Going for Gold (6 page)

Her smooth forehead puckered in a frown. “Yeah, but it’s you I’m asking, OK?” “OK,” I said, startled.

Maia was watching me with an oddly detached expression. “How come you have such a low opinion of yourself, babe?”

I felt myself going hot and cold. “I didn’t think I did.”

She shook her head. “No, I totally read people, and I bet - did you say your friend’s name is Lola? I bet Lola gets to play superstar twenty-four-seven, am I right?” Maia shook her head pityingly. “No fun always being the understudy is it, sweetie?”

“Actually, Lola’s my best friend, so please don’t talk about her like that,” I said angrily. The words just came out by themselves. I’m usually rubbish at standing up to people, but she’d crossed a line.

Maia went white. “That so didn’t come out how I meant. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” She totally didn’t know where to look.

I was already intrigued by this unusual angel girl. Now a tiny door in my heart that I hadn’t known was there, flew wide open.

Maia might act sassy, but she had just shown me that she was every bit as scared and vulnerable as -well, me.

I touched her arm. “It’s OK, really.” “Are you sure?” Enormous tears hung off the ends of her eyelashes, threatening to fall. “Totally sure, and I’d still love to meet up.”

She was fiddling with something at her throat.

With a twang of shock I recognised the ankh.Maia saw my face. “What? This?” She lifted the jewel-studded pendant, peering down almost in surprise. “No way! You thought I nicked it from the museum! That’s so hilarious!”

My face was burning. “I didn’t really—” “Sweetie, this is fake. I bought it in Ambrosia before I came!”

“I honestly didn’t—” I was beside myself with shame to think I’d virtually accused another angel of stealing.

“Hey, it was a natural mistake, don’t stress it!” Maia had taken out her phone. She started walking away.

“Come back with us!” I offered wildly. “You and Lola would totally hit it off, I know you would!” “Stuff to do, babe!” she called. “Later, OK!” “But how will I find you?” I shouted. “I’ll find you, OK!”

Lola picked that moment to come flying out of the museum. She arrived on the pavement, looking frazzled.

“Hi babe!” I greeted her. “Did you see that cool angel girl I was with?”

She practically snapped my head off. “No I didn’t! Where the sassafras did you get to? I’ve been worried sick!”

I scanned the crowded pavements, wanting to point out my fascinating new friend, but Maia must have been a fast walker because there was no sign of a sassy angel girl in a poppy red dress.

Chapter Seven

B
ack at the hostel Lola went right off the deep end.

“You just disappeared, Melanie! I had NO idea what had happened! AND you forgot to keep your phone switched on!”

“Jeez, Lollie, you sound like my mum!”

“I don’t CARE! Suppose the PODS had got you.”

“You really think the Powers of Darkness would let me make a phone call!”

“That’s NOT the point!” Lola was so upset she’d given herself hiccups.

“Don’t let’s fight,” I pleaded. “I don’t want us to fight.”

I fetched us both a cool drink from our mini fridge, and we took them out on to the balcony. I made Lola hold her breath and block her ears and eventually her hiccups stopped and we were friends again.

“You’re still coming tonight, aren’t you?” she asked anxiously.

My soulmate had arranged to do a couple of sets with the band.

I nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! Wouldn’t miss it, truly.”

A voice in my head whispered: Ma/a might be there.

Lola was just getting into her second number, when I heard a friendly BEEP from inside my bag. I felt a happy little buzz when I saw Maia’s text message. Wait 4 u downstairs. Maz.

Far too excited to wonder how she got my number, I rushed off.

At the bottom of the steps, I heard a stifled giggle and Maia sprang out. “Surrender innocent angel girl, I am your worst nightmare!”

We both burst out laughing. We’d picked almost identical outfits again: floaty gypsy skirts with beaded tops. I was in apple blossom pinks and greens, and Maia was in glittery sophisticated black.

“You should really go to the party looking like that,” I said admiringly.

“No way! Can’t take those types of get togethers. They’re so totally bogus.”

I felt a naughty thrill go up my spine. Maia was saying we were the real deal, the rebels. Everyone else was just ‘bogus’.

She was scrutinising me again. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Totally,” I said, ignoring a far-off twang of alarm.

“Only I’m going to take you to this really special place, but it’s a surprise so you’ll have to cover your eyes.”

Giggling nervously, I let Maia steer me through the gardens. Belly-dancing music drifted from a tourist boat. I could hear loud rhythmic clapping as the tourists joined in the dance.

I heard Maia snigger. “Just picture all those old wrinklies doing belly-dancing moves! Euw!”

“Don’t be mean,” I protested, giggling. “And don’t make me laugh, I keep nearly tripping over as it is!”

The Nile smells were getting much stronger. We must have been getting close to the river. I could hear Maia breathing and I felt a rush of panic. Was she planning to push me in?

“Duck!” she commanded, letting me go.

I ducked through an invisible entrance, setting off tinkling sounds.

“You can look now!”

“How - where—?” I stuttered amazed. “What is this place?”

“It belongs to the hostel. No one uses it so I thought we’d take it over.” Maia seemed pleased at my surprise.

Tea-lights in pretty glass holders flickered everywhere. Three walls were hung with richly patterned Bedouin rugs, the fourth wall was mostly taken up by a huge open window overlooking the Nile. Under the window a squashy sofa, draped with more tribal rugs, just begged you to kick off your flip-flops and enjoy the river views.

“Someone must come here, or who lit the little tea-lights?”

“That was me, silly! I wanted it to be special.” Maia put on a girly voice. “Hi, madam, my name is Maia and I’ll be looking after your every need this evening.”

