee!