Page 27 of Out of the Blue
‘You’re right,’ Allie says, her shoulders sagging. ‘Where to though?’
We throw out idea after idea, but each one has a fatal flaw. Our flat is out for obvious reasons, and Allie and Calum’s house is too small. I suggest their school, but apparently the building is used for activities during the summer holidays. Hotels are an option, but between us we’d only have enough cash for a night or two, and the staff would get suspicious if we kept coming and going.
Eventually our ideas peter out into silence, filled by the sound of the radio and the theatre group outside performing a scene fromAngels in Americato an audience of tourists.
After a while, the news comes on. The first item is about a Being who fell in South Africa last night: ‘Small feminine Being . . . landed in an abandoned mine near the city of Kimberley . . . quickly spotted by tourists and stripped of its feathers . . .’
Allie takes her purple notebook from her bag and writes a few notes on a new page. Teacake twists around to see what she’s doing; her wing knocks the book out of her hand, sending it flying straight into Calum’s lap. Allie throws out a hand towards it, but he’s already squinting at her handwriting.
‘What is this?’ He flicks through the pages. ‘Ksenia . . . Rayyan . . . Who are these people?’
‘Give that back.’ Allie lunges towards him, but he holds the notebook out of her reach. ‘Calum, come on!’
‘This is all just . . . names,’ he says. ‘Why are you writing down names?’
Allie pushes her hair behind her ears. The edges have turned pink. ‘Look, I know it sounds stupid, but I . . . I name all of the Beings.’
‘That’s it? That’s your big secret?’ Her brother’s face falls. ‘Well, that’s massively disappointing. Why wouldn’t you just tell us that?’
‘You’d think it was stupid,’ she says, snatching the notebook back from him. ‘Like a kid naming their cuddly toys or something.’
I hold my hand out. ‘Can I see?’
After a pause, Allie sits back down and hands it to me. Each page is dedicated to a single Being, with a first name written in bold letters and details of when and where they fell:
Cheng.Landed in Shanghai, China, on 7th December . . .
Valentina.Landed north of Rincón de Valentín, Uruguay, on 19th January . . .
Ewan.Landed in Sighthill, outside Edinburgh, on 16th March . . .
Below the date, she’s written the colour of their eyes, how tall they were, if they had birthmarks or scars, anything to distinguish them from the others. There are even a few notes about what sort of person she thinks they might have been:
Strong, athletic. Probably into team sports, if they have them. Grumpy at times, but the kind of guy who would look out for his friends no matter what.
She didn’t look scared at all as she fell. I think she must have been a soldier, something dangerous. Something that required a lot of courage.
There’s something about him that looks kind . . . nurturing, even. I can imagine him surrounded by a flock of baby Beings, helping out his neighbours and relatives.
‘I just don’t want them to die without names – even if they’re made up. Even if no one knows them but me,’ says Allie when I hand her notebook back. ‘I mean, it’s bad enough that the papers just call them “Being No. 1”, “Being No. 2”, but the thought of them dying anonymously, with no one to remember who they were . . .’
She trails off, quietly turning the pages of the notebook, reading the names to herself one by one. Calum’s smirk has been wiped away. Teacake looks from him to Allie, biting her lower lip. She may not be able to understand our language, but she can pick up on changes in mood and atmosphere. She is as real, as human and as complex as any of us.
‘It’s not stupid,’ I say to Allie. ‘You see them as people.’
She smiles. It’s just a quick movement of her lips, but it reaches her eyes. For a few seconds, it all fades away: Shona’s flat, the crowd of umbrellas lining the street outside . . . even Teacake. All I see is Allie. Almost too fast to catch, her gaze flits to my mouth; she shifts on the carpet, moving her knee a few millimetres towards mine.
‘You see them as people,’ Teacake says, a wobbly echo of my own voice. ‘Cromarty, south-westerly five to seven, decreasing four at times.’
Her words break the moment. I remember Calum’s still in the room and quickly get up to make some tea, my cheeks burning. Allie laughs, a nervous sound that blends into a cough. She thumbs the corners of her notebook, pauses, then stares at a page somewhere near the middle.
‘Wait a minute.’ She turns to Calum. ‘Is McEwan Hall still closed?’
‘Yeah, till September or something. They’ve stopped building while the Fringe is going on . . . Er –No.’ He looks up at Allie, his eyes wide. ‘No way.’
‘But it’s perfect!’ Allie leans over and clutches his arm. ‘It’s empty right now, it’s not far from here, plus it’s huge – Teacake would have space to practise flying!’
‘Wait, where is this place?’ I ask, as Calum shakes his head.
