Budding Star
Authors: Annie Dalton
First published in Great Britain by Harper Collins Children’s Books in 2004
This updated and revised edition published by Lazy Chair Press in 2013
Text copyright (c) Annie Dalton 2001
The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.
This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be leant, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form (including digital form) other than this in which it is published, and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
For Maria, who solved several crucial problems with one dazzling flash of inspiration; Terry Hong, whose expertise and insights helped to give this story its final shape; and Miryam Sas, for her well-timed words of encouragement.
O
ne sunny morning, a few hours after my thirteenth birthday, I totally amazed myself by unexpectedly becoming an angel.
This was not a career option I’d ever seriously considered. I’d been thinking more along the lines of “TV presenter”. OK, strictly speaking, I’d have preferred “girl hip-hop artist”, but one of my mates played my voice back when we were messing around with her sound system one time, and I sounded exactly like a tiny cartoon animal!
Like most of my mates, I had this idea that the sole purpose of human existence was to get myself on telly; but if I couldn’t even sing…
After stamping around like a drama queen for a few days, I decided I’d have to break into show biz some other way. Maybe I’d be one of those cute teen celebs who get paid squillions on the basis of their warm bubbly personalities?
This probably sounds v. shallow, but like I said, I hadn’t realised the teenage angel option was available. Even if I had known, the all-important entry qualification (i.e. being completely and utterly dead) would have
definitely
put me off.
Back then, you see, I believed that when you died, you lost absolutely everything that made you “you”. So when a speeding Ford Fiesta knocked me down, that sunny summer morning, and I found myself in the Afterlife, very much in one piece, I went into pure shock! I’m like, “You mean I genuinely get to live for EVER!! Are you SERIOUS!”
At first, my new existence felt completely unreal. Everything seemed super-sparkly and humongously intense. I don’t think there was one single moment when everything was just ordinary. I’d wake in my tiny dorm room at the Angel Academy and immediately have to rush to the window to check if Heaven was still there!
The view blew me away every time. It was partly the gorgeous colours. I’d never even seen fifty per cent of them back when I was human. I’d never seen strange futuristic skyscrapers, either, soaring up into fluffy white clouds, or a city that shimmered softly with its own mysterious inner light.
What I totally couldn’t seem to get my head round, though, was that I’d been touched with this same special heavenly shimmer-dust. I’d catch sight of myself in the mirror and just gaze at my reflection in absolute awe. Was that REALLY me? This was the girl I’d secretly longed to be back on Earth. Now, for reasons I didn’t completely comprehend, she’d shown up in Heaven; a cool vibey Mel Beeby to fit my cool vibey environment.
You know those feel-good fantasy series they put out on TV? The kind you just have to drop everything to see. The opening credits flash up and something inside you goes, “Yess! This is how life’s supposed to be!” Well, the Heavenly City is like that, except it’s totally real.
The school campus I had to cross each morning on my way to class was not just some fake movie set. I could sit down on real grass, mash real daisy stems with my fingernail and make a real live heavenly daisy chain!
The teenagers milling around in their cool casuals were not hired extras, but genuine angel trainees. And the dark-haired girl in jeans and cowboy boots racing towards me, waving madly,
definitely
wasn’t a made-up character! Lola Sanchez was my real, and totally crazy, best friend.
It’s a bizarre thought that if Lollie and I hadn’t both died at such a tender age, we probably wouldn’t have met. Though we have the same mad sense of humour, and almost identical taste in clothes and music, my soul-mate originally hailed from a Third World city exactly one hundred years in my future!
Like our teachers are always saying, the Agency moves in SUCH mysterious ways. The Agency is what we call the massive angelic operation that keeps the Universe humming smoothly twenty-four-seven. There’s actually a zillion-plus Light Agencies, if you want to get technical. But since they’re all working towards the same aims, (universal peace, blah-blah) everyone simply refers to them as “the Agency”. Most kids from my school end up working for them after they graduate.
Lola and I had our sights set on being actual celestial agents, along with Reuben, our other big buddy. We were going to blaze through history side by side, scattering the Powers of Darkness with our angel super powers, bringing hope and harmony to Planet Earth; or something along those lines!
I think it’s especially touching that Reuben is equally dedicated to making Earth safe for humankind, since he actually grew up in the pure shimmery environment of Heaven. He says when he was little he thought everywhere was like that! He’d never set foot on Earth before he met me and Lollie.
Isn’t that mind-bending!! Three teenagers from drastically different cosmic backgrounds, studying in the same school by day, and bopping to the same heavenly hip-hop grooves by night; as if stuff like life, death, time and space had no influence over our individual destinies whatsoever!
