‘What will happen to Charlie?’
Nesta was back home, sitting on the sofa, the cat straddled across her knee again. The question was academic, so sure was Nesta that she would not be leaving. But to talk was easier than to be silent.
Matthew had not arrived yet. Alison, from her armchair, where she sat curled up drinking tea and warming her hands against the cup as on any other cold day, said, ‘You don’t need to worry about that. I know you’ll miss her at first, but that can’t be helped. We are not permitted to take living creatures back to our own planet. Charlie will find someone else to love, honey. Cats are like that.’
Her words filled Nesta with anger. This ‘not permitted’ business made Ormingat sound even worse, if that were possible. But what she actually said to her mother was, again, academic. The anger stayed hidden.
‘How do you know?’ she asked. ‘How do you know that she won’t become a stray, rummaging among rubbish for her food?’
‘I know,’ said Alison. ‘I just know. Try to imagine that this house is a set on a stage and we are taking part in a play. The characters are real for the time the play lasts. The set is real. The cat is real. Then, when it is all over, the actors become themselves again and the stagehands clear everything away. Ormingat can manage to do that in ways that no one on Earth can ever envisage. Charlie, somehow and I know not how, will be taken care of and will continue to have all the love and comfort she has had with us.’
‘You really believe that, don’t you?’ said Nesta, trying hard to grasp what was being said. ‘That’s some faith!’
‘It’s not,’ said her mother gently. ‘It is absolute certainty.’
Nesta felt the hairs prickle on the back of her neck. I am not a child, she thought, not any more. And I don’t have to go along with everything you say. Naturally, these were thoughts she kept to herself.
‘I’d like to read those newspapers again,’ she said quite smoothly. ‘Knowing more about the boy who disappeared from Casselton General might help me.’
‘You’re not thinking of disappearing?’ said her mother with a smile as she took the newspapers from the sideboard. It was banter and rapidly taken as such. The last thing Nesta needed was to arouse suspicion.
‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a magical, mystical spaceship!’
‘Please understand, Nesta,’ said her mother more seriously, ‘the spaceship is neither magical nor mystical. It is just a wonderful piece of Ormingatrig technology.’
When Matthew came home late from the bank, he seemed subdued. For the first time in the whole business a feeling other than excited anticipation was gripping him.
‘It’ll be strange,’ he said. ‘After all these years, to be leaving everything behind. It feels almost like coming off stage after the play is over.’
Nesta shuddered.
‘How odd!’ said Alison. ‘That’s the metaphor I have just used!’
‘It’s true really,’ said Matthew. ‘We stop playing these parts and go back to being our real selves.’
Nesta got up and scattered the newspapers and the sleeping cat from her knee. This was just too much.
‘I am my real self already,’ she snapped. ‘Do you not realize that?’
Matthew put one arm round her shoulders. ‘There’s a level of real self you haven’t reached yet,’ he said. ‘Just wait and see.’
‘I’m going to my room,’ said Nesta. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I need a rest.’
‘After you’ve rested, you can pack the yellow bag with anything you want to take with you,’ said Matthew, giving her a comforting hug. ‘It’s really going to happen, you know. And you will be happy!’
Nesta glared at him. What will they do then, she thought, inject me with happiness? Put me on a course of happy pills? She grabbed Percy the pyjama case and flounced out of the room with him. She did not slam the door. That would have been too clear an indication of how she felt.
Alison watched her go and bit her lip. It was going badly. She knew it was.
Matthew smiled hopefully.
‘Looks as if she’s getting more used to the idea,’ he said. ‘Percy must be going in the packing!’
Alison did not bother to argue. She just changed the subject.
‘How was it at the bank? Did you give them any idea you might not be back?’ she said.
‘No,’ said Matthew as he warmed his hands at the fire. ‘I did my normal day’s work. What happens next is not my worry.’
In her room, Nesta emptied all of the books out of her schoolbag and put back only those she would definitely need next day.
A voice from downstairs called up, ‘Remember, you don’t need to go to school tomorrow unless you really want to.’
Nesta went to her door and called down, ‘I really want to, Dad. I told you that already. I haven’t changed my mind.’
Then she went back to her packing.
Into the schoolbag she put a clean blouse, some clean underwear, and a box of tissues. Then she added the packet of half-chocolate biscuits she had smuggled from the cupboard in the kitchen. She got her bank-book from the drawer and her cash from the box she kept it in. These she placed carefully in the inner pouch of the schoolbag. By the time she had finished there was just space left for her lunchbox, though she meant to buy a school lunch and save the sandwiches and fruit for later.
Into the yellow bag went Percy, a good space filler; two bottles of perfume still in their gift boxes; a canister of hairspray and two hairbrushes; and finally, the china pig that stood on her dressing table. She felt the weight, looked at the bulk, added a few odds and ends for good measure, and then pulled the zip around it. Now it was as ready as it ever would be for its journey into space, a journey that, Nesta knew for certain, would never happen.