Part 20 (1/2)
”Steam Girl makes gadgets.” She rummages around in her bag, finally holding up what looks like a rusty old Swiss Army knife. Screwdrivers and pliers and mangled bits of wire stick out in all directions. There's even a tiny wooden teaspoon.
”The Mark II Multifunctional Pocket Engineering Device,” she announces triumphantly. ”One of Steam Girl's first - and best - gadgets. Got them out of many a sc.r.a.pe, like the time they were captured by troglodytes on the moon and locked in an underground zoo. . . .”
She's talking pretty fast and waving her arms in the air, and I take a step back to avoid getting stabbed by that thing in her hand.
”Steam Girl used this to pick the lock on their cage, and they managed to get back to the Martian Rose just in time,” she continues, half closing her eyes. ”As they lifted into s.p.a.ce, the troglodytes in their tunnels howled so loud that the ground s.h.i.+vered and shook and the moondust rippled like windswept waves. . . .”
”Um . . .” I don't know what to say. ”So you - uh - you made all this up, huh?”
She goes very quiet. Then she grabs the notebook out of my hands and shoves it into her bag.
”See ya,” she says, and runs off before I can reply.
I've never been what you'd call a popular kid. I'm not very smart, I'm lousy at sports, and between the oversize teeth and the woolly black hair, I'm kind of goofy looking. My mom always says I have ”hidden talents,” but I gave up looking for them a long time ago. I'm used to being on my own.
I have had friends. In fact, once upon a time I used to hang out with Amanda Anderson, the prettiest girl in school. We live on the same street, and when I was six or seven, her mother used to visit my mom for coffee. Amanda and I would play together with LEGOs and dolls and stuff like that. My parents didn't approve of gender stereotypes, so sometimes they'd buy me girls' toys. I had a pretty cool dollhouse and some Barbie accessories that Amanda adored. It was all the same to me; I'd play with anything.
But one day at school, Amanda told everyone about my Barbie dolls. You can imagine the mocking I got after that. When I told my parents what happened, they called Amanda's mother on the phone and they never came for coffee again.
I'm glad my parents stood up for me, but I kind of wish they hadn't made a scene. I mean, it's not like Amanda and I were best friends or anything; we hardly said a word to each other at school. But she was really pretty, even back then, and I guess I hoped that one day, maybe. . . . Well, you get the idea.
What's really sad and pathetic is that I still have hopes, after all these years. You know, like in movies, when the hot popular girl suddenly falls totally in love with the unpopular nerd and dumps the arrogant macho football jock? Only, in the movies the unpopular nerd is played by a good-looking film star, while in real life he's played by me.
These days Amanda goes out with Michael Carmichael, who hit p.u.b.erty three years before I did and plays ba.s.s in a hardcore band, and who once put a lit cigarette down my trousers on the way home from school. It took nearly five minutes to get the d.a.m.n thing out, and I ended up with blisters in places you don't want to know about. I don't really get why Michael's such an a.s.shole. It's like he feels personally offended when someone is ugly or stupid or clever or different. Like it makes him really angry. I almost feel sorry for him, being like that. But then he pushes past me in the hallway with Amanda Anderson on his arm and I don't feel sorry anymore.
Anyway, as I was saying, I don't really have any friends. Most of the time that's OK. At home I play a lot of online games by myself. I know a lot of people treat those games as a big social thing, with loads of chatting and friending and all that. But not me. I just go on quests and kill monsters and level up and earn gold and stuff. That's what I like about it: even a loser like me can actually achieve something, just by pus.h.i.+ng keys and putting in the hours. I wish real life were more like that.
Now and then, the loneliness is more than I can bear. So I try things like smiling at people in cla.s.s. Sometimes they smile back. And sometimes they look like they want to punch me or else throw up. And then I feel worse than ever. Once, I smiled at Amanda and she smiled back. Then after cla.s.s Michael pushed me up against the wall and told me to stop creeping out his girlfriend.
So when the new girl ambushed me at the gate, I didn't know what to think. Is she stalking me? I've never had a stalker before (obviously), but I sometimes wish I did. But in the fantasies, my stalker would be gorgeous, blonde, and crazy with l.u.s.t. Not just, y'know, crazy. . . .
Still, I have to admit, that notebook is pretty d.a.m.n cool. That night as I'm lying in bed, my mind keeps drifting back to the s.h.i.+vering moondust, the Martian Rose, and - of course - Steam Girl. Who, come to think of it, is gorgeous and blonde.
So in the morning, when I see that leather flying helmet bobbing along in a sluggish tide of hoodies and greasy hair, I find myself pus.h.i.+ng through the crowd to catch up.
”Hey,” I say as casually as I can.
