Page 26 of Out of the Blue
And then it crumbles. This isn’t a theory; it’s wishful thinking. For one thing, linking spirituality and coordinates together makes no sense whatsoever. He hasn’t considered what’smakingthe Beings fall. And anyway, even if his algorithm did work, it doesn’t take into account when or where Teacake landed, so he wouldn’t get the right result. It’s really damn weird that he came so close to hitting the spot where she fell, but then the city isn’t that big – most coincidences aren’t actually that unusual when you look at their probability. Dad’s just seeing what he wants to see. Believing what he wants to believe.
I can’t tell him that though. Not, I realize with a sharp pinch of guilt, when I’m partly to blame for the flaws in his equations.
‘That’s amazing, Dad.’ The way he grins, so happy to get my approval, you’d think I was the parent and he the child. ‘So, how are you going to catch her?’
Rani glances up at me. ‘Her?’
I feel the blood drain from my cheeks. ‘Uh, or him. I just have a feeling she’ll be a woman.’
Dad smiles at me. Not his usual distracted twitch of the lips, but a real smile. It feels like the first time he’s properly looked at me in months. I’m starting to understand why Rani puts so much effort into this Being stuff.
‘That’s funny . . . I do too.’ He pulls a notebook towards him. ‘It’s difficult. You were right in a way, Jaya, when you said no one could survive a fall that fast.’ He writes an equation that’s more letters and symbols than numbers – nothing I can understand. ‘This calculates the velocity that an item would fall from a certain height, so we can estimate the speed using a Being’s average weight,’ he says. ‘Of course, that doesn’t take into account air resistance. Though most of the Beings have had both wings broken, they seem still to be able to move them, so in reality their descent isn’t quite as fast as we’d imagine.’
‘Plus, the Being could have one functional wing,’ Rani chimes in, ‘like the one in Alaska the other day. That would slow it down even more.’
I think back to Teacake’s landing on the hill. At the time, it had felt impossibly fast; there were only a few seconds, maybe ten or eleven, between my spotting that pinkish light in the sky and the thump when she’d landed in the tree. Compared to some of the earlier Falls, though, it was practically in slow motion.
Dad pulls a detailed blueprint from his pile of papers. ‘Remember the other enthusiasts I went to meet in Perth? Well, one of them came up with the idea of using a large apparatus – a sort of giant fan, I guess – to slow down the Being’s descent. One woman’s an electrician, and another guy is a welder, so between us we have a pretty good team.’
A giant fan?That’s their big plan? These people are clearly as deluded as Dad is. ‘Right. Um, cool.’
I force a smile, and he beams back. He clearly thinks I’m finally coming around to his way of thinking, when really it’s only guilt that’s stopping me from telling him how ridiculous his plan is. Rani claps her hands like an excited seal. If she’s realized how little sense all this makes, she doesn’t show it.
‘You’re going to be famous, Dad!’
‘I don’t know about that.’ He laughs. ‘That’s not what this is about, anyway. I just really think I’m on to something here, girls. I have a feeling.’
He pulls Rani into a hug with one arm, leaving the other open for me. I go towards him, and for a moment I feel like I can’t breathe. There is only one thing in the world that my father wants – and I have her hidden downstairs, sleeping on a table and listening to Radio 4. He would hate me if he knew. He would never, ever forgive me.
SIXTEEN
‘Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire. North-westerly four or five becoming variable three or four, then southeasterly five or six later. Showers, rain later. Good, occasionally poor later.’
Teacake beams. After three days of listening to Radio 4 non-stop, she’s managed to memorize a few sentences . . . of the Shipping Forecast. She might as well have learned to reciteWar and Peacein the original Russian, for all I understand. Still, she looks so chuffed with herself, we have to give her a round of applause. She grins and snatches another biscuit, her sixth of the morning.
‘Brilliant, Teacake,’ Allie says as she stitches a feather on to her damaged wing. ‘You’ll be presentingDesert Island Discsin no time.’
Calum glowers at her. ‘Don’t encourage her, Allie.’ He sighs and flicks through the100 First Wordsbook lying open on the coffee table.
While Allie fixes Teacake’s wing, Calum and I have spent the past few days going through ESL textbooks and YouTube tutorials, trying to coax a few sentences out of Teacake. Her progress has been strange. She’ll reel off parts of songs or long paragraphs about fracking or French politicians, random things she’s heard on the radio. She’ll even parrot things we say, with a hint of a Scottish accent and everything. But when we ask her to point out things around her, like ‘sofa’ or ‘biscuit’, she responds with nothing more than a blank look.
‘How about this, Teacake?’ Calum holds up his cup of tea, a large mug with mushrooms on it. ‘Come on. You know this one.’
Teacake sighs and shuffles on the coffee table. Her wings keep twitching – not in greeting this time, but like she’s itching to get away. It reminds me of when I was wee and Mum started teaching me Tamil. Some days, if she sang a song or found a video for me to watch, I’d sit and pay attention; other days I’d just squirm in my chair until I could go and play again.
Teacake stares at the cup for a moment, as if she might find her fortune there.
‘There are warnings of gales in all areas,’ she says. ‘Except Biscay, Trafalgar and FitzRoy.’
Allie bursts out laughing. Calum grits his teeth. His patience has gone from thin to threadbare. I don’t know why he’s demanding so much of Teacake so quickly. It’s like he thought he could read her a few chapters ofEnglish for Beginnersand unlock the secrets to the universe.
‘Calm down, Calcium,’ Allie says. ‘She’s trying.’
His expression is stormy. I change the subject before another argument can break out.
‘I think we need to decide about moving Teacake,’ I say. ‘We’ve only got two days before Shona comes back. Even if we manage to fix your wing before then, we don’t know if you’ll be able to fly on it, Tea.’
This is taking longer than any of us thought. Allie was too ill to come over yesterday, and the process of attaching the feathers to Teacake’s wing is super fiddly. I thought Allie could just douse them in superglue, but instead each one has to be individually attached with surgical thread: they have to be able to bend and twist or they wouldn’t allow for forward movement. It looks beautiful – a landscape of soft browns and silvery greys, broken here and there by a dash of bullfinch red or kingfisher blue – but she’s only managed to attach half of the feathers so far. It’s going to take at least three or four more days to finish.
