Feeling the Vibes (2 page)

Chapter Two

O
ne morning I couldn’t get out of bed.

Everything else was like usual. Rays of celestial sunshine making wavy patterns on my rug, small birds fluttering outside my window, the familiar sounds of the Heavenly City floating up from below.

Usually I’m set to go from the moment I open my eyes. In fact I don’t even have to open my eyes. I feel those zingy cosmic vibes rushing to meet me in my dreams and something in my heart shouts, “Yay, let’s go and save the Universe!”

But today there was no shout, just a pathetic whimper like, “Nooooo.”

I pulled my pillow over my head, but I couldn’t totally block out the sounds of doors banging all along the corridor as my angel buddies scooted off to class. They were off saving the Universe and I didn’t have the energy to sit up and comb my hair. I huddled under my covers in a state of absolute black despair.

Obviously, this depression didn’t just arrive out of the blue. Recently I’d gone through one shattering cosmic experience after another. Being fast-tracked is one thing, but sometimes it felt like the Universe had completely jammed on fast forward, ruthlessly rushing me through all these huge changes at the speed of light. The Test had been the last, the final straw.

The Test is an ancient (and hideously harrowing) angelic ordeal which I didn’t actually know existed until I got time-napped back to Cleopatra’s times and found myself confronting my Dark twin.

To be a true angel, you see, you have to be able to walk into situations of utter evil chaos and
still
think and behave like an angel.

The Dark Powers can sniff out your most secret weakness in a flash. If they find one, they’ll use it against you, no question. This is why, at a certain stage in our training, every angel has to come face to face with her Dark side.

To face it for real, though, you have to believe you’re completely and utterly alone in the Universe. Not alone as in “Melanie no mates”, but as in totally cut off from your divine radar, a.k.a. your inner angel.

After our first surprise communication, I’d increasingly come to rely on Helix.

Then - nothing.

Now
I get that Helix had tactfully backed off to give me the space to become a stronger, wiser angel, but I didn’t know that then. I didn’t even know she’d gone! I just felt utterly lost.

Unfortunately I was also temporarily off my head on cosmic vibes. With no Helix to keep me on track, I went bombing off to Egypt to save the world, or possibly the entire Universe, I don’t remember now, though it all seemed blazingly clear at the time.

I made a complete muppet of myself, but with Lola’s help I came safely out the other side.

It sounds like a happy ending and it kind of was, until I got back to Heaven and, like I said, I suddenly couldn’t get out of bed.

I had found out how far I had to go to be a real angel. Extremely, depressingly far. And to make it worse Helix hadn’t come back.

Why
didn’t she come back? The Test was over -wasn’t it?

That was my secret terror. That the Test hadn’t finished with me and I’d have to relive my gruelling confrontation with the Dark Powers all over again.

Lola had tried to get me to talk about what had happened, bless her, but I was too disgusted with myself. OK, face your Dark side, but how the sassafras do you go on from there?

I’d almost betrayed my
best friend
- to the Powers of Darkness (PODS). I had talked about Lola to a PODS. I had sniggered about her with a PODS. I had callously abandoned my soul-mate in a foreign country to hang out with a PODS. I didn’t know Maia was a PODS, admittedly, but what kind of lame excuse is THAT?

OK, so I’d caught on - eventually. I banished Maia back to the Hell dimensions where she belonged. Lola has a huge heart and instantly forgave me; in fact she insisted there was nothing to forgive.

I just couldn’t forgive myself.

As you probably guessed, though, Lola is not a friend who can be fobbed off for long. She knows all about angelic burnout; she’s been there herself. But at last she decided enough was enough.

One afternoon she stealthily let herself into my room carrying two steaming mugs. Lola got her legendary hot-chocolate recipe from her granny who traced it back to the ancient Mayans. Sanchez-style hot chocolate is spiked with cinnamon and chillies and is so unbelievably thick you can literally eat it with a spoon. I’ve seen it bring burned-out angel trainees back from the brink.

