Andie's Moon (7 page)

“Come on,” said Ravi. “We’ll go skyhopping. It’ll be good tonight. Ever done it before?”

Andie stared. “Are you mad?” But what if he really
is
? she thought. What if he thinks we can balance on the wall and stretch out our arms and fly, like Superman to the planet Krypton? Or is he planning to call up some obedient little spacecraft to take us from one twinkling star to another, light years away?

Ravi didn’t look mad. He was adjusting the height of the telescope, swivelling it on its mount, adjusting the eyepiece.

“Skyhopping means getting a fix on a constellation you’re sure of, then setting off from there to find others,” he explained. “You know the Plough? How to find the Pole Star?”

“I think so,” Andie said, not
quite
certain.

“Well, there it is. See?” He pointed. “You don’t even need binoculars to find that. See the Big Dipper shape, and Polaris, the very bright one? I’ve got the scope lined up on that. Have a look. You need to get it right for your own eyesight, so turn this dial till it comes clear.”

Andie looked. The stars sprang out at her in fresh brilliance.

“It’s part of Ursa Major,” Ravi was saying, “the Great Bear. See –” He had opened his book, and now shone the torch on a page which showed the constellation in diagram form – though Andie couldn’t see much resemblance to a bear. “That’s how the first astronomers found their way around the sky. Made their sky-maps. They saw the shapes of birds and swans and bears. And that must be as long ago as there have been people on Earth.”

“Where’s the moon?” said Andie. “I want to look at the moon.”

“We’ll have to go round the side.”

Andie followed Ravi back into the valley-between-roofs. She was trembling with excitement as he swivelled the telescope and adjusted it. She was about to see the moon as she’d never seen it before.

“There.” He stood aside; she moved over to look.

The moon seemed to thrust itself towards her, pale and enormous. She saw its strange, pitted surface so well that she imagined herself standing on it, with powdery moondust at her feet. It had mountains, whole ridges of them, and huge flat plains; it was a
place.

“Do you think the astronauts will really be able to land there?” she asked Ravi, still peering into the eyepiece.

“Oh, I expect they’ll land all right,” Ravi said, matter-of-factly. “It’s whether they can take off again that I’d be worried about.”

Andie looked at him. “Doesn’t anyone know?”

“Well, it’s never been tried before, has it? They can’t be
certain
.”

“They must be so brave!” Andie felt a thrill of excitement and fear. “Just imagine, being stranded – looking at the Earth, knowing you can never get back – would you do it, if you had the chance?”

“Like a shot! Wouldn’t you?”

Andie thought. “Yes. Yes, I would,” she said, after a moment. It felt strange to say this, because in her mind she’d been there already – walked about on the moon’s surface, and gazed back at the Earth. But she wasn’t going to tell Ravi, because it would sound stupid. In silence, she studied the lunar surface again. She gazed and gazed until she began to shiver, aware for the first time that she was only in her pyjamas. Ravi was dressed more warmly in jeans and a sweater.

“I can’t believe how close it looks,” she said. “As if we could hop over to it and walk about.”

“I know. It’s nearly a quarter of a million miles away, but that
is
close, compared to anything else we can see. The next nearest thing’s Venus, and that’s twenty-six million miles, but only at its closest.”

“How do you know so much?” she asked him.

“I just read books, and I look at the sky, and notice things and look them up.”

“What about sleeping? Don’t you sleep?”

“Course – but I’ll stay a bit longer. I want to see – hey!”

He broke off as Andie barged into him, startled by a pressure against her legs, a warm furriness.

“The cats!” she exclaimed. “I forgot – I left the door open!”

Panic juddered through her; she felt trembly and stupid. How could she have been so careless?

“What, those big soft moggies?” Ravi flashed his torch around, revealing a back view of Rumpelteazer, ginger striped tail held high as he stalked along beside the parapet.

“Rumpelteazer!” Andie whisper-called. “Come here – puss, puss! Oh no, I bet they’re both out – Mungojerrie! Rumpelteazer!”

“They’re not easy names to call out…” Ravi was moving slowly along the walkway on the other side of the door.

