“Thanks.”
“I guess you don’t wear makeup very often.”
I shook my head.
“Well, it’s not like you need it. That color suits you though.”
“It smells amazing.”
“It’s called Melon Sorbet.” Molly looked pleased with herself, then became distracted by something and began sniffing the air.
“Can you smell that?” she asked.
I stiffened, gripped by a sudden rush of insecurity. Was it me? Was it possible that we smelled terrible to people on earth? Had Ivy sprayed my clothes with some sort of perfume that was socially unacceptable in Molly’s world?
“It smells like . . . like rain or something,” she said. I relaxed instantly. What she could smell was just the characteristic scent that all angels carried, and rain was a pretty good description on her part.
“Don’t be a ditz, Molly,” one of her friends said. Taylah, I thought her name was, recalling earlier rushed introductions. “It’s not raining in here, duh.”
Molly shrugged and tugged on my sleeve, leading me out of the locker room and into the gym where a blonde fifty-something woman with a sun-ravaged face and Lycra shorts was bouncing on the balls of her feet and shouting at us to drop and give her twenty.
“Don’t you just hate gym teachers?” Molly said, rolling her eyes. “They’re so . . . up all the time.”
I didn’t reply, but given the steely-faced look of the woman and my lack of athletic enthusiasm, we probably weren’t going to get along very well.
Half an hour later we had run ten laps of the court, done fifty each of push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and lunges, and that was only the warm-up. I felt sorry for the other students who were staggering around with chests heaving and shirts damp with sweat. Angels didn’t get tired; our energy was limitless and so didn’t need to be conserved. We didn’t perspire, either; we could run a marathon and not produce a single drop of sweat. Molly became suddenly aware of this.
“You’re not even puffing!” she said accusingly. “Jeez, you must be really fit.”
“Or use a really good deodorant,” added Taylah, tipping the contents of her water bottle down her cleavage. It attracted the attention of a gaggle of boys nearby, who gaped at her. “It’s getting hot in here!” she teased, parading past the boys with her now see-through shirt until the gym teacher noticed the spectacle and charged over to us like a raging bull.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, except that I found myself scouring the corridors, hoping to catch another glimpse of the school captain, the boy called Xavier Woods. Given what
I had learned about him from Molly, I was feeling flattered that he had paid me any attention at all.
I thought back to our meeting on the pier and remembered marveling at his eyes—such a brilliant, startling blue. They were the kind of eyes you couldn’t look into for too long without going weak at the knees. I wondered now what might have happened had I accepted his invitation and sat down beside him. Would we have talked while I tried my hand at fishing?
What would we have said?
I shook myself mentally. This wasn’t why I had been sent to earth. I made myself promise that in the days that followed I wouldn’t think about Xavier Woods at all. If I chanced to see him, I would ignore him. If he tried to speak to me, I would give token answers and move away.
In short, I wouldn’t allow him to have any effect on me.
Needless to say, I was to fail spectacularly.
Earthbound
When the last bell sounded, I grabbed my books and literally made a run for it, eager to avoid the teeming halls. I’d been jostled, interrogated, and scrutinized enough for one day.
Despite my efforts I hadn’t managed to find a single quiet moment; during my breaks Molly had dragged me off to meet her friends, who all shot questions at me like rounds of machine-gun fire. Despite that, I’d made it to the end of the first day without serious mishap, and I was pleased with my achievement.
I loitered under the palms outside the school gates, waiting for Gabriel. I leaned back and rested my head against the tree’s cool, jagged trunk. I was awed by the earth’s varied vegetation.
Palms, for one, struck me as such strange-looking creations. They reminded me of sentries with their lean, straight trunks and their exploding branches that looked just like the plumed helmets of palace guards. As I stood there, I watched the students tossing their bags into cars, peeling off their blazers, and looking visibly more relaxed. Some were heading off in the direction of the town to gather at local caf?s or favorite haunts.
I didn’t feel relaxed; I was suffering from information overload. My head buzzed as I tried to make sense of everything that had happened in the space of a few hours. Even the limitless energy we had been created with couldn’t prevent the creeping feeling of exhaustion that was coming over me. I wanted nothing more than the comfort of home.
I spotted Gabriel making his way down the main steps, closely followed by a small gaggle of admirers, mostly girls. My brother might have been a celebrity for the attention he attracted.
The girls lingered several yards behind him, trying hard not to appear conspicuous. Judging by his appearance, Gabe had managed to maintain his composure and poise throughout the day, but
I could see from the hard set of his jaw and the slightly ruffled look of his hair that he was ready to go home. The girls stopped speaking mid-sentence when he glanced in their direction. I knew my brother and guessed that despite his apparent composure, he would never welcome such attention. He seemed embarrassed rather than flattered by it.
Gabriel was nearly at the gates when a shapely brunette stumbled in front of him in a poorly executed attempt at an accidental fall. In one smooth movement Gabe caught her in his arms just before she hit the ground. There were audible gasps of admiration from the watching students, and I saw some of the other girls bristle with jealousy at not having come up with the idea themselves. But there was little to warrant their envy: Gabriel merely steadied the girl, replaced the items that had fallen from her bag, wordlessly picked up his battered briefcase, and kept walking. He wasn’t being unfriendly; he simply wouldn’t have seen the need for any exchange of words. The girl stared wistfully after him and her friends crowded around, hoping some of the glamour of the moment might rub off on them.
“You poor thing, you have a fan club already,” I said, patting his arm sympathetically as we began our walk home.
“I’m not the only one,” Gabriel replied. “You didn’t exactly escape attention either.”
“Yes, but no one’s really tried to talk to me.” I didn’t mention my encounter with Xavier
Woods—something told me Gabriel wouldn’t approve.
“Be grateful for small mercies,” said Gabriel drily.
I related the day, point by point, to Ivy when we got home. Gabriel, who hadn’t been thrilled by every little detail, remained silent. Ivy smothered a smile when I told the story of the swooning girls.
“Teenage girls can be quite lacking in subtlety,” Ivy mused. “The boys, on the hand, are much harder to read. It’s all very interesting, don’t you think?”
“They all just seem lost to me,” Gabe said. “I wonder if any of them really know what life is all about. I didn’t realize we’d be starting from scratch. This is going to be harder than I thought.” He fell silent, and we all were reminded of the epic task we had ahead of us.
“We always knew it was going to be hard,” Ivy said softly.
“You know something I noticed,” I said. “It seems like a lot has gone on in this town over the last few months. I heard some of the most awful stories.”
“Like what?” Ivy asked.
“Two students have died from freak accidents recently,” I said. “And there have been outbreaks of sickness and fires and all sorts of strange things. People are starting to notice that something’s wrong.”
“Looks like we got here just in time,” said Ivy.
“But how will we find whoever . . . or whatever is responsible?” I asked.
“There is no way to find them yet,” said Gabriel. “It’s our job to clean up the mess and wait until they show up again. Trust me; they won’t go down without a fight.”
We all fell silent as we thought about confronting such random destruction.