Part 20 (2/2)

”Never mind,” she says, pulling her bag over her shoulder. ”The bell's about to ring.”

”You can't stop there!” I say. ”What happened with the king? And - what's her name? - Lucy?”

I follow her all the way to E Block, but she won't say another word. And sure enough, the bell rings just as we reach the door, and I have to go to gym cla.s.s.

After that, I'm hooked. We meet up most days for lunch by the incinerator. She tells me about Steam Girl while I look at the pictures in her book. Sometimes she turns up without any lunch, so I share mine. Soon I'm bringing twice as much, just in case, and an extra bottle of orange juice, which she really likes.

The stories get longer and more complicated: voyages of discovery all over Mars, with monsters and volcanoes and narrow escapes from angry native tribes. But throughout it all, their friends.h.i.+p with King Minnimattock and Princess Lusanna grows. Sometimes the old king and his daughter would come with them on the Martian Rose, delighted at the chance to explore their home planet. And, of course, Lusanna still glowed bright red whenever Steam Girl's father was around.

Not everyone on Mars liked the newcomers. The king's son, Prince Zenn.o.bal, seemed to resent their popularity, especially after Steam Girl rejected his amorous advances with a well-placed right hook. And the Royal Oracle hid in her laboratory when they were in town. But everyone else was having too much fun to notice.

And then there are the gadgets. The Motion-Powered Wrist-Mounted Monodirectional Lantern (a tiny metal box that faintly glows if you jump up and down for long enough), the Audioscopic Motion Capture Device (a tin cup full of wood chips and wax that supposedly records sound), the Portable Kitchen (actually a beat-up old gas cooker covered in rubber tubes), and my favorite: Steam Girl's Spring-Motivated Vertical Propulsion Boots. These last ones turn up in a story involving giant bloodsucking insects who live in a deep canyon called the Mariner's Valley. Steam Girl was trapped at the bottom of a pit, listening to the buzz of the thirsty insect swarm getting closer and closer. But then, at the last moment, she reached down to flick a tiny lever on her lace-up boots and . . .

”And what?” I say as she slips into one of her long, teasing pauses, gazing up at the sky. We're sitting as usual on the low concrete wall behind the incinerator. ”Come on . . . !”

A lazy smile spreads across her face, and she slowly slips down from the wall. There are a couple of tiny metal clips on the soles of her boots. She spends a moment fiddling with these, then straightens up and grins.

”A little modification Steam Girl made to her boots back on the moon,” she says. ”Very useful on low-gravity planets like Mars. . . .”

She bends her knees and jumps. At first I think the soles of her boots have come right off - but then I realize they're still attached by thick round springs that stretch and bounce as she leaps into the air. I laugh pretty hard at that - and even harder when she lands flat on her b.u.m.

She glares at me, brus.h.i.+ng off her skirt. ”Like I said, they work better in low gravity.”

We spend a half hour mucking around with the crazy spring boots. She even gets me to try them on, though they don't really fit, and I fall over straightaway. I sc.r.a.pe my knees and get a bruise on my chin, but I'm laughing too much to care. It's the first time I hear her laugh, and I like it. She kind of giggles - but not a high-pitched girly giggle, like Amanda and her friends. It sounds almost dirty.

Anyway, in the story, Steam Girl's boots got her out of the pit to safety. And in a way, I guess they've helped me escape from the dreariness of school - at least for an hour or so, while it's just me and her and the gadgets and notebook.

But then the bell rings and we have to go back to cla.s.s and real life. And let's face it: real life sucks.

It doesn't take long for people to notice I've made a new friend.

”How's your girlfriend?” they say.

”She's not my girlfriend,” I reply, again and again. For all the good it does.

Michael Carmichael seems to find everything about her personally insulting. And apparently he blames me.

”You're disgusting,” he says, shoving me into walls and chairs and shelves and desks. ”Makes me sick.”

Even Amanda makes gagging faces when she sees us together. And once, in the hallway after English, she grabs at Steam Girl's flying helmet and tries to pull it off. I don't see what happens next, but everyone hears Amanda screaming like a scalded cat.

I ask about it over lunch, but all I get is a chilly glare and silence.

”From the noise Amanda made, I thought you'd ripped her face off,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. ”I hardly touched her. She's worse than the Shrieking Vines of Venus.”

”The shrieking what?”

And then she gives me a little smile and starts to talk, and before long I've totally forgotten about Amanda and Michael and everything else.

But the next day I don't see her in the morning, even though I get to school early and wait by the gate till the bell rings. She isn't in cla.s.s either. At lunchtime I check by the incinerator. There's no one there. So I give up and go sit in the library, where it's peaceful and private.

