Angel Creek (3 page)

a place to hide

On the other side of the creek, over the road bridge, was a primary school abandoned for the summer. A tall wire fence ran all the way around the shadowy playground and the school gates were padlocked.

‘There must be somewhere we can get under,' Jelly said, adjusting her hold on the angel's damp body.

The angel hunched still and silent against Jelly's chest as they walked around the fence. Its left wing was folded neatly against its spine, but the right wing hung loosely over Jelly's arm. The longest feathers almost grazed her knee. Every now and then it would lift its head to see where they were going then settle again with a sigh.

Pik trailed behind Gino, yawning and rubbing his eyes. ‘Are you okay—' Jelly started to say, when a beam of light swung across a telegraph pole in front of them. A car turned into the street.

‘Quick,' Jelly said to Gino. ‘Grab Pik.'

She flattened herself against the fence under an enormous mulberry tree that leaned out over the footpath. Gino pulled Pik in alongside him and they huddled together, blocking the angel from view. The beam slid over the footpath in front of their feet, lighting up fat mulberries splattered across the concrete, then it passed. It wasn't until the car's taillights were tiny in the distance that Jelly let go of her breath and unstuck her sweaty palms from the angel's scrunched-up dress.

Pik buried his face into Jelly's hip. ‘Can we go home now?'

‘Soon, Pikky. Be patient.'

‘Here,' Gino said. ‘I've found a way in.'

The roots of the mulberry tree pushed through the wire fence and it curled away from the footpath. Gino pulled the wire upwards. The gap was wide enough for them to slide through.

‘Will you get under with the angel, Jel?'

Jelly bent forward, the angel hanging off her chest. ‘I don't think so. I'll go first then you can pass me the angel, Gino. Pik, you can hold up the fence.'

Jelly unhooked a spindly hand from her arm. The angel's nails had left tiny pink crescents on her skin. She tried to prise the angel away but its head jerked and its heart began to knock around in its chest. It squealed. Pik stumbled backwards, sticking his fingers into his ears. Even Gino moved away.

‘Great,' Jelly shouted over the squeals. ‘Thanks for your help, guys.'

In one rapid movement Jelly caught both of the angel's arms, pulled it from her and shoved it through the gap. The angel scuttled forward on all fours. Its wings flicked out and for a moment it looked like it might take off. But then its damaged wing buckled and it hurtled forward onto the concrete.

Jelly scraped her knees and elbow as she rushed under the fence, but the angel hadn't got far. When she reached it, it was huddled, shivering, against the bike racks. Jelly pulled it into her arms as Gino and Pik squeezed through the fence behind her.

‘You guys are hopeless,' Jelly said.

They grinned sheepishly at her.

The three of them crept across the school grounds, reverently quiet, as if crossing the threshold of a church. A light in the hallway of a red-brick building shone a pale yellow square over a hopscotch game, marked in faded chalk on the concrete. The swings in the playground creaked.

There was something eerie about a school at night. It was like a ghost-town, ringing with the squeals of a hundred vanished children. And then Jelly heard a real shout, and the swish of bike wheels from the other side of the fence. Three boys were pedalling down the middle of the empty street, looping in and out of each other.

‘Budge. Hey, Budge.'

One of them let out a wolfish howl.

‘Get back,' she whispered, tugging on Pik's arm. They huddled in a doorway of the old school building. ‘Did they see us?' Gino asked.

‘Don't think so.' Jelly stood for a moment listening to the night: a whistle, a bird, the clacking of a tram. ‘I've seen those boys around before. They're from Northbridge High, I think.'

‘Your new school?'

‘Unfortunately.'

Finally they spied what they were looking for— a tool shed. Unlocked. The perfect place to keep an angel. Gino pushed open the squeaky metal door. Inside were some old paint tins, a flattened soccer ball and one lonely bike with a missing wheel. A plastic skylight let in yellow light from the streetlamps.

‘The angel should be okay here,' Gino said. ‘What do you think?'

‘Perfect.' Jelly sat down in the corner and tucked the angel into her lap. Gino and Pik crouched beside her.

‘Can I have a hold?' Pik asked.

‘Not yet,' Jelly said. ‘Maybe tomorrow. How about you and Gino get some food and blankets while I stay here with the angel?

‘Why don't you go?' Gino said. ‘I can stay with it. I haven't had a turn yet.'

‘It doesn't want you, Gino. It only wants me. I have to stay.'

‘What if I get caught?'

‘Don't! And watch out for those boys.'

Gino and Pik crept out of the shed and pulled the door behind them. Jelly leaned back against the cool metal wall. She stroked the angel's hair. Its eyes closed and soon its breathing slowed. Jelly was filled with pride. The angel trusted her. This strange, wild creature trusted her enough to fall asleep in her lap. As she watched the angel sleep, a sense of calm came over her, like warm honey trickling through her bones.

She forgot, for a moment, that high school was starting in five weeks, that her parents had sold their beautiful house in the outer suburbs to buy a rundown old dump in the city so that she could go to Northbridge High. She even forgot about Stef, and the conversation where her parents had promised her she'd make new friends. Jelly was certain she'd never find a friend as good as Stef. They'd known each other since Prep.

