Authors: Annie Dalton
Winging It
First published in Great Britain by Harper Collins Children’s Books in 2001
This updated and revised edition published by Lazy Chair Press in 2013
Text copyright (c) Annie Dalton 2001
The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.
This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be leant, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form (including digital form) other than this in which it is published, and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
With love to my three favourite angels, Anna, Reuben (the original DJ Sweetpea) and Maria, whose sparklingly fresh ideas and stern criticism brought Mel and her angel mates to life.
I
hadn’t exactly planned on becoming an angel. But then I hadn’t planned on dying young either. Well, you don’t, do you?
If I’d thought about it, I’d have said that kind of thing was strictly for Venetia Rossetti. Venetia was a big hit with all the teachers at my school and way more suitable angel material than yours truly.
But there you go. Venetia’s still on Planet Earth, writing her little poems about rain and violets. And I’m, well - not!
Know what I thought, when I got knocked down?
Now I’ll never get the chance to prove Miss Rowntree wrong!
See what I mean? My last moments on Earth and that’s all I could come up with. I am SO not poetic.
I wouldn’t want you to get the idea I was a totally bad person. I didn’t torture small animals, or go raving about our estate, scaring old ladies. I just couldn’t get psyched up about school stuff, like exams or team games, or figuring out what I was going to do when I grew up (though as it turns out, I didn’t really need to worry about that).
Shortly before I died, Miss Rowntree caught me flipping through a magazine in her class. You’d think I’d committed a major crime! “When will you realise there is more to life than makeovers, Melanie?” she yelled.
But I do, Miss Rowntree
, I do, I thought.
There’s watching MTV. Hanging out with my mates. Ooh, and flirting with boys. And most sacred of all, yahoo! SHOPPING!
I didn’t share these thoughts with my teacher, obviously. I might be a bimbo but I’m a very
polite
bimbo. Whereas Miss Rowntree showed me no respect whatsoever. “Melanie Beeby, you are just an airhead with attitude,” she snapped at me another time.
But on the last day of term, she said something so sarcastic that just thinking of it gives me the chills. “School is irrelevant to you, isn’t it, Melanie?” she said in a scornful voice. “You’re probably just killing time until you’re spotted by a talent scout and get signed up as a TV presenter.”
I nearly fell off my chair. Did Miss Rowntree have some creepy teacher’s ESP? Not even my best friends knew my secret fantasy! It was like she’d set out to humiliate me, basically telling me in front of the whole class that my sad little daydream would never come true.
I didn’t let her see she’d got to me, just did my bored shrug, and spent the rest of her lesson peeling varnish off my nails. But the minute I got home, I bawled my eyes out. First I cried all over Mum. Then Des, my step dad, came in and I had to choke out my story all over again.
“Silly old battle-axe,” Des said. “What does she know?”
“Yeah, she’s an old battle-axe,” said my five-year old sister fiercely.
Actually my teacher is depressingly glamorous But if my family wanted to picture her as a shrivelled old bat with bristles on her chin, who was I to disagree?
As it happened, Miss Rowntree’s spiteful put-down was the very last thing she said to me, because next day it was the start of the summer holidays.
I’d got an incredibly significant birthday coming up, my thirteenth, so I had some
serious
celebrating to do. My star sign is Cancer and if I say so myself, it fits me like a glove. Shy on the outside, with a squishy caramel centre, that’s me.
I sometimes wonder what I’d have done, if I’d genuinely understood I only had a few precious days left on Earth. Would I have appeared on TV, pleading with world leaders to throw down their weapons and stop all those stupid wars?
But as it turned out, my last days were just enjoyably average. And to be completely honest with you, all I cared about was that I was finally becoming a big bad teenager at last.
The day before my birthday, Des drove me and my two best mates to the local multiplex, to see a cool film with Will Smith in it, followed by a complete pig-out at Macdonalds.
My actual birthday was purely family, nice but slightly boring - you know the kind. Secretly I’d have preferred to fast-forward to the next day, when I was meeting up with my mates for a major shopping spree, but finally it was all over for another year.
When I came to bed, my little sister Jade did something really sweet. She sat up in her sleep and said, “You’re my best sister in the whole universe.”
I said, “I’m your only sister, you nutcase.”
And without ever dreaming this was my last night Earth, I fell into a deep peaceful sleep.
And all the time, like summer birds collecting telephone wires, angels were gathering around me I didn’t realise this then, but no-one is allowed to die alone. Ever.
Some people see their guardian angels, just before they leave their bodies. I didn’t see much actually. My last few seconds on Earth went something like this. One minute I’m crossing the road, humming a little tune and obsessing about all the stuff I’m going to buy with my birthday money, then - BAM it’s over! Some sad kid in a stolen car snuffed me out. Just like that.
No, I didn’t look down and see myself nee-nawing along in the ambulance. And as far as I remember, I didn’t whoosh down a long bright tunnel and have a meaningful chat with some guy robes either.
I was just - GONE.
Don’t get me wrong. That tunnel stuff could have happened. I could have blanked it out. But here’s what I do remember, OK?
I remember a hush which might have gone on for days or hours. I went a teensy bit vague about time at that point.
This hush wasn’t like a normal silence. You could hear music in it. Far-off music, which throbbed on and on without stopping, like a beautiful humming-top. It was the most blissful sound I’d ever heard. I totally had to know where it was coming from, so I floated out past glittering stars and planets, passing so close it took my breath away.
Then, without any warning, my personal soundtrack was switched back on and - BANG! I was in brilliant sunlight, walking towards a pair of swanky gates with a cool little angel logo on them.
And there, in letters so large and round that even my little sister couldn’t mistake them, was the most surprising sign I’d ever seen in my life.
A
pparently, when some people arrive on The Other Side, as my Great Nan used to call it, they take one look and go, “Oh, hello, I must have died and gone to heaven!”
But I was only thirteen. It didn’t occur to me I was dead.
What’s going on?
I panicked.
Why am I hanging around outside this snobby school?
Big snobby school, to be strictly accurate. Kids of all ages were crowding through the gates.
Hang on, Mel
, I thought.
This can’t be right. It’s the summer holidays
.
But it didn’t feel like the holidays. There was a definite first-day-of-term zing in the air. All the kids had that “Yippee! Can’t wait to see my mates!” look about them.
It was like being in a dream. The kind where you forget really crucial personal info. For instance, I totally couldn’t remember what I’d been doing just before my little trip around the galaxy (which I was rather carefully trying not to think about).
Weirdly, I could remember the tune I’d been humming; also an alarmingly big bang. Perhaps I’d been in some kind of accident, and I was badly concussed? That would explain why I felt so out of it.
I hung about uneasily as kids streamed past me in their gorgeous designer colours.
For some reason, my eyes kept going back to that little logo on the gate.
At first it struck me as just your basic logo. Like that Puma symbol, or whatever. Then I realised it was incredibly beautiful. And it wasn’t that I couldn’t stop looking - more like I didn’t want to.
As I stared, hypnotised, at this dazzling thing, the little angel figure began to grow sharper and brighter… and suddenly it was shooting out huge starry rays like a Roman Candle.
I shut my eyes fast, telling myself it was just an optical illusion. And when I opened them again, the logo was back to normal.
Boy, Melanie, that must have been some bang on the head
, I told myself.
I was starting to feel embarrassingly conspicuous, hanging around like a spare part.
It can’t hurt to have a little peek
, I thought.
I’ll just see what’s on the other side of these gates and if I don’t like it, I can come straight back out
.
I began to drift casually towards the gates with the others, hoping I didn’t look as lost and panicky as I felt.