Deadly Sky (ePub), The (15 page)

On the way down to breakfast next morning, he asked the second question he had to have an answer for. ‘Mum? Will Alicia go to prison?'

His mother put a hand to his cheek. Was the corridor empty? Yeah: phew. ‘I doubt it, love. She's too young. Françoise says there's a priest or a minister who's asking for Alicia to be taken back to Mangareva, too. She'll be put under the care of the Church and others there. I'm going to write to her, tell her not to give up hope about coming to New Zealand sometime. You can send her a letter too, maybe?'

Darryl mumbled something. He didn't know if he wanted to. He didn't know what he could say.

They were halfway through breakfast, served by waitresses who had started to smile a bit, when a loud voice spoke. The officer from the day before. ‘
Mesdames et Messieurs
, ladies and gentlemen: those of you leaving Tahiti, your flights will happen tomorrow. You are free to go where you wish today. We thank you for …'

Relieved looks, and some clapping. As the other passengers finished their meals, a number came over to shake hands with Darryl and his mother. ‘You are kind to the poor girl,' a woman said. ‘We are thinking like her about the bomb. But what she and him do on the plane …' The woman shook her head.

Mrs Davis had still more phone calls to make, so Darryl headed out into the streets. He didn't feel like any sight-seeing. He just wanted to go home and get a whole lot of things off his mind. Where's Alicia now? he wondered again, as he made his way past more cafés and shops. The hard Tahitian sunlight was creeping down their sides. What's happening to her? Maybe I will write … I dunno.

Darryl took one turn, then another, not really caring where he was going. Doors and windows were open. Singing came from some of the alleys; cars and bikes passed by. Everything was the same as when he'd
walked streets like this the first time. Yet nothing would ever really be the same, not for a long time, anyway. He wondered whether there would be anything in the papers or on TV about what had happened to Flight 766, or if the government was keeping it all hushed up. Had Raoul made any difference? Had all his schemes, all his lies to his cousin, changed anybody's mind? Like his mum said, there were no simple answers.

He stopped. That office building ahead, with the open space in front. That low corrugated iron building over to the left. Wasn't that them? Yes, the market and the square where he'd seen the protest marchers pouring in, and where he'd seen Raoul carrying his sign. He could make out traces of red paint on the building's front steps.

Without warning, he saw the other red stain as well. The pool of blood spreading as Raoul's body sprawled on the runway. He heard himself make a moaning sound; clutched his arms around himself. Two women passing by glanced at him in alarm. He wheeled, and stumbled away.

They had more visitors at dinner. The two pilots and Françoise, all in uniform. They shook hands with the few passengers who hadn't already left. When they
reached Darryl and his mother, the older pilot said, ‘We thank you for your helping. You are good for – to – the girl and the young man.' He turned to the other pilot, who produced a small wrapped box. ‘For you.
Au revoir.
'

When they opened it in their room later, they found a little carved canoe, like the one Noah and the others had given them at their farewell party. Now I've got
two
to show my friends, Darryl thought. The Mangarevan one was better.

Only one other passenger was in the dining room when they and their bags came down to the dining room next morning. ‘You have seen the news?' he asked. ‘The French government – they say that from now there will be tests only under the ground at Mururoa. It is good,
non?
'

Yeah, it's good, Darryl thought. Maybe Raoul had got what he wanted after all. That's what Darryl wanted to believe, anyway.

Nobody placed flowers around their necks as they boarded the flight to Sydney. Nobody took any notice
of them, and Darryl felt glad. His mother had bought him a book at the airport shop. He might read it. Or he might just look out the window.

He felt flat. He wanted to be home, see his friends again, even sit his exams. With any luck, there might be a letter from his dad. Would his parents really try to get back together? He hoped so: he really did. But at the moment, it was just another thing to think about.

He felt panicky as they found their seats on the big plane. He'd had bad dreams the night before as well, trapped inside another aircraft as great walls of fiery air charged at them. Now he sat, breathed deeply, and began to feel a bit better. He pictured Flight 766 and all the incredible things that had happened on it. Would he ever meet the pilots or the passengers, or any of the people from Mangareva again? And Alicia? He wondered for the hundredth time what was happening to her.

The book stayed untouched. He slept, for hours and hours. His body seemed to have grown fifty years older suddenly; every time he lifted up his head and tried to look around him, he felt it flop down again. Not until they were a couple of hours away from Sydney did he wake up properly. He found himself gazing across the aisle as if he expected to see someone he knew. Raoul, he realised: that's where he'd been sitting on the flight to Tahiti.

Darryl saw the young man again, as clearly as if he were actually there. He saw him smiling and talking to his little niece as they flew to Mangareva; whispering to Alicia by the lodge; watching at the party; fighting desperately in the cockpit. He saw the kiss on Alicia's forehead, and then the gun raised to his own head.

All that anger. All that determination and courage. Darryl realised that he was trembling. No, he was sobbing. When his mum's hand reached out and held his, he didn't care this time if anyone saw them.

