17

Felix wore a white suit, the red shirt beneath unbuttoned to his navel. ‘Scarface. She rented it twice last autumn.’

‘So much nipple,’ Mae said.

‘I’ve never been more glad to be blind,’ Stella said.

Felix scowled at them. ‘The general theme in her favourite movies is that she likes her men rough and ready.’

‘Ready for what?’ Stella said.

‘Rejection,’ Mae said.

‘And so today, my friends, I’m letting it be known that I, Felix Baxter, have moved into the narcotics trade.’

Stella frowned.

‘You’re going to sell drugs?’ Mae said. ‘You don’t have drugs.’

‘I raided my mother’s medicine cabinet,’ Felix said, coughing again. ‘I might just hold the cigar, grip it between my teeth when I walk past Candice … you know, put out the vibe.’

‘That you’re an arsehole?’ Mae said.

‘That there’s a new cat in town,’ Felix said, holding the cigar away from himself and wafting the smoke with his free hand. ‘And he’s about to flood West with the good stuff.’

He opened his jacket and Mae glimpsed a couple of packets poking from the inside pocket.

‘Benadryl?’ Mae said. ‘Isn’t that for hay fever?’

‘General allergy relief,’ Stella said.

Felix took gold-rimmed sunglasses from his bag and slipped them on. ‘This is just the start. By the end of the week Sacred Heart will be drowning in white. I’m talking pure fairy powder.’

‘I hope it’s non-bio, otherwise I might need the Benadryl,’ Stella said.

As they turned onto the bay they saw a crowd. They managed to get close enough to see the graffiti on the town sign.

Bold red.

THE FOREVERS.

Mrs Abbott stared at Mae like she had red paint on her hands.

Sergeant Walters crossed the street as Mae told Felix she’d catch them up.

‘You should’ve given a statement.’ He squinted towards the bay, dark circled his eyes. ‘Might’ve been someone from out of town. You shouldn’t walk at night.’

‘Because you can’t keep us safe? When’s the Chief coming back?’

He drew breath at that, dipped his head a little and looked at the town sign. ‘This thing … the Forevers, do I need to be worried about it?’

‘You need to be worried about finding out what happened to Abi.’

He ran a thumb over his badge. ‘Every crime gets punished. I am my father’s son.’

They watched Mitch Travers, the newsagent, haul out the advertising board.

Everyone watched.

For a moment no one breathed.

‘Twenty-three days,’ Sergeant Walters said.

‘She didn’t jump.’

‘You can’t believe all that Forevers stuff.’

Mae looked him in the eye. ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us.’

At school, crowds parted for her.

Heads turned. She heard whispers, noticed girls looking down at her wrist. Teachers regarded her with cold stares. Hunter’s group openly laughed.

The class fell silent when she walked in. Mae moved down the centre aisle and took Abi’s old seat at the back.

Mr Starling began, ‘The shockwave and fireball killed every living thing in a thousand-mile radius. Chunks of rock flew back up into space, turned molten then rained back through the atmosphere and pounded the earth.’

Behind him were a series of whiteboards decorated with colour, belts, the dawn of the solar system, the channel between Mars and Jupiter.

‘Asteroid means star-like,’ he said it slow, meeting some of their eyes, trying to hold some kind of interest.

‘Every month you tell us that,’ Liam said.

To her left Mae noticed Sullivan Reed leaning over a pad, his hair forward to cover himself.

‘The difference between a comet and an asteroid. You see, comets are partially made from ice –’

‘We know all this shit. Everyone knows everything about asteroids. We’ve grown up with them. You make us take science, like we give a crap. We’re all wasting our time here. We should be getting high, or getting laid.’ Liam held up a hand for Hugo to slap.

Mr Starling turned and looked at the boards behind. He’d tracked other large asteroids and drawn detailed paths, immense pressure was shown with blue waves, acceleration in red. ‘The Torino scale rates asteroid impact risk from one to ten. Before Selena the highest rating ever given was a four. Apophis.’

‘What’s Selena then?’ Lexi asked, running a hand through her hair.

‘She’s a ten.’

‘A perfect ten,’ Candice said.

‘Just like you,’ Felix said under his breath.

‘Did you say something?’ Liam glared, then looked Felix up and down, from his black boots to the ill-fitting suit to the cigar poking from his pocket. Liam shook his head. ‘Absolute weirdo.’

