A MILLION ANGELS Read Online Free PDF Page B

dad. I watch them flutter from my skin and fade from biro blue to a radiant flash of brilliant white wings that swoop and soar through the sky. I watch a million angels settle around him so they can guard him and keep him safe until I can find a way to bring him back home.
    I just finish linking the angels together with a string of tiny red felt-tip pen hearts when a little girl sits next to me and holds out her arm.
    â€œWant some angels too?” I ask. “For your dad?”
    â€œFor my mum,” she whispers, her eyes twinkle with tears. “She went away this morning, before I was awake.”
    â€œSame as my dad,” I say.
    I draw a million inky angels up and down her little arms and string them together with hearts.
    â€œYou have to blow them through the sky to your mum. Look,” I say, blowing the first one for her. “Watch them fly.”
    And one by one the angels flutter from her arms and soar towards the sky. The little girl swallows and opens her eyes wide.
    â€œThey’re really going to find her?” she says.
    â€œReally,” I say. “I promise. And they’re going to look after her too. They’re going to keep her safe. They’re going to bring her home.”
    I begin working my way around the dining room. I draw a million inky angels and felt-tip pen hearts up and down all the kids’ arms. Everyone wants some, except Jess. She glares at me. She swoops her plastic glittery dolphins through the air. But I won’t let her stop me. I keep going and going and other kids start drawing too until we’re a frenzied army of blue biros. A battalion of red felt-tipped pens.
    â€œYou’re all crazy,” says Jess, “if you really think pathetic biro angels are going to help. It’s not a game our dads are playing, Jemima, they’re fighting a war!”
    â€œBut maybe if we draw enough of them,” I say, “and we all keep blowing them every day, it might help. Just imagine how many of them are flying through the sky right now. There must be a trillion at least. My dad told me about this thing called collective thought. It’s a powerful thing, Jess. It’s when lots of people are thinking hard about the same thing to try to make something happen. Maybe it’s a bit like when people pray for peace and stuff and for everyone to be saved. And you don’tknow, it might just work because miracles do happen, you know.”
    Jess raises her eyebrows and laughs.
    â€œBut they’re not flying, are they?” she says, staring at our arms. “They’re just pictures, Mima. Useless biro pictures.”
    I swallow the lump in my throat, ignore her horrid words and turn back to the other kids.
    â€œDon’t listen to Jess, listen to me. You have to keep blowing them,” I say. “Every single day and I promise all our dads and mums will come home safe. Everyone will come home alive.”
    A shadow falls over my face.
    â€œJemima!” my mum shrieks, towering over me. “What on earth are you doing?”
    The shrill and tinkling laughter clatters and smashes to the ground. Everyone’s sharp eyes and dazzling lips land on me.
    â€œLook at them all,” she says, pointing to the inky octopus of arms. “It’ll take for ever to wash all that off, Jemima, and everyone has school in the morning.”
    â€œI was only trying to help,” I say. “I thought it was a lovely idea.”
    â€œIt might be a lovely idea, sweetheart,” she sighs, “but it isn’t really helping, is it? Helping is being good and getting on with things.”
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    Later, when I’m alone in bed, the wind howls around the house. Hisses through the window frames, roars through the trees. Thunder growls in the distance again. Rumbling this way.
    I creep out of bed and along the hall to Granny’s room. She’s propped up on a tower of pillows. She snores in her dreams. I slide under her cover,