They went straight onto the flight to Auckland. It seemed like some force was pulling them home as fast as it could. As they hurried from one gate to another, Darryl glimpsed the same newspaper stand he'd seen just thirteen days before.
DEATH TOLL RISES IN YUGOSLAV TRAIN CRASH
, the poster read this time.
SHOCK CHOICES IN EMMY AWARDS.
He'd told Alicia on the plane that people would take notice of what she'd done. Now? Maybe they would, maybe not. The world was already moving on; what mark had she and Raoul left on it?

And what mark was
he
going to make on it? he wondered, as the plane's nose lifted and he felt wheels come up for the final time. At least he'd have something
to write about in his English exam – and to say to his social studies class, if Mr Reidy asked him.

Yeah, he was OK with words; he'd realised that in the past couple of weeks. Maybe he'd try and do something for the school magazine about what had happened.
Deadly Cloud
was in his luggage, along with the model canoe – the good, Mangarevan one. He would re-read the book, and use some of it. Raoul and Alicia wouldn't be completely forgotten.

And he'd learn French, or something like that, as he'd promised himself. He'd start over the summer holidays. He'd talk to his father about it, if –
when
– his dad rang. He wanted to talk to his father about a whole lot of things.

He was going to do something good with his life, and he wanted his dad to be part of it. He didn't know what it was yet, but he'd find something he believed in, and he'd go for it. Just like the two people he'd met, the two he couldn't stop thinking about.

Beside him, his mother sat silently. She hadn't said much since they'd left Tahiti. She'd be thinking, too – about her work, and the Tahitian girls coming to her school. She and Darryl had to go for more hospital tests when they got home, to make sure there was no radioactivity in their bodies. The checks might have to go on quite a long time, they'd been told. He should be scared at the thought, but he wasn't.

His mum stretched and smiled at him. ‘Not long now, Da.'

Darryl nodded. ‘How are we getting home from the airport?' he asked. ‘We getting a taxi?'

His mother smiled again. ‘No, I think we'll get a lift. With your dad.'

Darryl's jaw sagged open. His mind skidded in five directions at once. ‘Dad? You mean he's—'

Mrs Davis's smile grew wider with each second. ‘He'll be waiting for us there, son. He's had a job offer, driving something in the Huntly or Waihi mines. Plus I told him about our adventures and he wants to make sure we're all right. We'll see how things go. Let's just try our best, OK?'

So
that's
who she was speaking to on the phone, Darryl realised. ‘Yeah,' he nodded. ‘Yeah, OK.
OK!
' His mouth kept wanting to turn up at the corners. His heart seemed to be glowing inside him. Yeah, he told himself over and over. Yeah, OK!

He gazed out the window. Blue sky and sea. He hadn't realised there was so much of them in the world before. He saw again the sky from four days ago, the huge shaft of fire and darkness surging up through it. He'd write about it. He would. He'd work out properly how he felt.

He stayed like that for a while, gazing and half-seeing. 1974, he told himself. Quite a year. An
American President had resigned. And a fourteen-year-old New Zealand boy had lived through an atomic explosion.

The seatbelt chimes sounded. A New Zealand accent – it sounded quite strange after all the others he'd heard – announced that they would shortly be landing at Auckland. As they began their final descent towards where his dad was waiting, Darryl turned to his mother.

‘Mum?' he asked. ‘Mum. Can you give me an address so I can write to Alicia?'

The Second World War ended just days after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The bombs' terrible power made many countries decide to develop their own nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union (Russia and its attached states), the US, Great Britain, France and others began holding tests, exploding weapons in remote parts of the world.

France exploded its bombs on small Pacific Ocean islands that it owned. Very soon, there were protests from people and groups who were alarmed by the dangers of the blasts and radioactivity. New Zealand protested at the United Nations. A Greenpeace ship
tried to sail to Mururoa in 1973, but was seized by the French navy. In the same year, the New Zealand government sent two warships,
Otago
and
Canterbury
, to the same area, to show its opposition to nuclear tests in the Pacific.

In 1974, France announced that no more bombs would be exploded above ground. However, it continued with underground nuclear tests until 1996, and New Zealand maintained its opposition throughout that time. The Greenpeace movement also organised more anti-nuclear protests. In 1985 its ship, the
Rainbow Warrior
, was in Auckland, preparing to sail to the Pacific, when French frogmen (combat divers) secretly laid explosive charges and sank it. One crew member was drowned.

New Zealand is now officially nuclear-free. Since 1996, France has used super-computer programmes to ‘test' its nuclear weapons.

My Dear Mother,

Well, I've gone and done it. I've joined the Army!

Don't be angry at me, Mother dear. I know you were glad when I wasn't chosen in the ballot. But some of my friends were, and since they will be fighting for King and Country, I want to do the same.

It's New Zealand, 1914, and the biggest war the world has known has just broken out in Europe.

William eagerly enlists for the army but his younger brother, Edmund, is a conscientious objector and refuses to fight. While William trains to be a soldier, Edmund is arrested.

Both brothers will end up on the bloody battlefields of France, but their journeys there are very different. And what they experience at the front line will challenge the beliefs that led them there.

Winner of the Best Junior Fiction and Children's Choice Junior Fiction awards, New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2013.