‘A perfect ten,’ Mr Starling said. ‘A perfect chance of striking us with a perfect chance of catastrophic consequences. Tens are predicted to come along no more than once every hundred thousand years.’

‘I want to see her.’

They turned to the back of the class, where Sally Sweeny sat.

‘I want to look up at the sky and see her. She’s just pictures in newspapers, and graphics on a computer screen, she’s not real. If she’s going to kill me, I want to look her in the eye first.’

Sally spoke quietly but everyone listened.

Mr Starling took his glasses off. ‘Light pollution gets in the way. There’s people journeying to Chad, in central Africa. To Madagascar. They’ll see her first.’

Liam was up then, drawing laughs as he stooped himself over and waved his arms in the manner of the teacher. He affected the quiet way Mr Starling spoke. ‘More than one million asteroids have the potential to hit Earth, but only one will in our lifetime.’

Jeet Patel raised his hand.

As he began to speak, Liam continued to mock Mr Starling.

‘Shut up, Liam,’ Mr Starling shouted, the words landing like dynamite.

‘Why didn’t the two ships work?’ Jeet Patel said.

Mae tuned it out. She knew how it ended, the solar storm that took out Adam, the detail Eve sent back not nearly enough. There were other projects, an international agency was formed, Mr Starling grew animated when he talked of the Chinese effort that exploded on the launch pad. A billion-dollar failure.

‘What can we do?’ They all turned to look at Felix. ‘Tell us what we can do.’

Mr Starling smiled sadly. ‘We can put our faith in science. Or we can put our faith in God. Either way I’m afraid there’s some praying involved.’

Felix closed his eyes. ‘But –’

‘We can just live out our last days doing whatever the hell we want,’ Liam said.

‘So fatso can eat herself to death,’ Lexi said, as she turned and pouted at Sally, who gave her the finger, ‘and Mae can whore herself to death.’

‘I didn’t hear your father complaining last night,’ Mae said.

‘Lexi’s father is dead,’ Hunter said, glaring.

‘I wondered why he didn’t seem that into it.’

‘Right now I don’t want to be here,’ Liam said. And with that he stood.

There was a moment when he faced Mr Starling, and then the old teacher walked over to the door and held it open. Liam walked out, slamming into Mr Starling as he passed.

‘That’s Abi’s seat,’ Sullivan Reed said.

Mae looked at him and caught a glimpse of the page. The sketch was of a girl, she looked like Hunter Silver.

‘You drew the picture in Abi’s service book,’ Mae said.

Sullivan stood quickly. He walked with a slight limp, half dragging his right foot across the floor. She noticed a deep scratch on the side of his head as he followed Liam out the door.

‘Can we get on with the lesson now?’

Mae tracked the voice to Jeet Patel and she flinched inwardly as Hugo got to his feet.

Mr Starling tried to step between them, but not before Hugo reached over and shoved Jeet from his chair.

‘The animals are growing restless,’ Sally said. She wore her customary jeans and sweatshirt, despite the heat. ‘The Forevers. It’s like the start of the uprising or something. You know someone stuck those service sheets all over town. My mother asked me if I was a Forever this morning. Like it’s some kind of disease.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘No. But she checked my wrist anyway.’

Mae looked to the door again. ‘Did Sullivan know Abi?’

‘They took art together.’

‘That scratch on his head.’

Sally laughed through her nose. ‘His cat. He spends all lesson drawing pictures of the thing.’

Mae frowned.

‘Pussy addiction,’ Sally said, opening her bag and reaching for a chocolate bar. ‘It afflicts most boys in this school.’

‘Did someone say pussy?’ Felix said, spinning around.

‘Calm down, lamp post, we’re talking four legs and a tail.’

Mae absentmindedly ran a hand across the desk, then looked down when she felt the scratched letters, carved deep into the wood.

A heart.

The initials in it.

AM

TS

She might not have paid it mind, had Theodore Sandford’s initials not been scored out a dozen times.

The cafeteria fell silent as Mae crossed the floor.

She took a seat alone at a table at the head of the room.

She thought of Abi, what she’d found in her room, that she’d scratched Theodore out. There was an easy leap to make. They’d slept together and then Theodore had ditched her. Maybe she was depressed enough to do something drastic.

She caught glances from a group of younger girls. They took it in turns to look her way and smile.

