Two Books in One - Ominous Love and Paradox - The Angels Are Here (22 page)

Chapter 9—Angela Oaks

Before food, Grace decided she had to deal with the incessant rain that had become her jailor. The constant rain had trapped her, and then aided her in a watery prison of self-pity.

She realized that this was not how her father would have wanted her to exist. Not at all. She had served her time with the demons in purgatory. She had to do something, had to chase the demons away, be free. There was a path out there somewhere that she was supposed to be on... she knew that. She also knew without any doubt that this was not it.

“You can do this, Grace, I know you can,” her father would have told her. “Come on, get up, try again.”

“Okay”, she said to the voice in her head with vigor.  “I can do this!”

She ran barefoot outside into the pelting rain in her pink polka-dot flannelette pajamas. She would make a change. Her father would indeed be proud of her. She sprinted through the front door and out into the yard. Then she went down, hard, tripping and falling on her hands and knees, splattering mud up over her face.

She looked up into a grey sky that loitered persistently overhead.

“Enough, stop raining!” she demanded. Then passively, “please.”

A contemptuous flash of lightening, followed by the heavy rumblings of thunder, pulsated through the angry sky in response to her plea.

The rain continued falling, flowing over her. Plastering her long fair hair to her muddy face. Rain streaked down her face and dripped endlessly off her dirty chin.

She dragged herself to her feet, hung her head down and plodded through murky puddles back into the house, defeated.

She closed the front door behind her with an angry shove, and trudged down the hallway, leaving muddy footprints in her wake. Her grand plan to create ‘change’ in her life, an undeniable failure.

By the time Grace reached her bedroom, pinpricks of sunlight flickered, then punched their way through the ominous grey clouds, scattering them in all directions like bowling pins. Then, slowly, the rain began to subside until just heavy droplets of rain fell haphazardly to the ground from the tree branches outside.

Grace peeked out of her bedroom window and marveled at the brightest rainbow she had ever seen. The luminous colors were dazzling as they arched high across the blue skyline.

“Skies from heaven Dad,” Grace said out loud as she place her hand against the window.

That is how her father would have described the phenomena to her when he observed the skies looking like this.

Grace’s lips rolled up slowly into an ever so slight smile.
Maybe dad sent the rainbow, to let me know he’s in heaven
, she thought wistfully to herself.

A sudden movement closer to earth caught Grace’s attention. She noticed Angela, her new neighbor, walking expertly along the high timber fence that separated the two yards. The girl glided effortlessly along the top of the fence, like a model on a catwalk. Then she paused, pivoted, and jumped down to land elegantly on the ground like a gymnast exiting parallel bars. She landed perfectly on the ground beside a small white dog and began walking toward Grace’s backdoor. The dog followed obediently at his master’s feet.

Grace rummaged through her drawers until she found a pair of faded denim shorts with rhinestone studs along the pockets and a bright yellow t-shirt. She dressed quickly then scraped her wet hair off her face and secured it with a large sunflower clip. She snatched up her saturated pajamas from the end of the bed, wiped the mud off her face and hands, and then tossed them onto the floor.

Her stomach growled again, reminding her that she desperately needed food. She darted to the back door and propelled it opened. Angela and the white ball of fluff stood rigidly on the doorstep—waiting to be invited in.

Grace grabbed Angela’s arm and pulled her urgently inside.

“Are you hungry, good, let’s eat,” she said to the bewildered Angela in a hurried voice, not waiting for an answer. She kept hold of Angela’s pale arm and dragged her along the hallway into the kitchen behind her. She deposited Angela down in a seat at the kitchen table as one would a rag-doll. Then hurried over to the fridge door, hauled it open and marveled at the delectable bounty. “Bonanza!” Grace shrilled throwing her arms up into the air with jubilation.

Grace had never seen so much food in the refrigerator. The shelves were literally bursting with food from neighbors. She gathered up an assortment of food and shoved loaded plates on the table in front of Angela.

“Dig in,” she said. “Are you starving too? Here, have something to eat,” she said pushing bowls of food toward Angela. The dog yapped, so Grace gave him some chicken, there was plenty to go around.

“No, I am not starving,” Angela replied promptly with wide eyes. “I eat food regularly that contains nutrients, vitamins, and minerals to prevent starvation and malnutrition.” She eyed the streaky mud on Grace’s face. “You have…” she said pointing a finger at Grace’s face. “Mud.”

Grace looked over at Angela; she was almost hidden from view by a large slice of watermelon sitting on the platter in front of her. “Yeah, it’s nothing, have something to eat.”

Angela picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and nibbled at it. Like Bambi, Grace thought to herself and smiled.

“What kind of dog is that?” Grace asked as she eyed the small dog sitting at Angela’s feet with his pink tongue dangling out.

“Champ is a West Highland Terrier, a native of Scotland and commonly known as a Westie,” Angela answered, and then continued. “The breed was used to seek and dig out foxes, badgers, rats and…”

“Okay,” Grace said interrupting her, “I got it; Champ is a West Highland Terrier, Westie for short.” Then, “I’m so hungry I reckon I could eat a rat...”

Angela raised her eyebrows. “That is hungry, but you shouldn’t. Rats carry numerous parasites and germs.”