I wish I’d known this kind of thing was possible when I was human. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent so much of my time fighting Mum and Des for the remote, and feeling deeply grumpy because I’d never be as rich, famous or fabulously good-looking as the kids on TV. But I never even
dreamed
that the cosmos was this amazing!
What I also never imagined was the pressure. Kids like me, who get into the Academy on cosmic scholarships, are under
unbelievable
pressure. We basically just get chucked in at the deep end with all the pure angel kids, and everyone expects us to get on with it.
Our teachers just go, “Yes, yes, dear, I know you got fatally injured in a train crash / hit by a stray bullet / knocked down by a joyrider or whatever your sad story is, and had to leave your heartbroken families behind, but would you mind just packing your flight bag and running down to Terminal Twenty-two? There’s a major crisis in ancient Wherever.”
But hey! You weren’t going to hear me complaining! I’d been enrolled in a fast-track angel-training programme, at the most fabulous school in the Universe. Yes,
me
, the girl who sat in the back of the class in her human high school, gossiping with my mates and flicking through Heat magazine. This was my chance for a fresh start and I knew it. So instead of running around the school in my underwear, tearing out my hair, and going, “OMG! I’m dead. I’m dead!!”, I obediently packed a few girly essentials in my flight bag, threw on my pristine new combats, laced up my funky boots, and bravely set off to ancient Wherever with the rest of the guys.
This way of life began to feel almost normal. I got used to carrying a beeper, so the Agency could reach me any hour of the day or night. I got used to hanging out in historical hot spots, wearing the same filthy clothes for days, and living on angel trail mix. OK, I never quite got used to the trail mix. I ate it though.
It got so I couldn’t imagine not being in the angel biz. I wanted to do this fabulously rewarding job for always and always…
And then, quite suddenly, I didn’t.
OK, so maybe I should have seen it coming. I’ll admit that even by angelic standards, I’d been pushing it. I’d been on seven tough missions in a row, including an absolutely epic assignment to ancient Rome where, among other things, I got my heart well and truly broken. I can say that now. At the time there was so much going on I hardly noticed.
Then my next mission had to be the most harrowing assignment ever. Brice, this really complicated angel boy we know, had recently been allowed back to the Angel Academy after a long spell as a cosmic dropout. Anyway, he got it into his head that if he won a HALO, people at school would finally get off his case. I should probably explain that Lola has a
leetle
thing for Brice, and I’m becoming surprisingly fond of him myself, so we let him sweet-talk us into submitting a joint entry.
I arrived in seventeenth-century Jamaica a few hours after my mates, to find a full-scale hurricane blowing. Unfortunately, by the time I finally caught up with my buddies, they were suffering from drastic cosmic amnesia. They didn’t remember they were on a mission. They didn’t remember they were angels. More disturbingly, my soul-mate Lola didn’t know me from - well, she just didn’t know me.
Hey, I’m a professional. I coped! We actually won a HALO, for teamwork “under unusually adverse cosmic conditions”. Brice is still in shock to this day! Big happy ending all round!
And it was, or it would have been. Except for the dreams.
The nightmares started as soon as I got back from the mission, and after that they came every night without fail. The plot lines were pretty samey. Basically, I was on a mission to rescue my little sister Jade from faceless evil beings who’d overrun my planet since my death. I’d shoot awake in a cold sweat, literally screaming.
Did I run to my school counsellor and tell her about my disturbing experiences? Yeah, right! That would have been like admitting I couldn’t cope. I just told myself dreams didn’t count. Dreams weren’t real. Anyway, they’re private. Only you, the dreamer, knows about them. It’s almost like nothing happened, right?
My panic attack was not private sadly. Short of putting up posters and hiring an actual stadium, it couldn’t have been more public if I’d tried. It took place in front of, ooh, let me see: my entire history class (except for Reuben who was away on a trip), four guys from the maintenance crew, two dishy young time technicians, thirty primary school children who happened to be visiting Angel HQ, plus their teachers obviously.
Oh, and Fern, one of the junior agents. I think Fern was born grown-up. She’s still really young, but she wears smart little suits and v. high heels, and you never saw her smile, just as you never saw her without her Agency clipboard. (Lola reckons she sleeps with it under her pillow.) Well, she was there. I think that about covers it.
This might sound strange, but my public freak-out took me completely by surprise. Despite the queasy sensations in my gut area every time I so much as thought about leaving Heaven, I believed I was fine. I believed this up to the moment we had to walk into the time portal and go whizzing off to— It really doesn’t matter where, because I never actually got there.
My heart started pounding as if it was going to explode. My vision blurred, and my ears felt as if my head was being forcibly held underwater. I was breathing in huge frantic gasps, yet I still couldn’t seem to suck in enough oxygen.
Then I literally bolted, but
backwards
, like a panicky baby elephant; reversing blindly past engineers and bewildered school children, leaving my classmates in shock.