But not this time. “I’m not actually up to chocolate,” I said in a croaky, invalid voice and feebly pushed my mug away.

Lola looked so disturbed when she left, I knew she was going to call Michael. The thought of our headmaster seeing me in this skanky state made me cringe, but not so I actually thought of getting up.

I was still wallowing in self-pity when Lola popped her head round my door. “Hey, babe! Someone wants to see you.”

“I
knew
you were going to call Michael,” I wailed. “Now he’ll make me go into angelic counselling or whatever.”

Lola marched over to my window, pulled up the blind and heaved the window open, letting in a rush of sweet-smelling air. “I didn’t call Michael, sweetie.”

The sunlight streaming into my room was so dazzling I had to shield my eyes. “I’m really not up to visitors either,” I whimpered.

“You’ll be up to this one; he’s cute!”

“Omigosh,” I squeaked. “Reuben can’t see me like this!”

Lola’s eyebrows went up. “Interesting reaction! But the angel boy I’m talking about is only so high.”

“Obi’s here? What’s wrong!” I was so shocked I didn’t notice I was talking in a normal voice, instead of feeble croaks. I grabbed my hair brush and started ripping at the tangles.

“Not sure. He seems a bit…”

“Upset?” I said, still frantically detangling.

“Not upset exactly. He isn’t actually making much sense. He said he’s got to see you because he’s going away. I think he said next week?”

I was on my feet in a heartbeat.

“I’ll just jump in the shower!” I said urgently. “I’ll be two ticks.”

Chapter Three

O
bi hovered just inside my door, looking like he wasn’t sure if he should come in. I’d never seen him like this. Not upset, but
something
.

“I waited and waited,” he said in a small voice, “but you didn’t come to school. Miss Dove said you were too busy, but I said she’s always busy and she always,
always
comes.”

I was SO ashamed. Since I got back from Egypt, I hadn’t given Obi one thought. That Miss Dove had made excuses for me only made it worse.

“I know I haven’t been into the nursery for a while,” I blustered, “but I had to go on a really difficult mission, and then—”

Obi’s face lit up. “I’m going on a difficult mission as well. A really LONG mission.”

“Oh, right! Wow! That is a surprise.”

He came over, looking up confidingly into my face.

“I told Miss Dove you’d be sad if I went without saying goodbye. You would be really sad if I did that, wouldn’t you, Melanie?”

Lola was right. Obi wasn’t making a lot of sense.

“You know what we’re going to do now, sweetie?” I said, borrowing Miss Dove’s upbeat nursery-school voice.

Obi gave a resigned sigh. “Take me back to the nursery?”

I rubbed his smooth little head. “Not yet! You’re going to call Miss Dove on my phone and tell her you’re with me, then we’ll get Lola and we’ll go to Guru for ice cream, then I’ll take you back to the nursery. OK, little dude?”

He giggled. “OK, Melanie dude!”

I have learned one thing from my Wednesday afternoons at the nursery. It’s pointless hassling angel preschoolers to tell you anything until they’re good and ready.

When I arrived at Lola’s door she took one look and flung her arms around me. “Welcome back, Mel Beeby! I’ve missed you!”

“Me too!” I said, hugging her back.

“Melanie must love you a LOT,” Lola told Obi as we left the campus. “She loves you even more than hot chocolate!”

“I love her more than hot chocolate too.” Obi gave his infectious giggle. “I aksherly love her more than ice cream even!”

“But have you tried Mo’s apple-pie ice cream?” she teased. “That might just change your mind!”

Guru was packed out as usual. I don’t think Obi had ever been in a cafe before. He perched on his chair, tiny Timberlands dangling off the ground, calmly looking around.

Lola waited until Obi was tucking into Mo’s special apple-pie ice cream, then she whispered, “Did he say what’s up?”

“No more than he told you,” I whispered back.

Amber was at the next table with her girlfriends. They all started cooing over Obi.

