beer or Juiska, little pink or blue bottles of vodka and juice.
As the sun slipped below the horizon and the temperature dropped, everyone gradually drew their blankets closer to the bonfire. Connor and I were alone on our blanket, sitting as close to the fire as we dared. I was ready to go home.
‘There’s Venus,’ Connor said, staring up at an unblinking point of light in the sky.
‘How do you know that?’ I asked. ‘It just looks like a normal star to me.’
‘Do you see any other stars in the sky?’
I looked around. It wasn’t yet dark enough for the usual spread of stars.
‘Venus is the brightest object in the night sky after the moon,’ said Connor. ‘And she doesn’t flicker like the stars do. Her light is steadier.’
‘What does it look like through a telescope?’
‘She, not it,’ said Connor. ‘Venus is named after the goddess of love and beauty. Through a telescope you can see her disc shape. Right now, she’s a crescent shape.’
‘Connor!’ I heard Megan call.
I looked up and watched as Megan slurred her way over to us. She half stumbled on to the blanket and put her arm around Connor. ‘You ready to walk me home?’ Her words tumbled over themselves.
‘Yeah. It looks like you’ve had enough.’
Megan leant against his shoulder.
‘How are you getting home?’ Connor asked me.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, looking for Ryan.
‘You’re not going to let him drive you home, I hope,’ said Connor. ‘He was drinking beer earlier.’
He didn’t need to say Ryan’s name for me to know that was who he was talking about.
‘He hasn’t been drinking,’ I said.
‘I saw him with a bottle of beer.’
‘He hasn’t taken a single sip.’ I pointed to the full bottle of beer, still standing in the sand.
Connor snorted. ‘How do you know that’s the same bottle?’
‘I just do. Anyway, his sister’s going to drive us home.’
Connor pulled Megan to her feet and put an arm around her. ‘Are we still revising tomorrow or have you made plans with Westland?’
‘Of course we’re still revising tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I wish you’d stop making assumptions just because I happened to get a lift with Ryan. It’s ridiculous. Anyone would think you were jealous!’
‘I’m not jealous of him. I’m just bored with you and Megan – and every other girl within a ten mile radius of Perran – acting as though there’s a total eclipse every time Ryan Westland sits down.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Next week he’ll be old news. We’ll all go back to worshipping you.’
‘If only that was true. I’d better get Megan home. I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’
I nodded. ‘Feel better, Megan,’ I said.
‘I feel fine,’ she said, her words thick.
I watched as she stumbled along the sand, leaning hard against Connor. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought they were together. Megan had left her red blanket behind. I shook out the sand and folded it up.
‘You ready to leave?’
I turned. Ryan had crept up on me. I nodded.
‘I’ll call Cassie.’
‘Why don’t we walk home?’ I said. ‘It’s a beautiful evening.’
As soon as the words left my mouth, I realised I’d made a huge assumption. There was no
‘I’d really like that,’ he said. ‘Let’s get your bag and say our goodbyes.’
We followed the coastal path above the beach until it was too dark and then headed inland to the road that wound its way along the cliff edge to the village.
‘That’s Venus,’ I said after a while, to break the silence that had grown between us.
Ryan laughed. ‘I know. I thought you said you couldn’t identify anything in the sky except the moon.’
‘I can’t. But Connor pointed it out earlier at the beach.’
‘Venus?’ He laughed again. ‘I wonder why he chose to identify Venus, named for the goddess of love and beauty.’ He stopped and looked up. ‘He could have identified Jupiter or Sirius or Polaris. But he chose Venus.’
‘Oh, stop,’ I said through chattering teeth.
‘You’re cold,’ he said, slipping off his jacket.
‘I’m fine when we’re walking.’
He helped me into his jacket, which was much too big but warm and smelt like lemons and metal.
‘So you don’t mind wearing leather?’ I said, zipping up his jacket.
‘The jacket’s not leather.’
I ran my palms down the front of it. It was supple like leather and felt super-strong. ‘Is it plastic?’
‘It’s a synthetic material similar to Kevlar. It’s strong, but also flexible.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘Connor showed me Venus. What would you have shown me?’
I could see his smirk in the moonlight, but he didn’t make any of the obvious innuendoes, the way the boys at school would have. He looked around. We were passing the golf course that lay halfway between Perran and Penpol Cove.
‘Come here,’ he said, taking my hand. He helped me climb over the low wooden fence and we walked to a sand bunker just a few metres from the road. ‘Lie down.’
Something about the serious look on his face told me that he wasn’t about to suggest we hook up out here in the cold winter night. He lay next to me, close, but far enough away that no part of our bodies touched. Above us, the sky was a hard black, thousands of pinpricks of light shimmering.
‘You can’t really blame Connor for starting with Venus,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s the brightest object after the moon. You can also see Jupiter tonight.’ He pointed to another bright light in the sky. Like Venus, it shone steadier and brighter than the surrounding stars. ‘You need good binoculars or a telescope to see her moons. But I would start there with Orion.’
‘Why Orion?’
‘It’s easy to identify. Give me your hand.’
I held out my hand. He covered it with his and extended my index finger.
‘You’re cold,’ he said. He moved my hand across the sky, using my index finger as a pointer. ‘These three stars in a row make up Orion’s Belt. They’re easy to find and you can use them to locate lots of others stars and constellations.’ He moved my finger down slightly. ‘That’s Orion’s Sword. The hazy star in the middle is the Orion Nebula.’
‘The what?’
‘Orion Nebula. Do you see how fuzzy the middle star is?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s because it’s not a star, it’s a nebula. Where stars are born.’
‘Stars are born?’
‘They’re born, they shine for a few billion years and eventually they die.’ He moved my hand again and made the shape of a rough square. ‘These four stars also make up the constellation Orion.’ He moved my hand slowly around the square. ‘Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel and Saiph.’
Suddenly there was a pattern, a shape, among the nameless chaos of stars in the sky.
He took my hand back to Betelgeuse. ‘Betelgeuse is a red supergiant, one of the largest, most luminous stars in the sky. It’s about sixty times bigger than our sun. It’s going to die soon. It will explode into a supernova and, when it does, we’ll be able to see it on Earth. It will be like Earth has two suns.’
‘When you say
‘Soon in astronomical terms. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a million years.’
‘I won’t hold my breath.’
‘Don’t,’ he said with a laugh. ‘But there’s something else cool about Orion and you’ll only have to wait a few months. If you look towards Orion in late October, you will see the Orionids, one of the most beautiful meteor
