‘Go, Mum, I’ll be fine. Just let me hang out and be a normal teenager, will you?’ Rosie squeezed her mum’s hand as they stood in the foyer of the hospital. ‘Honestly, you don’t need to worry about me every second of every day.’
‘But what about getting home?’
‘I’ll get the bus. I have change. Exactly the right amount, so there’s no need to worry.’ When her mother rolled her eyes at that, Rosie looked round at Daniel who was waiting for her beside the rows of blue plastic seats. ‘I know him from school. I just want to hang out.’
‘I recognise him.’
‘Yeah, the sinkhole, you know? With his dad.’
Her mum nodded. ‘You never said he was at your school, Rosie.’
‘No? Well, I’m sure I never said he wasn’t either.’ Her mum kept looking at her, as if trying to figure out if Rosie was really telling the truth or not with just her eyes. ‘I’m a big girl, Mum.’
‘You’re a sick girl, Rosie.’
‘I know. But life doesn’t stop because of it, remember? We agreed that.’
‘But you’ve got an important day tomorrow.’
Rosie rolled her eyes. Nodded. ‘Yeah, I know and I’d like to forget about it, just for a little while.’
Her mum took a deep breath. ‘You promise you won’t overdo it. That you’ll be sensible?’
Rosie held up her hand. ‘I do humbly swear to uphold the law according to my mum.’
When Daniel said hello and they introduced themselves, he noticed the girl was as pale as the pink on a rose. It made all her other features come alive. Her green eyes and black hair. Cheekbones as sharp as razors. The delicate veins in her hands were so blue they were like tiny underground streams.
She was the sort of girl he would have glanced at, but would have been too embarrassed ever to speak to.
His mouth slapped shut when he realized he had been staring and saying nothing. All the questions in his head were logjammed somehow.
Rosie laughed and nodded. ‘I know, right,’ she said. ‘I’m blown away too. It was really something in the lift. Our . . . connection?’
‘It’s called the fit,’ replied Daniel. He dug at the rubber floor with the toe of a trainer. ‘So I’m guessing you don’t know anything about it?’
Rosie shook her head.
‘I don’t know much. A bit, I guess. It lets people like you with particular gifts do more than you could before. That you plug into me somehow. But I don’t know how it works. All I can tell you is how it feels for me.’
‘And how’s that?’
‘I get a sensation in my chest, a good one. Warm and golden. Like something good is happening.’
‘Can we try it again now? Do I need to touch you first to get some kind of—’ But when Rosie took a step towards him, and held out her arm to touch his shoulder like before, Daniel stepped back, his hands closing into tiny fists.
‘Wait!’ His shout was so loud that people looked up as they passed him by. ‘We have to be careful,’ he said more quietly, ‘before we try anything.’
‘Why? Daniel, what’s the matter? Whatever we did in the lift was great. Fantastic!’
‘When I tried making the fit with someone else, things went wrong.’
‘How do you mean? Daniel, what happened?’
‘I think it can be dangerous if you push too hard. I don’t know why. Because I don’t know much about how it really works. I want to try with you, I do. Because I have to find out if we can make something very important happen, something really good. But we need to know how it works first to make sure nothing goes wrong.’
A thought bubbled into Rosie’s head almost immediately. ‘You want to help your dad, don’t you? He’s here in the hospital, right? You want to find someone to make this fit with so you can help him?’ When Daniel nodded, Rosie felt something exciting rising inside her. ‘And what about helping other people, not just your dad?’
Daniel looked at her, through all her beauty, and beneath it he saw how pale and fragile she really was. ‘You’re ill, aren’t you?’
‘Tumour.’ And Rosie tapped her head. ‘Up here. A couple of weeks before my diagnosis I started doing things, making stuff happen that ordinary people aren’t supposed to be able to do.’ She rubbed her hands because there were goosebumps all over her fingers as she remembered. ‘I know someone who might be able to help. I trust them more than anyone else in the world. They’re the only person who knows about my secret.’
As Rosie continued talking, Daniel realized he wasn’t listening to her any more. He was watching the lift doors open, letting people spill out into the foyer. Suddenly, he wanted to rush for them before they closed and take Rosie straight to his father’s bedside to see if they might be able to help him. Mason would never know, he thought. But his feet stayed stuck to the floor because there was so much he didn’t understand yet about the fit.
When Rosie touched him on the shoulder, he flinched.
‘Daniel, did you hear me? I said my gran will know what we need to do. She can help us. She’s only a bus ride away.’
‘Can you trust her?’
‘Yes, of course! She’s my gran.’ Rosie frowned as she looked at him.
Daniel watched the lift doors closing and when they clicked shut it seemed that the world had decided for him what he should do.
‘OK, let’s go and see her. I’ll tell you everything that’s happened to me since the sinkhole on the way. Then you’ll understand why I’m being so careful about who I can trust.’