The Citadel and the Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page B

this, it disappears. We become one. I caught myself. I didn’t want to become too sentimental. I’d not forgotten the International Space Platform and Doctor David Newton.
    “Comets are little more than clumps of dirty ice orbiting our sun, Jade,” said Doctor Newton.
    Was the Icarus 9 Comet really little more than a clump of dirty ice?
    It was later. The curtains were drawn in her room. The door was closed. Wendy and I wrestled playfully on her bed in our pyjamas. We grunted like two, playful bear cubs. When I nearly fell off, she pulled me back. Then she rolled me over easily. She kept physically fit playing netball and other sports including volleyball. I’m not the sporty type as you’ve probably gathered by now. I’m a bit of a bookworm. I found myself lying beneath her. My limbs had become entwined with hers. I couldn’t move. She held me in a vice-like grip. We must have resembled some kind of eight-limbed, alien creature that lay dormant on the bed. I was exhausted, and I submitted to her superior physical strength. My delicate nostrils filled with the smell of soap and water and a perfume that reminded me of wild woodland flowers. I knew that mischievous look in her eyes behind her long strands of untidy gold. I shivered despite myself when she delicately stroked my neck with her fingertips. I wanted to reach up and touch her beautiful face. I couldn’t. My hands were pinned beneath me. Then, she gave me one of her butterfly kisses.
    When I returned to my room later, I found a ‘million’ vid messages waiting for me on my mobile including one from a cute guy in New Jersey. I groaned inwardly. Who were all these people? They had seen my call to the International Space Platform earlier, and they all wanted to marry me or something like that. I needed this. I deleted them all including the cute guy from New Jersey.
    As I sat on my bed with my mobile in my hand, I played back my earlier vid call to the International Space Platform. I listened to Doctor Newton again.
    “Comets are little more than clumps of dirty ice
    orbiting our sun, Jade.”
    I touched the freeze control on my mobile.
    Clumps of dirty ice? Maybe many comets were, but I’d seen the giant bright spots on the thick clouds of Jupiter, andI was convinced more than ever that the Icarus 9 Comet hadn’t been a clump of dirty ice.
    Something woke me.
    It was late, perhaps past midnight, and the house was still, yet I had heard something. Or did I dream it? I turned on my bedside light and looked at my watch, which was a Christmas gift from Wendy. It was more than past midnight. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. I listened to the stillness of the house. The hairs on the back of my neck crept up to the top of my head when I heard the sound again. I hadn’t dreamt it. Cat burglars or worse, I thought, as I hid under the covers. I strained my ears, listening intently. The faint sound that crept through the walls was suddenly familiar to me. I’d heard it before. I realised what it was now. I smiled beneath the blankets. It wasn’t a cat burglar or worse.
    I put on my dressing gown as I silently crossed to the door. I hesitated. The doubt still lingered in my mind. Biting my lip, I cautiously opened my bedroom door just a fraction. I peered through the gap. I wasn’t confronted by a mad axe man outside my bedroom door needless to say.
    I stepped out onto the landing. When I looked up, I saw a light coming from the attic. I smiled suddenly. Someone was working late. I was puzzled. I decided to investigate.
    I found daddy hunched over his computer screen.
    “Cocoa?” I asked.
    He murmured without looking up.
    I returned a few minutes later with daddy’s hot cocoa made the Jade Robinson way. I normally boil over the milk first. But isn’t that the way everybody makes cocoa? I gave it to him.
    “Thanks, sweetheart.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    He sipped it gratefully.
    “You’re working very late, Daddy?” I stated the obvious. I was