The angel's limbs were folded loosely across her knees. Long pale lashes spread out over the crest of its cheek. Jelly picked up a clump of soft white hair. Now that it was no longer wet, when she blew gently it floated like a spider's web.

Jelly had never held anything so precious or so lovely. Looking down at the sleeping angel made her heart hurt. Even the baby birds that her dad had brought into school last year weren't as fragile as this. The enormity of what she was doing suddenly flooded through her and she remembered everything.

The next day was Christmas: Gino and Pik would go home and then Jelly would be by herself again. Without a single friend in the world. Stef was too far away and too busy with her family to come and help her. No, Jelly needed Gino. She couldn't do this on her own. He needed to stay for the holidays. Jelly prayed for him to hurry. In her damp clothes, now that she was sitting still, she felt the cool of the night shrinking around her.

‘Please,' she whispered, stroking the angel's feathers. ‘Make something happen so that Gino has to stay. And Pik too, if he's allowed.' The angel stirred and a shiver passed through it like the faintest breeze.

Jelly leaned against the shed wall. Time passed. One minute, ten minutes. How long had the boys been gone? A car started up and she heard people leave a party up the road, their laughter melting into the night.

Then Jelly recognised the sound of Gino's sneakers on the concrete outside. Finally! She sat up expectantly as he opened the door. He was puffing, his hands empty. His eyes darted about. ‘You gotta come,' he said. ‘It's Nonna. She's in hospital!'

4

nonna

After all her complaining about her gummy knees and aching back and tired old eyes, finally it was Nonna's heart that caved in. Her heart, which Jelly thought would have been about the biggest, healthiest part of her body, stopped working right between the Christmas cake and coffee.

By the time Jelly and Gino got home the ambulance had gone, and their mums and dads with it, and only Maureen from next door was there to look after them and put baby Sophia to bed. Pik was crying in the kitchen, where all the coffee cups were half-full on the bench and the dishes still everywhere.

‘Is Nonna okay?' Jelly asked, out of breath from running up the creek bank faster than she'd ever done.

‘She'll be fine, honey,' Maureen said, reaching her hand out to Jelly. But Jelly didn't take it and Maureen let it drop back into her lap, her long red fingernails clicking against each other like cicada wings. Maureen was wearing Nonna's special flowery apron. No one was allowed to wear that apron except for Nonna.

How do you know? Jelly wanted to ask. How do you know Nonna will be fine? But she didn't. She didn't feel like asking something she knew Maureen couldn't really answer.

‘Well, kids, I'd say it was way past your bedtime, wouldn't you? Your mum said you'll know where the spare bedding is, Ange—' ‘

It's Jelly. That's what everyone calls me.'

‘Right. Jelly.' Maureen tottered into the kitchen.

‘Aren't they coming back tonight?' Even though Jelly was trying her best not to cry, her throat began to clog. She ran her hands briskly over her eyes to shoo away the tears.

‘Not tonight,' Maureen said, stacking coffee cups onto a tray. ‘They'll need to stay with your grandma for a while.'

‘Nonna,' said Jelly under her breath. Why was there a near-stranger in their house at a time like this?

Pik ran out from under the kitchen bench and into the lounge room. Jelly followed him. Gino was bunched up on the couch, tears running down his cheeks. Jelly took a sharp breath. She wouldn't cry in front of Maureen.

‘What about Christmas?' Gino said, in a small voice. ‘What about our presents?'

‘I don't think that's the most appropriate thing to be worrying about right now,' Maureen called from the kitchen. ‘Bedtime.'

Jelly, Gino and Pik trudged upstairs with a bundle of bedding in their arms. Pik was almost falling over with tiredness so Jelly tucked him in her bed, where he immediately fell asleep. She and Gino made nests on the floor. Her clothes were still damp but she couldn't face changing and doing her teeth. And there were no parents to bother them about those things anyway. She curled up in her blankets.

‘Are we in trouble?' she whispered to Gino. ‘Do our parents know where we were?'

‘No,' said Gino. ‘I mean, yes. Dad shouted at me for being out at night without asking them, but they think we were just at the playground. He would've killed me if he knew we'd taken Pik down to the creek.' He paused. ‘Jelly?'

‘Yeah?'

‘Do you think Nonna's going to be all right?'

‘Of course she will,' said Jelly, but her heart felt squeezed. ‘What about the angel? We didn't leave it any food or water,' she said.

‘We'll go tomorrow morning,' Gino mumbled. ‘It'll be fine.'

But Jelly wasn't so sure. It was such a little thing. So small and skinny and afraid. And now she didn't know who she was more worried about: Nonna or the angel. At least Nonna had people with her. She wasn't alone.

Everything that had happened felt so mixed-up and frightening and strange, as if the world she knew had been turned upside down and shaken all about. Moving house, Nonna sick, her parents gone in the middle of the night—all of it forced its way up through Jelly's chest. And even though she squeezed her eyes shut, long silky tears streamed down her cheeks, while Gino snored in the pile of blankets next to her.