The Rainbow Maker's Tale (26 page)

Her voice was soft, and sounded
tired.
That
made me feel much better about behaving like a
jerk.

“Oh,” I replied, going with the
most charming and engaging answer I could think of. If I could have
kicked myself at that moment in time I would have, but my legs just
weren’t long enough.

Joel’s pretty tall – I bet he
can kick himself.

So, now I had to feel inferior
about my height?

Cassie’s voice interrupted my
deranged musings. “Do you know where you are today?”

“I’m not sure.” I replied,
snatching a quick glance at her, before looking back at my food.
She didn’t look angry – maybe she was getting used to ignoring me
when I was stupid. “They mentioned something about a change to the
rotation yesterday, but I wasn’t sure what they were referring to.
I suppose we’ll find out soon enough won’t we.”

“Yep.”

Cassie nodded along with my
words. That was when I connected her earlier sighs and comment
about
a day at The Clinic
. I leaned my fork on the side of
the plate and turned my full attention on her now. “Are you not
looking forward to today?”

Cassie looked up, her eyes
locking on mine. It made everything a little fuzzy, if I’m honest.
It was hard not to get lost in her gaze when she looked at me like
that. It was as if she only saw me – that everything around us
ceased to exist in that one moment – it was just us.

She cleared her throat quietly,
and it broke the spell. “Why would you think that?”

“You said you were sighing at
the thought of going to The Clinic today. For most normal people,
that is not a good sign.”

“Oh, that…” She nodded at my
reminder of her own words. “I’m just tired and a bit stiff: ignore
me, I’m being grumpy. Sorry.”

“Hey,” I reached across to
touch her hand, demanding that she look at me again. “You don’t
have to apologise to me.” I told her, adding silently that I was
the one who should be apologising. The only person who had been
unnecessarily grumpy that morning was me; I was an idiot. I sighed,
frustrated with myself, as usual. “I’m just sorry that you’re in
pain, I wish I could do something about it.”

“Thanks. More drugs would be
good,” she joked.

I could have kicked myself.
Again. But, I’d already analysed why that wasn’t possible, hadn’t
I? I wasn’t just an idiot; I was the biggest idiot. After all the
effort I had gone to this morning to get more tablets, I couldn’t
believe I’d neglected to actually give them to the person that
needed them!

In my bag I’d hidden a pretty
big stash of the tablets, along with some other interesting stuff
I’d found in the storeroom and thought it might be helpful to have
to hand in the future. After a quick jog to Park 42 to bury most of
what I’d taken, I had held back a full packet for Cassie this
morning. It should be enough to last her a couple of days.

“Already sorted,” I grinned.
Releasing her hand I delved into my pocket, producing a full packet
of the painkillers a moment later.

“Thanks.”

Smiling gratefully, Cassie
immediately popped two pills from the wrapper. She swallowed them
both with a single gulp of breakfast juice.

“No problem.” I guessed she
hadn’t taken anything that morning, from the speed with which she
took the new tablets. “Just make sure your partner looks after you
today,” I nodded towards Joel as he sauntered back towards the
table. “I don’t want to find you’ve been doing anything stupid and
not resting your shoulder as much as you can.”

“Yes boss!”

Cassie suppressed a smile,
ignoring my bossiness. I smiled back and squeezed her hand, before
starting on my food again. “I’ll wait for you outside The Clinic
when you’re finished for the day if you want?”

“Sure. Why not,” she
shrugged.

The casual gesture was
completely at odds with the grin I could see tugging at Cassie’s
lips. She seemed happy at the prospect of spending time with me. I
didn’t want to say what I did next, but I couldn’t help myself.
Serious Balik was back.

“Good.” I nodded, reaffirming
myself. “I think another stroll in the park is called for and you
can tell me why you were up all night.”

Cassie’s faced dropped, but
Joel’s reappearance at the table quashed any further discussion on
the matter. Joel happily filled the silence with some cheerful
chatter about one of his friends, and didn’t appear to notice that
Cassie and I stayed quiet. Before long, it was time to go.

