Authors: Annie Dalton

Feeling the Vibes (17 page)

I watched until he was just a little orange dot against the snow, then I sobbed and sobbed.

Reuben held me just until I’d stopped crying, then he let me go, yet every time our eyes met it felt like we were still touching.

Back in my room the Hindi love song filled the air with waves of longing. I’d heard it on Parvati’s radio a hundred times, but it never made me cry like it did now.

Everything was changing so fast: passing the Test, losing Obi, this confusing new situation with Reuben. Yet none of these was the real reason I was lying here sobbing my heart out to the bittersweet sound of some old lady in bifocals.

Then it dawned on me what was wrong. “I’m homesick,” I said aloud. “I’m homesick for Earth.”

With a squeak of shock I jumped off my bed as an angel shimmered into my room. A really wild, dangerous-looking angel. He had matted dreadlocks like holy men I’d seen wandering around India. His eyes were clear, burning amber, light and fire mixed. I didn’t hear him with my ears, but somewhere deep inside.

In his still, silent voice, he said,
The Creation angels wish to thank you
.

I tried to grasp that a Creation angel was here in my room.

“Thank me?” I said stupidly. “What for?”

You brought the bodhisattva back to us
.

“Oh, OK!” I couldn’t believe such a wild being had gone to so much trouble just to thank me.

“I love Obi,” I told him truthfully. “And I love Earth. I was glad to do it really.”

The angel just looked at me with his burning amber eyes.

But when the bodhisattva walks back across the bridge as a young man, what planet will he see
?

“Oh,” I said bewildered. “I…”

Until that moment I had genuinely believed my mission was a success. It’s not like I was hoping to be nominated for, you know, an award, but this scary angel seemed to be implying I’d left something quite major undone.

“I don’t know what planet he’ll see…” I started defensively.

The angel quickly pressed his thumb to my forehead, like a blessing, and an image appeared in my mind. Out of all the sights we’d seen on our mission, the angel just reminded me of one. A long line of humans patiently waiting their turn to use a slow brown trickle from a single rusty tap.

I’d seen this sight in Deva Katchi a hundred times, but this time, through the eyes of a Creation angel, I was simultaneously watching the queuing humans and also tracking this germ-ridden fluid back to its source - a river so wide you could barely see across to the other side.

The river was dying. Every boulder, every stone, every rusting tin can on the river bottom was visible, the water levels dropping lower each day as the mountain snows that fed it steadily melted away.

I felt like the angel was showing me the end of my world and I couldn’t take it. I started babbling: “Things might be better by then. The Agency has got agents working 24-7, trying to get humans to wake up.”

The angel just waited, his eyes burning into mine. I felt my heart flip over as I realised what he wanted.

“Me?” I said in horror. “I can’t save the world! I’m just a kid.”

But he’d gone, just leaving his wild vibes, and my own words echoing feebly in my head.

I can’t save the world. I’m just a kid. I’m just a kid. I’m just…

Afterword

D
eva Katchi, where Parvati the rag-picker lives with her family, is not a real place in Mumbai. I made up the name (with help from Anita Verma) by joining together words from Hindi (Deva) and Urdu [Katchi). Literally it means “angel slum” or “divine slum”. But while Deva Katchi is imaginary, millions of children in India really live in the impoverished conditions that so shock Mel on her mission. Mumbai has a population of over eighteen million people and half of them live in slums or sleep out on the street.

Like Ravi’s family, Mumbai’s slum dwellers have recently attracted support from the Bollywood film industry. Shabana Azmi is one famous star fighting to help slum dwellers help themselves. Go to
www.drishtipat.org/activists/shabana.html
to read more about Shabana Azmi’s campaign.

In my story Ravi and his sister Asha, like slum kids all over the planet, have to carry buckets to a standpipe to queue for their water every day -water which is often not fit for humans to drink. WaterAid is a charity that brings clean water and sanitation to poor people worldwide. If you agree that clean water is a basic human right, go to
www.wateraid.org/uk/get
involved and find out how you, your family or your school might be able to help.

About the Author

Annie Dalton has been shortlisted for the Carnegie medal and won the Nottingham Children’s Book Award and the Portsmouth Children’s Book Award.The twelve Angel Academy books (previously known as Agent Angel), became an international best selling series. Annie lives overlooking a Norfolk meadow with a ruined castle, in a row of cottages that were rescued from bulldozers and lovingly rebuilt by a band of hippies.

www.anniedaltonwriter.co.uk

Also by Annie Dalton

Urban Fantasy Books

Night Maze

The Alpha Box

Naming the Dark

The Rules of Magic

Angel Academy Series

Winging it

Losing the Plot

Flying High

Calling the Shots