31.
Emily watched Earth. She watched people living their ordinary lives. It was funny because the happiest people weren’t the ones with the most money or the biggest houses, the prettiest wives or the most dashing husbands, the ones with a whole line of letters after their name or the ones with flash jobs. As long as there was food on the table and peace in the neighbourhood, the happiest people are those who’d made a commitment to something, their partner, their children, their job, a place or a cause.
She’d heard her dad say once, ‘What you get out of something is what you put into it,’ and most of the time, that was what Emily saw when she looked through the Worm.
Emily hadn’t seen Zula for a long time. She wanted to look in on his life but knew what she would see. Finally, she cracked and peeked down on the Sahara. Zula was sitting on top of a sand dune with Ijju snuggled up beside him, their halos pinky-purple. Emily kicked Scruff, who had the misfortune of being the nearest kickable object, and stomped her feet as she turned a funny shade of green.
‘Emily, get a grip on yourself!’ boomed Castor’s voice, brimming with humour.
‘Shut up,’ she shouted, throwing her mug at the ground and smashing it into a thousand yellow shards.
It was always fun to watch Petra. Her life was full of misadventures but things always seemed to work out okay in the end. Petra and her travelling companions were an odd group: a red haired twelve year old girl, an owl, a lion, a Suez dog and a cagoon. When they got to built-up areas they pretended to be a circus act, and if they need money they did an impromptu street circus. Petra always wore her quiver with the folding bow and arrows and using it and her throwing knives put food in their mouths and kept trouble at bay.
In a zigzag, roundabout way, Petra’s travels slowly led her back to Europe. Travelling was difficult because Ariella had turned Europe into a police state and banned all unnecessary travel. There were frequent security checkpoints on the roads. Petra was cunning, her documents and looks changed daily and she was charming and persuasive with the policemen and soldiers.
Like Theo, Petra’s halo glowed golden white.
Emily tried to point the Worm at a mirror to see what colour her halo was but it never quite worked. She guessed it was deep jealous green!
Zeus was on a health kick. Bacon and eggs were out, toast with lashings of butter and thickly spread marmalade were a no-no, pancakes and waffles were off the menu. Breakfast was a grapefruit and an icy dip in the sea, followed by a brisk walk to get the circulation going, then a fresh yogurt.
No bad, not bad at all, but Emily did miss her bacon and eggs.
They were just finishing off their yogurt, silky smooth with spirals of honey in it, when Zeus said, ‘Daisy, we must visit Daisy and see how she is going. It’s been ages since we saw her.’
Panarea had changed. While there were still patches of long meadow grass waving in the breeze, most of the surface of the little asteroid was covered with houses and trees, and fields of swaying corn. There were chickens and goats, dogs and cats, and footballers and their families.
As they walked around, the sentry slug, Aeolia, gave them the low down.
‘Last year a plane carrying the Brazilian football team conveniently crashed in to the Andes.
‘I gave them the option of bringing their families up,’ he said. ‘I meant just wives and kids, but in Brazil, family has a different meaning. It extends to grandparents and cousins, the postman and the milkman. It’s wonderful.
‘We’ve been picking up other footballers too, the ones who have crashed their Ferraris or whose heads have exploded from too much ego, so now we have two teams. They play each other every Tuesday night and each team has a weekly game against a zinode team, so there are matches on Friday and Saturday evenings as well.
‘It’s hugely popular, there’s no stadium, just a pitch and everyone stands around the side-lines and yells and cheers. The slimeballs haven’t noticed us yet; long may that last!’
They stopped at a roadside stand and had spit-roasted guinea pig with chips, washing it down with coco-cola in glass bottles.
‘Delicious,’ said Zeus, wiping his mouth with his cloak.
‘And healthy too!’ added Emily.
They walked around looking for Daisy. Emily had never been to Brazil, hadn’t even visited it with the Worm, but Panarea was just as she imagined it; colourful shacks for houses; little bars and roadside stands; music and people, lots of people, lots of life. Everyone was very friendly, but as she didn’t speak a word of Portuguese, Emily just smiled at everyone and kicked back any footballs that came her way. The climate on Panarea had changed, like someone had tweaked up the thermostat a bit. It had become tropical; the air was heavy with humidity and the scent of frangipani. There were groves of papayas and bananas and old ladies sat in the shade of bright red flamboyant trees selling sweet, juicy mangoes.
Daisy was still standing under her tree. Her mountain of poo was replaced by a soccer goal. Daisy had changed too. Not only was she looking content but was barely recognisable, painted yellow with green ears and tail, and sporting a big blue number 11 on her flank.
While she chewed the cud, a couple of football players practiced their penalty shots at goal. Daisy saved them all, casually sticking out a left back foot out to send the ball flying back at the kicker, flicking her tail to deflect a ball over the crossbar or turning her head to trap the ball with her golden horns.
She looked at Zeus and Emily and gave a contented, Moooooooo.