We were inside The Clinic and
at the orientation reception doors before I was really aware of it.
My head was busy wondering what other reasons Cassie might have for
not sleeping. I suspected it might have something to do with what
had happened in the park after she blacked out. Despite her
denials, I just
knew
there was something more to the strange
coincidence of her answering what I thought and not what I had
said.

The door slid open
automatically, and I stood aside the let Cassie pass through first.
Joel paused, completing the very same movement. We were like a
reflection of one another, with Cassie in the middle. It might have
been comical, except for the look that passed between Joel and
myself, when we realised what we were doing.

In that moment, I think Joel
and I saw each other –
really
saw each other – for the first
time. Cassie ducked between us into the orientation reception. Our
eyes moved slowly off one another, to stare instead at the girl in
front of us. It wasn’t jealousy exactly, that hollowed out my
stomach. It was the realisation that Joel was looking at Cassie,
the way I knew
I
looked at her.

Cassie headed straight into the
girl’s room to change. Joel and I walked side-by-side across the
reception to the male changing room, in an odd silence. Then there
was an even worse, more uncomfortable moment, when we both moved to
go through the single door at the same time.

“Sorry,” we muttered
simultaneously. It took a few attempts, and several seconds, for us
to navigate the short distance into the room without bumping into
one another again.

A clean, fresh clinic-suit was
waiting on my peg as usual, once I made it inside. I noticed that
it had long sleeves, but nothing more. I was more interested in
dressing as quickly as possible and getting out, before Joel
decided to engage me in conversation. I was still new to this stuff
– what the hell would I say if he asked me outright what was going
on with Cassie?

Not much really, Joel. I’ve
kind of stalked Cassie over the last few years – in secret,
obviously. But now her friends think she likes me, so that’s worked
out well. Except, I nearly got her killed yesterday. Oh, and when I
was eight, I think I got my friend killed, but then she came back
to life.

No. I had no answers for Joel.
I didn’t even have good ones for myself. I changed my clothes, in
possibly the fastest time ever, and was back in the orientation
reception mere seconds later. I took to counting the white resin
tiles on the floor while I waited. They made nice square patterns
when you looked at them in a slightly, squinty way.

“Hello again.”

My heart leaped in my chest.
But, not in the good way that normally happened when Cassie spoke
to me. It was more like what I guessed a heart attack might feel
like: all sharp pain and contracting muscles.

I was so caught up distracting
myself with squares, I hadn’t heard her approach and so I was
caught completely off guard. Spinning on the spot, I turned towards
the voice. As my eyes fell on her, my heart did one of the nicer
contractions. Cassie looked lovely in white. I smiled. Then noticed
a second later that the long sleeves of her suit were like mine,
and helpfully covered up the bruising, cuts and goodness knows what
else on her arms.

“You look better than you did
last night,” she offered.

“Right back at you,” I replied.
The compliment she’d paid me made me bolder and I moved closer,
dropping my lips to her ear. “Although I was rather hoping you
would need some help getting into your suit again…”

I stepped back in time to see
her cheeks flush pink. It made me laugh. “That colour suits you,
you know?” She blushed even more and I laughed again.

“Ah, speaking of colour. Do you
remember the rainbow machine you made for that science fair when we
were younger?”

My laughter cut off abruptly.
Where had this come from?

I nodded. “I remember. What
brought that to mind?”

“Something I saw in the
changing room made me think of rainbows and it just popped into my
head.”

I tried to imagine what Cassie
might have seen that was rainbow-like in their changing room, but
couldn’t. Surely the room was as white and bland as everywhere else
in The Clinic?

Regardless of what had prompted
Cassie’s sudden interest in my school science project, it probably
wasn’t the best time to reveal my long-term interest in her. I
wasn’t about to admit that I’d built the rainbow maker purely to
try and get her to talk to me.

“Oh. It never really worked
that well,” I shrugged one shoulder, throwing in a quick hair flick
to generate the perfect picture of nonchalance. “There were some
design kinks that I didn’t iron out.”

