this time it isn’t Mr. McGillies. Oh, no. This time it’s the warm, beautiful voice of Mrs. Forest.
I must be hallucinating.
I turn my sweaty head toward the warm voice, but I’m too scared and sick to say anything and my eyes are closed tight so I can’t see anything either. I’m just covered in sweat now, and shaky. My arms are about to give out and I’m going to fall … when Mrs. Forest puts her big arms around me and says, “Okay now, Gwennie, how about you just carefully let go of that chimney, and we get you safely onto the roof?”
The warmth of her body, her closeness, even the faint smell of sweet candy on her skin is awfully real for a hallucination. I turn my head into her shoulder and mumble, “M … mmm … Mrs. Forest, is that you?” just like a little kid. I unsqueeze my eyes just a little, and there she is in all her big glory. I let go of the chimney, and she lays me on the roof so gently that in my state I think for a moment that she’s an angel.
My dark angel.
“Mrs. Forest?” I pant, lying there and staring at the starlit sky. I feel so sick. My head is swirling around and I’m all sweaty. My pyjamas cling to me, even though it isn’t a boiling hot night or anything. I start shivering and shuddering.
“Yes, honey?” she says calmly. She’s digging in a backpack she must have brought along and pulls out a warm blanket, which she puts over me. I’m instantly happier. Then I hear her rummaging some more in her backpack, and I smell chamomile tea. She pours hot tea from a flask into the little plastic lid and helps me sit up to take a sip.
“Mrs. Forest, is that really y-y-you?” My teeth are chattering. This surprises me: they really do chatter, like people say.
“Yes, Gwennie, it’s me,” she answers, sitting on the roof beside me. She groans softly as she lowers her big body to the roof. Her warmth moves from her and along to me, just a little.
She seems pretty convincingly real.
“How did you get here?” I ask. After the sip of tea, I feel a little less sick and look around. We’re a long way up, on the top of my house, looking out over the whole neighbourhood. The sky is slightly pink in the east. The sun is coming.
“Mr. McGillies came to get me,” she answers matter-of-factly.
“Mr. McGillies?” I’m confused then remember that I was talking to him earlier. “Well, I mean, how did you get up here, on my roof?”
Then she says something very softly. “Look around, Gwennie. Do you see a ladder or anything? It’s five o’clock in the morning. We’re sitting on your roof. How did you get up here? How do you think I got up here?”
I swallow my tea and pull the blanket over my shoulders. I decide not to speak, because whatever I say will sound crazy and I’m tired of it. I’m still half convinced this is a dream. Maybe I’m coming down with something.
“I’m not going to tell you how I got up here, because it’ll sound crazy, but I think you know how you got up here, Mrs. Forest. Okay, no ladder then. But how are we going to get down?”
“Like I said, the same way we got up here.”
She looks straight through me with her dark, dark eyes. She isn’t smiling.
Very quietly she says, “We fly.”
EIGHTEEN
I stare back at her, stunned. I simply can’t think of a thing to say that doesn’t sound like I’m insane or stuck in a Disney movie, or perhaps both. She sounds a little crazy too, actually. I run my hand over my forehead to check for a fever.
Nope, no illness that I can detect.
“We fly down, because we’re Night Flyers, Gwen,” Mrs. Forest repeats calmly. She doesn’t stop staring at me when she says it, so I can see that she’s not kidding.
I want to say something sensible, but what comes out from behind my thick, stupid tongue is: “You are, too? Flyer? I’m a what?” Clearly, on the outside I’m not sounding terribly bright.
Things are making a bit more sense on the inside, though. I’m thinking: Oh, I see. Other girls just get to have their period. I get to have my period and start flying around the neighbourhood, too. That’s me all right. That’s just so me.
I shuffle under the blanket. I really don’t want any part of this, or any more to do with this crazy night.
Mrs. Forest is head down, rummaging in her backpack, then she pulls out a dusty, very battered-
looking book. She blows on it and dust actually flows off it into the night air toward me. I cough.
She hands it to me. “You should read this.”
It’s big, this book. It will take me forever to read, and I’m not much of a reader. The cover says Your First Flight: A Night Flyer’s Handbook. There’s an illustration of a kid on it, a little younger than me, holding hands between his parents. They look like a totally normal family walking along the street together, except they aren’t walking. They’re flying, and all three look very happy about it, like in whatever universe they inhabit, people fly around over their neighbours’ heads all the time.
I lay the book on the roof beside me. I sigh. I’m suddenly so weary I could fall asleep sitting right here. I start flying around in my room, at school, outside, and now there’s a huge book I have to read about it, too. How is that fair?
“Mrs. Forest, I just want to go to bed. How are we really going to get down?”
“I told you, Gwennie, the same way we got up here. We fly. And we got to go. It’s getting light out.” Mrs. Forest is speaking very gently, almost too quietly for me to hear. Maybe she doesn’t want me to freak out, so she’s saying it like she would to a little kid. She is gathering the flask, the blanket, the handbook, and putting everything into her backpack. She’s moving really slowly, like she doesn’t want to startle me. She shoulders the backpack and I get the message: it’s time to go.
She helps me stand up. My legs are really wobbly, but the tea made me feel a little better. As we stand up, I see Mr. McGillies way down on the ground below me. He waves up at me, then turns and trundles his cart away down the street, noisy in the quiet. I raise my hand in reply, but don’t have the strength to wave.
“What’s he doing?” I ask.
“His job,” she answers.
“His j-jobbbb?” I ask. My teeth are chattering again.
“He’s looking out for you because it’s his job. He’s a Watcher.”
“A Watcher?”
“Yes, he watches. Quiet now, child. Shh.” She is busy shifting her backpack, preoccupied.
“Mrs. Forest, why am I so cold?”
“It’s part of the First Flight, Gwen. Most people don’t go by themselves the first time, because it’s a big shock to the system. The handbook tells you what you need to know. Right now we have to get you back into your bedroom before the whole town wakes up.” She’s right — the sky is getting lighter and