Hunter sat at a table with Hugo, Liam, Candice and Lexi.

Her army around her.

Heads turned again, this time it was when Jack Sail walked into the room. The whispers were loud, she saw Liam fix him with a hard stare.

Hunter Silver kicked out the chair opposite her.

It played like theatre. Everyone watched. Hunter didn’t invite anyone to sit at her table.

Sail stopped by the chair, looked up at the girls who all smiled his way. Lexi teased her hair, Hunter crossed her legs, her skirt riding up her thigh.

Then he saw Mae, and walked over.

‘Can I sit?’

‘You’re about to commit social suicide.’

‘I could try, but I have a feeling someone might step in and save me.’

Mae kicked out the chair, mimicking Hunter, who seethed as he sat down. She caught the eye of Sally Sweeny, who winked at her, then turned back to her food.

‘Last night, I looked –’

‘I know.’

‘No announcement today. No voice from above,’ he said.

‘Threat of expulsion now, maybe they lost their nerve. They’re looking at the service sheets. They were printed in town but the guy swears the page wasn’t in there when they were collected.’

Felix slumped down at the end of the table. ‘I tried to attract Candice’s attention in the library. I lit the cigar and sent over a bad-boy smoke vibe.’

‘And?’

‘It triggered the fire alarm. I’m in serious shit with Mr Silver.’

‘Who’s Candice?’ Sail said.

Felix finally noticed she wasn’t sitting alone. ‘Summer boy?’

Sail extended a hand, which Felix tried to bump with his fist.

‘Candice is Felix’s –’

‘Goddess,’ Felix said, head in his hands. ‘I need a grand gesture. An overture. A way to halt my inexorable agony.’

‘Felix wants to ask Candice to the Final,’ Mae said.

‘I’ve seen the posters,’ Sail said.

‘But I have two problems,’ Felix began. ‘One of them of them is sitting next to her.’

Sail turned in his seat. ‘The one with the painful-looking cheekbones?’

‘That’s Hunter.’

‘The one with the hair?’

‘Lexi. She’s never cut it. Apparently it gives her special bitch powers.’

His eyes settled on Candice, and then Liam. ‘Steroids. It’s likely to have shrunk his –’

‘It hasn’t,’ Felix sighed. ‘He was windmilling in the showers. Pretty sure that thing could power a small town.’

‘Second problem?’ Sail cut in. ‘Because it’s clearly not style. That suit … that shirt …’ He nodded in appreciation.

‘She doesn’t know I exist. But that’s about to change. Tonight. I may need some help though.’

Sail picked an apple from his tray and bit into it.

‘Church at midnight,’ Felix said.

‘Sounds sacrificial. I’m in.’

‘How’s the drug dealing going?’ Mae said.

Felix shook his head. ‘It was going well. Miss Lock bought two paracetamol. Then Becky Lane tried to order Calpol from me. Lexi overheard so it’s only a matter of time before it gets back to Candice.’

‘So technically you’re a drug dealer,’ Mae reasoned.

Felix rolled his eyes. ‘More like a pharmacist.’ And then he clocked the tattoo on Sail’s wrist and raised an eyebrow at Mae.

‘I pledge allegiance to the fantastic Forevers,’ Sail said.

‘And yet your sleeve is down.’ Mae held her bare arm aloft.

‘Uncool by association isn’t enough. You need to shame yourself down to our level.’

With that Sail stood on his chair, then climbed onto the table.

He held Mae’s eye as he rolled up the sleeve of his jacket.

Talk died as heads craned to see the word printed on his wrist.

‘I hereby declare myself a Forever. And though there is no official leader, if you want in, you need to speak to Mae …’

‘Cassidy,’ Felix said, grinning.

‘Mae Cassidy. If you’re not with us …’

‘Okay, arsehole,’ Mae said.

Sail winked at her, then hopped down and walked out of the room, eating his apple.

‘He seems … nice,’ Felix said.

Mae shrugged.

Felix grinned.

‘What?’

‘You like him too.’

‘He’s pretty and rich and soft. And I’ve got bigger things on,’ she said.

‘Abi?’

‘I’m going to find out what happened to her.’

‘Sergeant Walters didn’t get too far, so where do we start?’

Mae glanced across the cafeteria. ‘It’s usually the boyfriend, right?’