“I wish I’d seen it. I always
wanted to see a real rainbow.”

I know
.

Cassie looked wistful, her eyes
clouding a little and I thought she might be picturing herself
somewhere else, away from the Space Station Hope, where real
rainbows were possible.

“I wanted to see one ever since
we learned about Earth’s weather systems as children. But, I was
too nervous to come over and have a look at what you had made when
we were at the fair… how silly is that?”

Very silly!
Why would
she be scared to speak to me, or look at my project? Then, I
remembered a vague image of some sort of flying contraption that
she’d made for the same fair. It had flopped to the ground on its
inaugural flight and never recovered. Perhaps
that
was the
problem.

I shook my head, marvelling at
how self-conscious someone like Cassie could be. There was no need
for it, but for some reason, she didn’t see that. “It’s not silly.”
I told her, adding honestly: “it would have been nice if you’d seen
it…even with its technical problems.”

“You still won the fair,”
Cassie pointed out.

Her words convinced me even
more that it was the failure of her work, and not the success of
mine that had made her too nervous to even look at what I had made
for her. “Sometimes it’s about getting someone to see something
differently, rather than winning.” My words were loud enough for
Cassie to hear, but I think they were more for me than her. I found
myself wishing, once again, that I could work out how to tell
Cassie the full truth: just enough, so that she could see what was
happening around us. So that it wasn’t just me.

Cassie obviously wanted to
change the subject, because she went straight to generic small talk
with her next question.

“So, what do you think you’ll
be doing today with Olivia?”

Nothing, hopefully
.

I wasn’t interested in making
small talk, especially about Olivia, and so I shrugged and replied
“who knows”. In the moment after I’d done it, I realised I was
definitely picking up on some of Cassie’s more obvious traits. I’d
heard that happened with friends, but hadn’t had enough time with
anyone to notice that before. It was interesting.

A wisp of hair sticking on
Cassie’s cheek distracted me. Without thinking, I reached out and
caught the strands in my fingers, intending to tuck them behind her
ear, where I guessed they were supposed to be. I paused as her hair
caught the light. Bright, natural highlights appeared from within
the normal brown colour as the light moved across the hairs. From a
coppery-gold to a darker bronze-red, it was as if her hair had
suddenly become metal in my fingers the moment I touched it. I
moved the strands one way, and then another, tilting them to watch
the colours merge and change. It was beautiful.

A flash of green caught my
attention and I realised Cassie was staring at me. Quickly – and
guiltily – I tucked the hairs into their proper place and offered
her a swift smile of apology. Cassie stepped away from me, just as
I heard the reception door slide open behind me. I guessed my
stalker-scrutiny had freaked her out.
Well done, Balik
.

“Hi Balik! How are you this
morning?”

Olivia suddenly appeared by my
elbow, standing too close to me, and as loud as ever. I took a
breath, potentially preparing to answer, but of course, this was
Olivia, and so there was no need for my input to the
conversation.

“I wonder what we’re doing
today? Did you have a nice afternoon yesterday when we finished
early? I ended up at Park 14 with a group of people from school,
you should have come too, you would have
loved
it!”

Automatically I slipped into my
usual role: nodding and offering smiles at regular intervals. It
was easy enough to let Olivia’s questions just wash over me.

“Hi Joel!”

Olivia’s greeting brought my
attention back to the group. Joel was ambling towards us, and
nodded at Olivia’s welcome.

“I saw you this morning from my
bedroom window – where were you going at that time?” She
demanded.

“Just running. Then, I saw
Cassie and Balik at the canteen and we had breakfast together.”
Joel replied.

At the mention of my name, I
looked across at him. I couldn’t help but notice that Joel had
chosen to stand opposite me, on Cassie’s other side. She looked
quite small sandwiched between us, especially as Joel towered a
good four or five inches over my own head. Olivia passed between
Cassie and I, moving towards the changing room when Medic Karlina
appeared in the reception.