Lola’s boyfriend Brice came in with one of his mates. They chatted at the counter while he waited to be served. Despite being a reformed character these days, Brice still insists on dressing like a cosmic dropout. Lola has tried everything, but he will not be parted from those scuzzy Astral Garbage T-shirts.

We caught his eye and he came over, surprised to see us there with Obi.

“Hello, Obi Wan,” he said, gently biffing Obi’s knuckles. “Don’t say the Agency is sending four-year-olds on missions now!”

Obi’s eyes sparkled. “They are aksherly because I’m going on one very soon.”

Brice blinked. “Oh really?”

“Miss Dove says I’ll be away for ninety five years,” Obi announced, scraping up the last of his ice cream.

“Oh, sweet. I bet that’s the biggest number he knows,” Amber gushed. “He’s just telling us a story, aren’t you, sweetie?”

Brice gave her an irritated look. “No, he isn’t. Obi always tells the truth, don’t you?”

I’d never heard of four-year-old angels going on missions either, yet like Brice I had the feeling that Obi’s outrageous claim was for real.

I got him back to the nursery just as the other baby angels were all filing out wearing their cute little backpacks that look like teeny wings. Obi’s teacher spotted me through the open door and gave me a look like,
we REALLY need to talk
.

“Are you going now?” Obi asked me forlornly.

“In a minute,” I told him. “But if you’re going on a ninety-five-year mission we ought to arrange your goodbye party.”

“For me?” he said, amazed. “At Guru?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“Cool beans!” he shouted.

Miss Dove and I watched him dash off to tell his buddies.

“Is it true he’s going away on a mission.”

She nodded. “Next week.”

We started collecting dressing-up clothes from around the room, hanging them on the rail. I didn’t know what to say. I had about a hundred questions fighting to get out.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Obi for a while,” Miss Dove said, handing me an armful of sparkly fairy dresses. “You thought he was an angel, didn’t you?”

I was stunned. “I - What else could he be?”

“Obi is a
bodhisattva
.” Miss Dove pronounced the word in her special nursery-teacher’s voice. I half expected her to say, “Hands up anyone who knows what
bodhisattva
means?”

We learn about all the human religions at my school, though, so I knew that
bodhisattvas
are basically potential buddhas; incredibly pure souls dedicated to helping their fellow humans to wake up and realise who they really are.

I struggled to absorb this surprising new info. “If Obi’s not an angel, what’s he doing at angel nursery school?”

“The Agency has sent a few
bodhisattvas
to me over the millennia,” Miss Dove explained. “They have a lot in common with angels. They’re totally in tune with angelic vibrations and they stay in tune even when they take on human bodies.”

I felt ready to tear out my hair. I’m like, Melanie, do you know how this Universe works at ALL?

I remembered Obi joining in eagerly with his little angel buddies going, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff…” when I read the Three Little Pigs. I pictured his little shining face, those solemn dark eyes that seemed to know so much. I had completely believed he was an angel.

“Has Obi had other lives then?” I asked. I had a vague memory that
bodhisattvas
kept returning to Earth until they’d mastered how to keep a peace vibe going no matter what.

Miss Dove hung up a toy fireman’s helmet. “Hundreds, most of them extremely harsh. You’d think the Agency would let him have a normal, peaceful home life with a normal mummy and daddy, but no.”

I was shocked to hear Miss Dove being so outspoken.

“And he never had that? He never had a mum and dad?”

“He had several sets of wonderful parents over the centuries. He just never got to live with them for very long, or almost never. Just once, I think, in the eighteenth century. His father came out to India to work for the East India Company and fell deeply in love with a Muslim princess. Unusually he was allowed to marry her.”

I wasn’t actually that gripped by the princess story. I was too sad for Obi.

“Apart from that, he didn’t have much luck,” Miss Dove sighed. “Once his mother died shortly after giving birth; another time both his parents -
both
! - were murdered in religious riots and he had to fend for himself on the streets, poor mite.”