Andie’s mind was racing. They could go anywhere – escape over the roofs and chimneys of the whole row of Chelsea Walk… She pictured them perched on the highest chimney stack, yowling at the moon like cartoon cats. What if they don’t come back? What if they fall? What if –

Slinking after Rumpelteazer, she wondered whether to grab him – but would he skitter away, even scale the roof? Luckily, he seemed less sure of himself out here than he was indoors. He hesitated, looked at her over his shoulder, turned and miaowed. She darted forward.

“Gotcha!” She tightened her fingers round his collar, and picked up his heavy, resistant bulk. Carrying him back in triumph, she saw that Ravi had gone inside, to the storeroom. Rumpelteazer’s weight made her arms sag as she ducked through the low door. The glow from Ravi’s torch swept round the room, illuminating beams, cobwebs and more boxes and bundles.

“
Yesss!
” went Ravi, as the light picked out black Mungojerrie stalking a spider in a corner. “Shut the door –”

Andie struggled to do so, her arms full of protesting cat. At least, now, Mungojerrie couldn’t go gallivanting over the rooftops. Ravi was stalking him, holding out one hand as if offering a titbit. The cat hesitated, his eyes reflecting greenly. Ravi pounced; Mungojerrie yowled and hissed, but he was caught.

Giggling with relief, Andie followed Ravi down the stairs, treading carefully. At the open door of the flat, she moved the umbrella rack aside and went in; Ravi shoved Mungojerrie through after her. She held the door open just a crack, enough to speak, not wide enough for the cats to slip out again. “Thanks!” she whispered. “I’d better stay in now. But I liked the skyhopping. Can I come next time?”

“Course. I’ll tell you when.”

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” she added; but he was already ghost-footing up the attic stairs again, heading back to his telescope and the countless millions of stars.

Chapter Nine

Crash-landing

“You know what, And – you’re
good
.”

Andie looked up from her sketchpad, astonished. It was unusual for Prune to say anything complimentary. But, yes, Andie was pleased with the drawings she’d done of the stilt-legged models in the King’s Road shops, with their perfect, haughty faces and their strutty poses.

Prune turned her head on one side for a better look, adding, “They need better clothes, though. The ones you’ve given them are just ordinary.”

“I don’t really do clothes.” Andie had just sketched in vague short dresses, or flared trousers.

She was sitting on the garden swing, Prune looking over her shoulder. Evening sunshine filtered through the branches of the walnut tree; pigeons cooed, and a thrush was singing somewhere nearby. It wasn’t late, but Andie was tired, after the excitement of the night, and a full day. Mum and Dad, relenting a little, had taken her to the Tate Gallery; they’d spent the whole morning there, then had a sandwich lunch on the Embankment and walked all the way home. Andie’s mind was afloat with paintings and sculptures, colour and shape – Turner and Blake, Rousseau and Rossetti, and more recent work that was made entirely of dots or wavy lines or bits of metal. Mum and Dad had tutted at those, and moved briskly on to the Turners and Constables, but Andie had wanted to see everything. Now her head was filled with so many images that she hadn’t known what to draw first. She had come out to the garden in the hope of seeing either Kris or Ravi, but neither of them seemed to be about. Flicking through her sketchbook, she had found the drawings from Friday, and had just been doodling. But the doodles had turned themselves into a whole series, and her pencil had worked away at them while her mind was elsewhere.

“Could I have some?” Prune asked.

“Have some what?”

“Some of your drawings. You could do them with –” Prune giggled – “with no clothes on. I mean just do the outlines in soft pencil, and I’ll add the clothes. I like designing. I’ve got loads of ideas, but you know how hopeless I am at drawing.”

“Well, okay.” Andie shrugged, turned a page and started again. If it kept Prune in a good mood, it was worth doing. And it might give her a bargaining tool for later.

Mum’s secretarial agency had found her a temping job for the week, shorthand-typing. She was up early to get breakfast for herself and Dad, dressed in her cream suit, and fretting because she said her hair was a mess, although to Andie it looked exactly the same as usual.

