showers of the year.’
‘Shooting stars.’
‘Yeah. Well, it’s actually dust from Halley’s Comet hitting the upper atmosphere. But it’s spectacular.’
I’d never thought about the stars as being anything more than a bewildering disarray of beauty, like glitter scattered on to black sugar paper by a child. I’d never thought about the patterns they made or their size, or the fact that they were born and they died. ‘Show me another constellation.’
Ryan moved my hand across the sky, stopping at a w-shaped formation. ‘Cassiopeia.’ He traced its shape with my hand. ‘Another constellation that’s easy to find.’
I found the pattern in the stars, drawing imaginary lines between the dots.
‘And that cluster is the Pleiades.’
He pointed my finger to a small fuzzy area of the sky.
‘Just keep looking,’ he said.
I stared at the hazy shape and then it was as though the haziness disappeared and seven separate stars emerged.
‘Also known as the Seven Sisters,’ said Ryan. ‘Through a telescope or binoculars you’ll see loads more. There are more than five hundred stars in that cluster.’
I looked back and found the three stars of Orion’s Belt easily. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ryan looking at me. I turned towards him. Our faces were so close, his hand still held mine. For a couple of seconds we stayed right there, looking at each other, the stars pulsing and flickering above us.
‘Who needs astronomy club?’ I said.
Ryan laughed softly and I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face. ‘You know, when stars explode, they release their debris into the universe and this stardust forms new stars and planets and all the life forms on those planets. Everything on Earth, even you and me, is made from atoms that were once inside a star. We’re made of stardust.’ He held my gaze for another long second and then pulled me to my feet. ‘That’s enough stargazing for one night. Come on, we better get moving before you freeze to death.’
We clambered back over the fence on to the pavement and continued home. When we got to the bus stop near my house, I tried to say goodnight but Ryan would have none of it.
‘It’s very chivalrous of you to want to walk me home. But it’s fine. I’ve walked home alone from here hundreds of times.’
‘Are you embarrassed?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you want your neighbours to see me?’
‘I’m trying to save you the bother of walking out of your way.’
‘In that case, please humour me. I’d feel much better if I saw you safely home.’
The theories began again. Non-meat-eating, Kevlar-wearing, out-of-date manners. A cult of some sort, probably.
We stopped at the front gate.
‘Are you doing anything tomorrow?’ he asked.
Despite every cell in my brain and body urging me to say no, I told him about my plans to spend Sunday with Connor. ‘You could come too,’ I said. ‘I think he’d like you a lot if he got to know you.’
‘I think he’d like it a lot if I stayed away from you.’
‘You’re wrong about Connor. I’ve known him most of my life. If there was anything like that going on, I’d know.’
‘We’ll have to agree to disagree,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I’ll see you on Monday.’
He closed the gate behind me and waited until I was turning the key in the lock before disappearing into the star-studded night.
Chapter 4
Connor lived in an old fisherman’s cottage with a view over the harbour beach, a tiny two-up two-down with the world’s smallest bathroom. Despite the cramped conditions and the damp problem, Connor’s mother had made the place into one of the cosiest homes I’d ever been in. The whole house smelt like fresh bread and biscuits when I arrived and Connor’s mother was cutting up a tray of home-made shortbread.
‘Here you go,’ she said, carefully arranging the shortbread on a plate. ‘Connor’s upstairs. I’ll bring you up some tea in a sec.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Penrose,’ I said, taking the plate and heading up the stairs.
The door was wide open and Connor was sitting on his bed reading a
‘Working hard?’ I said, clearing a space on his desk for the shortbread.
‘My brain is aching.’ He tossed the comic on the floor.
Connor’s room was its usual mess. His desk was covered with textbooks, an ancient computer, a pile of overdue library books, and a collection of empty water glasses and coffee mugs. Discarded clothes were strewn across the floor and a poster of a rock band I’d never heard of hung from his bedroom wall by a single pin.
‘It’s sweet of you,’ I said, kicking his clothes into a pile so that I could find somewhere to sit on the carpet, ‘but you really shouldn’t have gone to the trouble of tidying your room.’
‘I didn’t do it for you,’ he said. ‘I did it for Megan. But she’s stood us up.’
‘She’s not coming?’
Connor chucked me one of the pillows from his bed. ‘Sit on that. She’s come down with a virus. Symptoms appear to be a raging headache, the shakes and vomiting. Not unlike a hangover from what I hear.’
I laughed. ‘Poor Megan. She never knows when to stop.’
Connor shrugged and passed me the shortbread. ‘Actually, I’m kind of glad that it’s just you and me.’
I suddenly felt very aware of the fact that we were alone. ‘You are?’
‘We almost never get to spend time with just the two of us any more.’ He smiled. ‘You know what this means?’
I stopped breathing.
‘It’s my go,’ Connor said, reaching for the Scrabble board.
The last time Megan couldn’t make our revision session, Connor and I had started a game of Scrabble that we’d never had time to finish.
Connor gave me a look. ‘Are you all right? What did you think I was going to say?’
When the door opened, and Mrs Penrose came in with a tray of tea, I realised I’d been holding my breath.
‘I’m popping over to see Nan and Grandad,’ she told Connor. ‘I’ll be back this afternoon.’ She looked around the room with disgust. ‘I suggest you clear your dirty clothes off the floor and put them in the washing machine if you want a clean school uniform tomorrow.’
Connor grunted. ‘OK, Mum.’
Mrs Penrose left and we were alone again. I poured the tea.
‘So how did you get home last night?’ He was frowning at his row of tiles.
‘Walked,’ I said.
Connor looked up from the game. ‘In the dark? It’s five miles to Penpol Cove.’
‘It wasn’t that dark in the moonlight.’
He snorted. ‘Not that dark! I bet that was Westland’s genius idea. Walking you home in the moonlight.’
‘Actually, it was my idea.’
‘Your idea!’
‘Connor, are you going to repeat everything I say?’
‘I suppose walking home in the moonlight is very romantic.’
‘In fact,’ I said, ‘Ryan thought you were the one with the romantic ideas. He said that showing me Venus was a classic move.’
Connor blushed. ‘Venus was the only light in the sky at the time.’
‘That’s what I told Ryan. I had to explain that you were my oldest friend and that there was nothing