That's where I find her, sitting on the floor between two shelves, sniffing like a little girl.

”You OK?” I say.

She's covering the left side of her face with one hand. I kneel down beside her but don't know what to say. So instead I just sit there saying nothing while she sniffs and gulps and keeps hiding her face, till finally the bell rings and we get to our feet and go to our separate cla.s.ses without a word.

So anyway, here's what she tells me about the Shrieking Vines of Venus, the day before Michael Carmichael gave her a black eye: When Steam Girl and her father had been on Mars for a few months and had already ticked off most of the items on King Minnimattock's places-to-see list, someone had the bright idea of going to Venus. Actually, it was Prince Zenn.o.bal's idea, which should have tipped them off straightaway, but everyone was too excited to be suspicious. Steam Girl's father had always wanted to see what the mysterious green planet was like, and the king couldn't wait to travel to another world. The preparations were made at lightning speed, and within a week, the Martian Rose was on its way to Venus, with Steam Girl and her father and a handful of pa.s.sengers, including the king and the princess. Zenn.o.bal had pulled out at the last minute, much to Steam Girl's relief.

”Venus was beautiful!” she says, eyes s.h.i.+ning. ”Like the greenest, thickest, most luscious jungle you can imagine. The forest rose hundreds of feet into the thick warm air. And there were flowers everywhere: huge orange blossoms the size of a house, with pools of sweet nectar where you could swim and drink at the same time. Millions of birds and tiny playful monkeys, who chattered and giggled and danced through the trees. It was paradise. For six days they flew over that vast green ocean of leaves, landing now and then to explore under the canopy. All their worries fell away, and they felt more relaxed and happy than ever before. They strolled through endless orchards munching on all kinds of fruit, swam in fresh clean rivers, and lay in giant palm fronds, watching as sunset turned the whole sky red.

”Everything seemed peaceful. There were no giant monsters or angry natives or dangerous traps. The only slight annoyance was a particular kind of vine that gave off an earsplitting shriek whenever you came near it.”

”Aha!” I say. ”The Shrieking Vines of Venus!”

She grins. ”Luckily they were covered with bright-pink blossoms that gave off a sickly sweet scent, so they were easy enough to avoid.”

There are drawings, too, in her notebook. My favorite shows Steam Girl and the princess doubled over with laughter, pointing at a puzzled King Minnimattock. A bright-red monkey the size of a kitten has made a nest in the king's beard and is curled up, fast asleep. Behind them the jungle is a dense tumble of leaves and flowers and vines. Tiny bluebirds fly overhead.

Over the page is a very different scene: a view from the airs.h.i.+p with the jungle spread out below. A dark column of smoke rises into the sky from somewhere near the horizon. It's a disturbing picture.

When I ask about it, she stops smiling and goes quiet. I've never seen her look like that.

”Sorry,” she says at last. ”I was . . .” She trails off. ”You see, this is where it all went wrong. . . .”

”How do you mean?” I ask.

She shakes her head. ”Never mind,” she says. ”I'll tell you tomorrow.”

But the next day is when I found her crying in the library, and after that things begin to change.

Around this time, Mrs. Hendricks s.h.i.+fts the seats around so Amanda and Michael aren't sitting together. Instead, Michael ends up next to me, and Amanda gets to sit with Steam Girl. Maybe Mrs. Hendricks thinks I'll be a good influence on Michael, which shows just how much she knows.

Day after day, I stare at them. The two girls, I mean. Amanda wears tight tops that show a lot of skin. Her spine is one long, graceful curve, and when she leans back and yawns, it's like a slow-motion movie. She knows Michael is watching, so sometimes she puts on a show, with plenty of stretching and hair tossing and brief stolen glances. Of course I get to see it all, too.

Next to that, Steam Girl's flying helmet and jacket seem even sadder than usual. She hunches over her notebook, like a big, shy bear trying to hide. The only skin that shows through all the dark worn leather is an occasional glimpse of the back of her neck. It looks pale and cold.

Some nights when I lie in bed, I try to remember Amanda's latest performance - her soft slim arms, her narrow waist. . . . But after a while all I can think of is a tiny sliver of cool-white skin.

It's a whole week before she mentions Steam Girl again.

I get to the incinerator first that day. There's a fire going and thick white smoke keeps drifting into my eyes. Even the concrete seems to be sweating. When she finally shows up, I don't notice till she's right in front of me. It's like she's come out of the smoke, like she is smoke. For a moment nothing seems solid, nothing's real. Then she reaches out and puts a hand on my arm.

”Are you all right?” she says.

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