‘Plus, the Being could have one functional wing,’ Rani chimes in, ‘like the one in Alaska the other day. That would slow it down even more.’
I think back to Teacake’s landing on the hill. At the time, it had felt impossibly fast; there were only a few seconds, maybe ten or eleven, between my spotting that pinkish light in the sky and the thump when she’d landed in the tree. Compared to some of the earlier Falls, though, it was practically in slow motion.
Dad pulls a detailed blueprint from his pile of papers. ‘Remember the other enthusiasts I went to meet in Perth? Well, one of them came up with the idea of using a large apparatus – a sort of giant fan, I guess – to slow down the Being’s descent. One woman’s an electrician, and another guy is a welder, so between us we have a pretty good team.’
A giant fan? That’s their big plan? These people are clearly as deluded as Dad is. ‘Right. Um, cool.’
I force a smile, and he beams back. He clearly thinks I’m finally coming around to his way of thinking, when really it’s only guilt that’s stopping me from telling him how ridiculous his plan is. Rani claps her hands like an excited seal. If she’s realized how little sense all this makes, she doesn’t show it.
‘You’re going to be famous, Dad!’
‘I don’t know about that.’ He laughs. ‘That’s not what this is about, anyway. I just really think I’m on to something here, girls. I have a feeling.’
He pulls Rani into a hug with one arm, leaving the other open for me. I go towards him, and for a moment I feel like I can’t breathe. There is only one thing in the world that my father wants – and I have her hidden downstairs, sleeping on a table and listening to Radio 4. He would hate me if he knew. He would never, ever forgive me.
SIXTEEN
‘Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire. North-westerly four or five becoming variable three or four, then southeasterly five or six later. Showers, rain later. Good, occasionally poor later.’
Teacake beams. After three days of listening to Radio 4 non-stop, she’s managed to memorize a few sentences . . . of the Shipping Forecast. She might as well have learned to recite War and Peace in the original Russian, for all I understand. Still, she looks so chuffed with herself, we have to give her a round of applause. She grins and snatches another biscuit, her sixth of the morning.
‘Brilliant, Teacake,’ Allie says as she stitches a feather on to her damaged wing. ‘You’ll be presenting Desert Island Discs in no time.’
Calum glowers at her. ‘Don’t encourage her, Allie.’ He sighs and flicks through the 100 First Words book lying open on the coffee table.
While Allie fixes Teacake’s wing, Calum and I have spent the past few days going through ESL textbooks and YouTube tutorials, trying to coax a few sentences out of Teacake. Her progress has been strange. She’ll reel off parts of songs or long paragraphs about fracking or French politicians, random things she’s heard on the radio. She’ll even parrot things we say, with a hint of a Scottish accent and everything. But when we ask her to point out things around her, like ‘sofa’ or ‘biscuit’, she responds with nothing more than a blank look.
‘How about this, Teacake?’ Calum holds up his cup of tea, a large mug with mushrooms on it. ‘Come on. You know this one.’
Teacake sighs and shuffles on the coffee table. Her wings keep twitching – not in greeting this time, but like she’s itching to get away. It reminds me of when I was wee and Mum started teaching me Tamil. Some days, if she sang a song or found a video for me to watch, I’d sit and pay attention; other days I’d just squirm in my chair until I could go and play again.
Teacake stares at the cup for a moment, as if she might find her fortune there.
‘There are warnings of gales in all areas,’ she says. ‘Except Biscay, Trafalgar and FitzRoy.’
Allie bursts out laughing. Calum grits his teeth. His patience has gone from thin to threadbare. I don’t know why he’s demanding so much of Teacake so quickly. It’s like he thought he could read her a few chapters of English for Beginners and unlock the secrets to the universe.
‘Calm down, Calcium,’ Allie says. ‘She’s trying.’
His expression is stormy. I change the subject before another argument can break out.
‘I think we need to decide about moving Teacake,’ I say. ‘We’ve only got two days before Shona comes back. Even if we manage to fix your wing before then, we don’t know if you’ll be able to fly on it, Tea.’
This is taking longer than any of us thought. Allie was too ill to come over yesterday, and the process of attaching the feathers to Teacake’s wing is super fiddly. I thought Allie could just douse them in superglue, but instead each one has to be individually attached with surgical thread: they have to be able to bend and twist or they wouldn’t allow for forward movement. It looks beautiful – a landscape of soft browns and silvery greys, broken here and there by a dash of bullfinch red or kingfisher blue – but she’s only managed to attach half of the feathers so far. It’s going to take at least three or four more days to finish.
‘You’re right,’ Allie says, her shoulders sagging. ‘Where to though?’
We throw out idea after idea, but each one has a fatal flaw. Our flat is out for obvious reasons, and Allie and Calum’s house is too small. I suggest their school, but apparently the building is used for activities during the summer holidays. Hotels are an option, but between us we’d only have enough cash for a night or two, and the staff would get suspicious if we kept coming and going.
Eventually our ideas peter out into silence, filled by the sound of the radio and the theatre group outside performing a scene from Angels in America to an audience of tourists.
After a while, the news comes on. The first item is about a Being who fell in South Africa last night: ‘Small feminine Being . . . landed in an abandoned mine near the city of Kimberley . . . quickly spotted by tourists and stripped of its feathers . . .’
Allie takes her purple notebook from her bag and writes a few notes on a new page. Teacake twists around to see what she’s doing; her wing knocks the book out of her hand, sending it flying straight into Calum’s lap. Allie throws out a hand towards it, but he’s already squinting at her handwriting.
‘What is this?’ He flicks through the pages. ‘Ksenia . . . Rayyan . . . Who are these people?’
‘Give that back.’ Allie lunges towards him, but he holds the notebook out of her reach. ‘Calum, come on!’
‘This is all just . . . names,’ he says. ‘Why are you writing down names?’
Allie pushes her hair behind her ears. The edges have turned pink. ‘Look, I know it sounds stupid, but I . . . I name all of the Beings.’
‘That’s it? That’s your big secret?’ Her brother’s face falls. ‘Well, that’s massively disappointing. Why wouldn’t you just tell us that?’
‘You’d think it was stupid,’ she says, snatching the notebook back from him. ‘Like a kid naming their cuddly toys or something.’
I hold my hand out. ‘Can I see?’
After a pause, Allie sits back down and hands it to me. Each page is dedicated to a single Being, with a first name written in bold letters and details of when and where they fell:
Cheng. Landed in Shanghai, China, on 7th December . . .
Valentina. Landed north of Rincón de Valentín, Uruguay, on 19th January . . .
Ewan. Landed in Sighthill, outside Edinburgh, on 16th March . . .
Below the date, she’s written the colour of their eyes, how tall they were, if they had birthmarks or scars, anything to distinguish them from the others. There are even a few notes about what sort of person she thinks they might have been:
Strong, athletic. Probably into team sports, if they have them. Grumpy at times, but the kind of guy who would look out for his friends no matter what.
She didn’t look scared at all as she fell. I think she must have been a soldier, something dangerous. Something that required a lot of courage.
There’s something about him that looks kind . . . nurturing, even. I can imagine him surrounded by a flock of baby Beings, helping out his neighbours and relatives.