I giggled. “You’re TOTALLY mad, you know that!”

She got busy throwing fresh mint into a pot, making Egyptian-style mint tea, seeming to know exactly where everything was kept.

We curled up with our steaming tea glasses, watching the stars dance in the water.

Maia noticed me shiver. “Wrap yourself in one of these!” She helped me arrange one of the tribal rugs around my shoulders. “Isn’t this better than that old party?” She gave a naughty giggle. “You’d like it even better if you were with Indigo!” “I wasn’t that into him, shut up!” Maia went so quiet I thought I’d offended her. She fiddled with her fake ankh.

“Actually, Indigo isn’t the only mate we have in common.” Maia sounded cagy. “Your friend Lola is going out with an old friend of mine.”

I laughed, amazed. “No way! You really know

Brice!”

Maia suddenly got off the sofa and went to sit in a nearby wicker chair, I heard her take a breath. “I probably seem really sure of myself, right? Sassy,

quirky…?”

“Well, yeah—”

“It’s totally put on. I’m just so sick of getting hurt.”

I sat up, startled. “Omigosh, Maia.” She sounded almost angry. “It’s always the same story. I make friends with some cool angel girl. We swap

girly info, fave music, most embarrassing moments. Finally I take a risk and tell her something real, you know, like the truth about my past, and suddenly little Miss Celestial Cool doesn’t want to know.” “Maia, that’s terrib—”

“Let me say it, before I chicken out. I wasn’t telling the whole truth just now. Brice and I do go way back, but we didn’t exactly meet in Heaven.”

“Oh, wow, you’re from the same time period?” I breathed.

She shook her head. “We didn’t meet on Earth either.”

With the sick, dropping down a lift-shaft feeling that goes with real shock, I realised what she was telling me. Maia had met Brice in the exact OPPOSITE of Heaven; in the clammy sulphur-smelling corridors of a Hell school.

I heard her swallow. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want to be my friend. You’d always be thinking, ‘Is Maia for real?’” She sounded like a lost little girl. I was shocked, I won’t deny it. Then I thought, Get real, Mel! Did you honestly think Brice was the only cosmic dropout in the Universe?

If I’ve learned one thing from knowing Brice, it’s not to judge anybody ever again.

“I would be proud to be your friend, Maia,” I told her. “I think you’re really brave to be so upfront. Everyone deserves a second chance, no matter what they did.”

Maia’s eyes filled with a sudden strange longing. “You don’t mean that?”

“I do mean it, Maia! If I get the chance I’m going to tell those pinheaded angel girls at your school what I think of them! They should be supporting you, not treating you like a cosmic outcast!”

Maia let out a half-sob. “You’re amazing, you know that? No wonder Indigo thinks you’re lovely.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. “Indigo thinks I’m /ove/y?”

She giggled tearily. “Are you kidding? Know what he told his best mate?”

We were getting to know each other so fast, I felt almost drunk. As we talked on into the night, I started to feel strangely blurry at the edges, as if I couldn’t tell where I ended and Maia began. She’d taken such a risk, sharing her dark secret, it seemed like I owed her one in return.

So I told her about my biggest ever failure as an angel. I told her about me and Sky.

When I got back to our room, Lola was sitting up in bed reading.

“Didn’t you get my texts?” she demanded. “You should have got one. I sent about a zillion.”

My excitement fizzled out like a dud firework.

I was such a bad friend. Not only had I abandoned Lola in a strange country two nights in a row, I’d shared personal info with Maia that I was still keeping back from my best friend.

I didn’t say any of this. That would have been the sensible thing to do. I just tried to laugh it off. “I didn’t get any texts,” I said brightly. “We must have been in a cosmic black spot.”

“What were you doing though, wandering around all by yourself at this time of night?”

“I wasn’t alone,” I protested. “I ran into Maia, that angel girl I told you about. She took me to the coolest place. You’d love it!”

Lola shut her book with a snap. “Is that right?”

“She goes to Indigo’s school. Apparently she knows Brice really well.”

I didn’t explain how Maia came to know Brice. That was Maia’s secret, plus she’d made me promise faithfully not to tell.

“Seems weird I haven’t seen her about.” Lola was punching her pillow with more force than strictly necessary.

“Why’s it weird? Maia doesn’t like crowds that’s all. Not everyone is a big show-off like you, you know!”

The cruel words just burst out. Lola quickly switched off her lamp. Her voice sounded incredibly hurt. “You should get some sleep. We’ve got another early start.”

No fun always being the understudy, is it, sweetie? whispered Maia’s voice in my head.

“It’s not really up to you when I go to sleep, is it?” I snapped. Pointedly switching on my lamp, I picked up my shiny new paperback and settled down to read.

Chapter Eight

M
y book was still lying open on my face when Lola’s alarm clock jangled us awake two hours later.

I managed to get myself washed, dressed and on to the tour bus, by telling myself my new friend would be there.

She didn’t show. As the bus doors slid shut, I felt really confused. I’d assumed she’d be as keen to see me as I was to see her. I didn’t know what to think. Was it something I said?

I thought of calling Maia back on her mobile but Lola was beside me, stony faced. She hadn’t said a word since we got up. It wasn’t such a long drive to the time site, but with my friend giving me the big silent treatment, it seemed a LOT longer.

It was technically morning by the time we arrived at the temple, but the sun stayed stubbornly behind yellowish cloud.

We climbed up crumbling steps between rows of weather-beaten statues depicting Egyptian gods wearing that bizarre headgear that always reminds me of space helmets.