“If you go out, you must go together,” she told the girls. She was wiping down the draining board, which was already spotless. “Andie, remember what we said about not going out with Kris. And don’t be late back. I’ll be getting tea for half past six and I want you both in long before then.”

Andie agreed reluctantly, wondering if she could persuade Prune to catch a bus to the National Gallery. But Prune had other ideas. As soon as Mum and Dad had left, she retreated to the bedroom, where she spent nearly an hour getting ready to go out.

“I’m meeting someone,” was all she would say.

“Who?”

“No one you know.”

“Can I come?”

“No!”

“Well, that’s great! Mum says I can only go out with you, and you don’t want me!”

Prune didn’t answer, gazing at herself in the mirror, mascara wand in hand. Andie wondered if she’d met a boy; she was certainly going to a lot of trouble with make-up, so it must be someone she wanted to impress. It couldn’t be Sushila she was going out with; Sushila and Ravi’s school, St. Dunstan’s, didn’t break up till Friday.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Andie persisted. “Sit indoors all day, on my own? That’ll be fun!”

“You can do your painting, can’t you? Down in the garden? Then it won’t be like staying in. When I get back, we’ll go for a walk or something.”

“Big deal!” Andie humphed.

When Prune finally left, after examining herself from all angles in the wardrobe mirror and changing her top three times, Andie went downstairs to see if Kris was in. She was, and suggested doing what she called a “Bridge Walk”: crossing the Thames on the nearest bridge, back on the next, and so on. “We can easily get as far as Westminster Bridge, then we can go in St. James’s Park as well. I once did it all the way to the Tower, but it’s a bit hot to walk so far.”

Andie agreed straight away. She didn’t want to tell Kris about the prohibition; it made her feel like a little kid. Anyway, it was quite obviously Prune’s fault:
she
was the one not doing what Mum had said. If Andie got in before Mum did, and preferably before Prune as well, no one need know.

It felt seasidey by the river, standing on the Embankment looking down at a passing tourist launch whose wake made ripples that fanned out to the shore. There was even a faint smell of saltwater. Busy traffic crossed the bridge, but along the promenade people were lingering, taking photographs, eating ice creams. Andie liked the mixture of holiday and busy Monday.

“Did you come on your own?” she asked Kris. They were on Westminster Bridge, watching the pleasure launches and the drabber, more workmanlike barges that passed underneath. “That time you walked all the way to the Tower of London?”

“No – that was with Ravi. It was his idea, actually – bridgehopping, he calls it. He’s awfully quiet when there are people around, but fun when you get to know him.”

What a strange boy he was, Andie thought – bridgehopping, skyhopping! She opened her mouth to tell Kris about her night-time adventure on the roof, but closed it again and said nothing.

As soon as she let herself into the flat, she heard Prune crying. Really crying – face down on her bed, sobbing hard.

“Prune! What’s wrong?” Andie rushed in, fearing a dreadful accident to Mum or Dad, at the very least.

“Nothing!” Prune turned her face into the pillow, her shoulders heaving.

Andie sat on the bed beside her. “Don’t be daft! What is it? Were you attacked or something? Has something awful happened? Come on,
tell
me!”

Prune continued to sob and gulp for a few moments, then sat up angrily and grabbed at a tissue from the box on her bedside table. “They were horrible, that’s what! So horrible!”

“
Who?
”

“The people. The snooty people at the agency.”

“Agency? What, Mum’s temping agency?”

Prune glared at her. “Don’t be dense! You know! The people at Andromeda – the model agency. Sushila wouldn’t go, so I went instead – rang up and made an appointment and they said they’d see me. But they – they –” She started to weep again, tears spilling. Her eyes were already panda-like, smudged with black mascara that made sooty runnels down her cheeks. “They hardly even looked at me! The girl at reception – the way she sneered, you’d think I was something that had crawled in under the door. Then she sent for this other woman, the one who spoke to Sushila in the King’s Road. She looks like Marianne Faithfull, only much older – up close you can see her eyes are all wrinkly. She didn’t even recognize me! It was only Sushila she was interested in. Just looked me up and down, then said where was my portfolio – photos, she meant. And of course I haven’t got any. But then she said – she said –”