She barely looks up. ”Hey.”
”How come I didn't see you before last week? Did you move here or something?”
Instead of answering, she takes hold of my arm and steers me out of the flow and into an empty alcove. I'm too surprised to speak.
”Listen,” she says, still holding my arm. ”Do you want to meet me at lunchtime?”
”Uh . . . sure. I guess.” I'm not at all sure I want to, but what else can I say?
”By the incinerator. A quarter past twelve.” She makes it sound like a mysterious secret rendezvous.
And then she lets go of my arm and disappears back into the crowd.
”Where Steam Girl comes from, even the laws of physics are different. There's a little magic in technology. Things are . . . less drab, less logical, less straightforward. Everything's a little more . . . possible.”
We're sitting on a wall behind the incinerator block. The air smells of smoke and garbage, but there's no one else around, which is a big advantage. I'm flicking through her notebook, drinking in the drawings of Steam Girl's long legs and sly smile.
”Take the Martian Rose,” she says. ”It's the greatest airs.h.i.+p ever made, with an amazing motor called the Spirodynamic Multidimensional Concentrated Steam Engine. I'm not sure exactly how it works - something about cycling steam through several dimensions at once to magnify its power. It was invented by Steam Girl's mother, who mysteriously disappeared when Steam Girl was still a baby. She was an inventor, too. . . .”
”What's this?” I say, holding up the notebook.
”Oh, that's Mars,” she says. The picture shows a fairy-tale palace, perched on the side of a huge red mountain. In the foreground are several men in armor, each riding the back of a strange giant bird. ”Skimmer birds,” she explains. ”They're not really birds; they're more like flying dinosaurs, but covered in s.h.i.+ny green-and-yellow scales that almost look like feathers. When the sun hits them, they s.h.i.+mmer and flash like a thousand colored lights. It's beautiful. . . .”
I glance up at her. She's slowly swinging her legs and staring into the distance at nothing. There's something very serious about the way she speaks.
The next drawing seems to be inside the palace. A tall, slim man with a long white beard, sitting on a throne.
”When we first arrived,” she says, ”we were taken to see King Minnimattock. The Martians were really nervous, because they'd never seen people from Earth before.”
”Who's that?” I ask, pointing at a dark-haired young woman standing beside the king.
”Oh, that's Princess Lusanna, the king's daughter. As soon as she saw Steam Girl's father, Lusanna started blus.h.i.+ng like the sunrise. Apparently, that's what Martian women do when they fall in love. . . .”
She glances at me for a moment, then looks down at her boots and continues talking.
”At first the king didn't know what to do with these strangers from another world. So he summoned the Royal Oracle, who turned up in a long black cloak, a dark hood covering her face. But when she entered the room, the oracle gave a strangled cry and fell to the floor in a faint. All the guards pointed their spears at Steam Girl and her father, and even the king drew his sword. Things looked pretty grim.”
She slides off the wall and starts pacing up and down, stretching her arms over her head.
”That's when Princess Lusanna intervened, pleading with her father to give the visitors a chance. The king hesitated. The earthlings claimed to have come in peace. What's more, it was clear that his beloved daughter had taken a powerful liking to one of them at least. But the fate of his kingdom - maybe the entire planet - could be at stake!”
By now, I've forgotten about the notebook, the incinerator smell, the stale sandwiches and warm juice at my side. I'm completely caught by her words, the sound of her voice. I watch as she strides back and forth across the dirty asphalt, lost in her story.
”Then Steam Girl had an idea. She curtsied to the king”- as she says this, she drops into a clumsy curtsy herself -”and said she had a gift for him and his lovely daughter.”
Her pacing has brought her to the side of her schoolbag. She crouches and draws out a small metal object, cupped in both hands: a tiny artificial bird, made of metal and wood, held together by miniature hinges and levers.
”Wow!” I say.
”The Clockwork Sparrow,” she says. ”Just a little trifle Steam Girl had made during the long journey from the moon to Mars. Now she held it up for the king to see, and she wound the spring-driven motor - like this. . . .”
I hold my breath as she turns a key no bigger than a baby's fingernail. There's the sound of small metallic teeth catching and grinding.
”And then she opened her hands and let go. . . .”
The Clockwork Sparrow drops like a stone, hitting the ground with a painful clatter. We both stare at it in silence. Then, just for a moment, it comes to life: rusting wings flutter, the tiny beak opens and closes, and the whole bird shuffles sideways along the asphalt. And then it lies still.
”Well, it worked better on Mars,” she says, lifting the broken metal body and turning away.
”That was . . . awesome!” I say, jumping down from the wall. ”Where did you get it? Can I see?”
But she's already put it away.