Angela had big round innocent fawn-like eyes with long dark lashes. But instead of having brown eyes, her eyes were the most amazing shade of violet. She had thick silky hair that fell like a veil of black satin to her slender shoulders. Her oval face was ivory smooth with a suggestion of color on her cheeks. Rosy Cherub lips formed her spoken words perfectly, too perfectly. Words that you could imagine hearing from someone much older. Not from an eleven year old child.

“It’s just an expression,” Grace said. “I’m not really going to eat a rat.” But she couldn’t say the words with any kind of conviction. Had she eaten a rat before, she wondered?  She shuddered with the ghastly thoughts that suddenly flashed through her mind.

Grace stood a good head height taller than Angela. One could easily be mistaken for thinking that Angela’s elf-like build indicated a vulnerable child. However, one would be very sadly mistaken about that.

They sat eating quietly for a few moments until Grace said, “do you want to watch a movie? I’ll put one on. I’ve got lots of DVDs.”

Angela stopped chewing and frowned, not sure how she should respond to this question. Or was it a statement. Humans, so many rhetorical questions. “Is that a rhetorical question?” she asked anyway, just to clarify.

“Rhetorical question?  I’m eleven, I don’t even know what that means,” Grace said, then continued with a mouthful of food, making it hard for Angela to understand her. “Do you own a bike? I know a really cool place, if you would prefer to go for a ride?” She paused for a moment to swipe a piece of chicken off her chin then continued.

“My bike is new, the last one I had got smashed during the thunderstorm. The tree in the backyard fell on it…
Boom
!” She clapped her hands together for effect then gently persuaded a piece of meatloaf into her mouth with her thumb.

Angela, momentarily startled by Grace's sudden clap of hands, looked up from behind her apple. “A movie sounds splendid; I am not in the possession of a bike, nor do I like bikes,” she said, placing the barely eaten apple back on the table.

Grace nodded, and swallowed another piece of meatloaf. “Okay then, a movie it will be. I’ll go find one and get it started while you bring the food over.”

Grace hopped off her chair and went into the lounge room to search for a movie. She left the motionless Angela staring hesitantly at all the uneaten food still piled in front of her on the table.

Does she really want all of this food?
Angela wondered, contemplating her present predicament. She realized that she was totally unaware of just how much food this child would need to appease her evident feeling of starvation. By all accounts, her body did not look like it had been undernourished.

Grace came back to help with the food. “Come on, get a wiggle on,” she said grabbing various plates of food from the table. Angela slid off her chair and followed Grace, without the wiggle.

They placed the plates of food on the carpet in front of the television and sat cross-legged watching movies for the next three hours. They watched, listened, and learned. Angela did most of that. They ate, talked, and giggled. Grace did most of that.

Grace learned that Angela’s parents were both shift workers, so Angela was left to fend for herself most of the time. This fact didn’t seem to upset Angela as she spoke of it; in fact, she appeared to prefer her solitary existence. Angela spoke with an unexpected knowledge and confidence, and then at other times, she became distant and withdrawn, like she wasn’t in the room anymore.

Angela, Grace decided, was a little odd, almost like an old person in a young body.

“An assortment of fascinating contradictions.” That is how her father Brian would have described Angela.

Angela smiled occasionally while she watched Grace intently, learning about her. She learnt about things that made Grace happy, what made her sad. How her forehead would furrow as she wiped a tear away with the back of her hand when she spoke of her father. How much she missed him. She learnt how much food Grace could consume before she declared that she was stuffed. She took this to mean, that Grace had eaten an adequate amount of food to ward off her feelings of starvation, for now.

Grace chatted about her mother, who still cried herself to sleep each night. The ballet lessons, that she had quit going to now that her father had died. She didn’t feel like dancing anymore.

Grace thought briefly about Hope, random images of her friend fleeted through her mind. Her attention shifted, the images fled. Like a feather swept quickly away in an impetuous flurry of wind along a deserted sidewalk.

Grace focused her attention back to the present - to Angela - and talked about Parap Primary, the school they would attend in the morning. They would both walk, she had decided, because Angela didn’t own a bike.

“You’re in my class at school you know, I saw you when you came into the room and Miss Bell introduced you to the class.”

“Hmm.”

“Maybe you could sit next to me on Monday, if you want to.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s just that I don’t really have any friends, and you’re new so… maybe we could be friends, what do you think?”

“I concur,” Angela responded, and then tried a smile; it seemed like the appropriate response.

“Concur?” Grace said, squishing her face into a frown.

“Oh, yes, I mean yes, I agree, friends would be good, we will sit together.”

Angela made a mental note to try and think like an 11-year-old child. It wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing about being human was easy. Mortals, she decided, were such a complex race of beings with so many illogical inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies.

“Great, I’m so glad,” Grace said, beaming. Having a friend, she decided, would make the long school hours more bearable.

“Would you like me to paint your fingernails?”

Angela studied her nails; they appeared to be the correct color. “Yes?” she replied. More in the way of a question than an answer.

“Great, what color? I’ve got lots,” Grace said running off to her room to find her box of fingernail varnish.

Grace sat and busied herself with coloring Angela’s nails while they watched their movie. “There, what do you think?”

“Well,” Angela said hesitating, and trying not to look too mortified. “This is very colorful isn’t it?” She looked at each one of her painted nails and cuticles in turn. Each one a different color from the first. In the centre of each brightly coloured nail Grace had stuck a small round smiley face. “Not at all what I expected, but thank you… I think.”