Flying High (2 page)

Chapter Two

R
euben is a real water baby, always messing about with boats and surfer gear. This meant he did all the technical steering stuff, which left us free to do the film-star bit, trailing our hands in the spray and admiring the tiny fish darting in and out of the coral.

But I couldn’t really let go and enjoy myself. Not with Lola being in such a huff. Once or twice I came close to cracking but that would have ruined my big surprise.

Ever since I arrived at the Academy, Lola had been going on about this totally luminous beauty spot and how she couldn’t wait to see it for herself. But as we sailed closer to the shore, I suddenly lost my nerve. When you get down to it, it’s just sand and water, I thought. Can sand and water really be that special?

Actually, yes it can.

As we dragged the boat up out of the water, Lola suddenly went super-quiet.

Lacy little waves lapped at the edges of sand so pure and glittery-white that it looked as if the beach was strewn with powdered diamonds. Palm trees waved lazy fronds in the sweet-scented breeze. Tiny parakeets zoomed to and fro, shrieking to each other as if they owned the place, which I suppose they kind of did. It was like the tropical paradise of your wildest dreams.

Lola gazed around with a dazed expression “This is Treasure Beach,” she said at last.

I tried to sound offhand. “Is it? I didn’t know. It’s just where Mr Allbright said to go.”

Lola’s brow crinkled. “Why did he do that? There aren’t any rock pools!”

“You noticed that too!” I said, quick as a flash. “Maybe Mr Allbright meant us to check out the other side of the island?” I said to Reubs.

“Does anybody, you know,
live
here?” Lola said in an odd voice. She was staring at the sand.

Reuben and I shook our heads energetically. “Uh-uh.”

“So how come there’s all these footprints?”

I did a double take. “You’re right! How weird!”

Lola started moving stealthily towards the trees. She was concentrating so hard on her big mystery, that she totally didn’t see what was in front of her.

“Any minute now,” Reuben whispered.

We heard Lola gasp. And when I saw what Mo had done, I gasped too, even though the whole thing was originally my idea!

In an airy shelter, thatched with palm leaves, was a little desert island cafe. Everything was beautiful: the snowy tablecloths, the exquisite place settings decorated with tropical blossoms. Overhead, in the shadowy branches, I caught the faintest glimmer of fairy lights.

“Ohh,” I breathed. “This is
totally
sublime!”

I found myself mentally fast-forwarding to the end of the party, with everyone dancing in a twinkly fairy-light haze. If only Orlando could be here, I thought wistfully. Then it really would be perfect.

But I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself, because at that moment all our mates jumped out of the shadows yelling, “Surprise, surprise!” They unrolled a massive banner with, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLLIE!” in rainbow-coloured lettering, and people started throwing glittery confetti.

“I don’t
believe
it!” Lola shrieked. “You
monsters
!”

I heard a chink of ice and there was Mo, his bald head gleaming, wearing a dazzling white apron over his Bermuda shorts. He was holding a tray of drinks. He handed one gravely to Lola. Mo’s special birthday cocktails were way over the top; shocking pink fruit juice, crammed with fruit and flowers and topped with a cheesy paper parasol. “Happy birthday, Ms Sanchez,” he said calmly and began unpacking goodies from a huge cool box.

Reuben must have taken my advice literally; because he totally skipped Lola’s birthday greeting. Instead he seized a huge pink blossom from one Mo’s place settings and stuck it in her cowboy hat. “Have a lovely time!” he said shyly.

He ran off to do something to the sound system and Lola’s favourite song came floating through air.

I suddenly heard myself say, “He’s looking so
much
better, isn’t he?”

“Yeah! If it wasn’t for that scar, you’d never know.”

Not too long ago, Reuben came with us on first ever trouble-shooting mission to Earth. Unfortunately he ran into an old enemy of mine, who beat him up really badly. Luckily we found our angel buddy in the nick of time, and the Sanctuary staff did a great job of patching him up.

“I still can’t believe Brice used to be an angel.” I had to close my eyes. Just saying his name was enough to send me dropping dizzily through space. “I mean, how does a total sleaze-ball like that make it into the Angel Academy? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I keep telling you, Brice left the Academy aeons before our time,” Lola reassured me. “Just forget about him because you’re never going to have to see him again.”

I shuddered. “I just hate how he acts like we’ve got this bizarre cosmic connection.”

“In his dreams! Just remember, you got the better of him, not the other way round.” Lola pulled a face. “Anyway, what kind of angel are you, girl! Plotting parties behind my back! And why didn’t you invite that beautiful boy Orlando?” she added, giggling.

I sighed. “He’s gone missing again. No-one seems to know where he is. Anyway, I’m completely over him.”

“Yeah, right!”

“No, I really mean it this time.” I took Lola’s drink and handed her a carefully gift-wrapped box. “Happy birthday, babe!”

Her face lit up. “Boo, you shouldn’t have!” (I have no idea why Lola calls me Boo. She invents random nicknames for everyone.)

Lola never even got the chance to tear off the paper. Next minute there was an outbreak of ear-splitting bird calls. All the local parakeets left the trees in a huge screeching flock.

Everyone looked blank then our mates started groping in bags and pockets. One by one we found our pagers and switched them off.

“Hey, Dino!” Reuben called. “Take over the decks, will ya?”

Lola handed her parcel to Mo. “Mind keeping this till I get back?”

“No problem. Perhaps you’d like to grab a snack?” Mo’s eyes twinkled. “Who knows when you kids will eat again!”

We hastily helped ourselves to various goodies. “Ever consider a change of profession, angel girl?” I teased Lola.

She took a last slurp of her cocktail. “Nope!” she said with a grin. “Enjoy my party, you guys!” she yelled to her remaining guests, and we raced down to the shore.

Minutes later, a flotilla of glass boats went skimming back across the water. That’s how it is in the angel biz. When you get the call, you simply drop what you’re doing and take off. No-one minds; in fact it’s just the opposite. You know that someone somewhere
needs
you, and let me tell you, that’s an incredibly cool feeling!

Chapter Three

W
hen I first arrived at the Academy, I simply could not understand why Lola was so desperate to get into the history club. I mean, who in her right mind would, you know,
choose
to memorise diagrams of the medieval strip field system?

But history at the Angel Academy is totally not like that.

Still not convinced? OK, then check this. At my school, we get to
travel in time
!

I know, I know, I couldn’t believe it at first either But now I’m completely into it. Last term, Lola, Reuben and I actually signed up to do history as our special subject, which got us on to the Agency books. I am now totally convinced that being a time- travelling trouble shooter is what I was created for!

That’s the thing I love about angelic high school. On Earth they make kids wait until they’re grown up before they can do anything interesting. But here, we are constantly being dropped in the deep end, which is scary but also incredibly exhilarating!

So even though we’d had to bale out of our own party, I was wildly happy. And I knew the other trainees were feeling an identical mix of nerves, excitement and jittery pride. From the shore, the sight must be totally magic, I thought.

The Agency had called us and we had answered and now we were leaping from wave to wave like dolphins, in our tiny glass boats filled with light…

“Wonder what this is all about,” said Lola, bringing me out of my dream.

“Must be serious for them to page us on our day off,” said Reuben.

Simultaneously Lola and I looked down and wailed, “
Omigosh
!”

Neither of us had thought to bring a change of clothes!

“Great,” I groaned, “I’ve got to go time-travelling in a silk sarong and sparkly flip-flops!”

“Oh, and obviously hipster shorts and cowboy hats are
so
much more suitable,” my soul-mate joked.

Reuben gave us a baffled look. He was wearing his usual tragic tie-dyed top and cut-offs. Style is yet another Earth concept which
totally
escapes our angel buddy. But like Lola says, “Sweetpea is so cool on the inside, he can totally get away with it!”

We’d barely set foot on dry land when a sleek limo came purring over the sand towards us. We jumped in breathlessly. The driver executed a stylish U-turn and went bombing back downtown to the Agency.

When I first got here, that word made me think of poker-faced men in suits masterminding huge cosmic conspiracies. It’s true that some agents are a teensy bit poker-faced. And they do wear gorgeous suits! They also move in deeply mysterious ways. But hey, they’re angels. What do you expect?

Officially we’re known as “celestial agents” the: days. But most people still affectionately refer to the Agency building as Angel HQ. It’s the tallest skyscraper I have ever seen incidentally. Every few seconds you see brilliant bursts of light overhead as agents zoom back and forth.

I slid out of the limo, and snatched a moment to admire the Agency tower. It’s made of some special celestial-type glass which constantly changes colour.

Two more limos drew up, and a bunch of angel trainees poured out. They hurried in through the revolving doors, waved their IDs at the day staff and sprinted for the lifts. Reuben spotted our friend, Amber, on the other side of the doors, and went in to join her. I could see her hopping on the spot, trying to put on her trainers. Like everyone else except me and Lola she’d sensibly changed her outfit on the way over.

“I can’t go in like this!” I moaned to Lola. “I look like a refugee from some cheesy package tour!”

“Melanie, we’re off to save planet Earth. Who cares what we wear?”

My jaw dropped. “You
really
think it’s that huge?”

She laughed. “I was kidding! It’s probably just another boring drill to keep us lazy trainees on our toes.”

I tried to decide if this would be deeply disappointing or a major relief. Before I could make up my mind, Lola disappeared through the Agency doors, cowboy hat, hipster shorts and all. This didn’t leave me much choice. Adjusting my slipping sarong, I sashayed into the cathedral-sized foyer, flashed my ID, and followed my mates into an unusually crowded lift.

“Anyone know what’s up?” I asked, as we went humming up to the top of the building.

Amber was carefully braiding her hair into a perfect fish-tail plait. “I heard they’d got a problem in ancient Egypt,” she said through a mouthful of grips.

“Egypt? No way!” scoffed a boy from our history class. “First World War, someone told me.”

The lift doors slid open and we hurried down gleaming corridors to the hall I remembered from our Dark Study training. Michael was there already conferring with someone on an invisible ear-piece. A well as being our headmaster, Michael is a major big cheese at the Agency. He’s so human and approachable that it’s surprisingly easy to forget he’s an archangel. Then he fixes you with his beautiful, terrifying archangel eyes, and it’s like he sees right into your soul.

He stepped up to the mike and we all fell silent. “Sorry for calling on you at such short notice. As you know, the primary function of the Academy is to train the celestial agents of the future. Normally, we only send trainees into the field for educational purposes. But in times of extreme cosmic necessity, we occasionally have to call on trainees to provide support for an existing task force.”

Woo-hoo!
I thought. Maybe they did need us to save the planet after all!

“A unique situation is unfolding in thirteenth century France,” Michael went on.

Lola waggled her eyebrows at me. “Unique” is well-known Agency-speak for “dangerous”.

“Normally, when we identify a trouble spot, we send in divine personnel to liaise with local angels. On this occasion, we sent in a small team of highly experienced senior trainees. I’m sorry to say, we underestimated the scale of the problem.”

Michael paused, scanning the rows of silent trainees. “Our young workers are in danger of being completely overwhelmed by local conditions and urgently need back-up. Unfortunately, all our trained operatives are tied up elsewhere, which is why I called you here today.”

An audible ripple of excitement went around the hall.

“You’ll be leaving shortly. The maintenance crew is just running last-minute checks on the time portals.” Michael paused. “It’s only fair to warn you that this crisis could go on for days. I know some of you have exams.”