As Far as the Stars

That was in Blake’s song too: how when you meet someone you were meant to meet you find out all this crazy stuff you have in common that can’t be explained away.

‘They’re not together,’ he says.

‘They’re divorced?’

‘They never got married.’

‘Oh.’

‘They separated shortly after Mum had me.’

‘Do you go to Atlanta to visit her?’ I ask.

He shakes his head.

I know I’m in a minority: the kid of parents who are still together – more than that, who love each other. And that even though Mom’s totally crazy in the way she organises every second of our lives; and even though Dad’s too much of a wuss to ever stand up to her and say No, life’s already hard enough without another one of your mad projects; and even though Jude annoys the hell out of me with her throwing away her life to be a 1950s housewife, and Blake drives me crazy in the way he thinks the whole world revolves around him – I love them more than anything. All four of them. And I know that that makes me one of the lucky ones. I’ve got a family. A proper family. The most incredible family in the world.

‘Have you called her?’ I ask. ‘Your mom? To tell her what’s going on.’ My breath is tight in my throat. ‘With the plane.’

He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t know what to say.’ He pauses. ‘It’s like too much time has passed – too much has happened. We can’t just pick up where we left off.’

I look at him and think about how he helped me get the car back, and the thought of him going back into that airport terminal on his own makes my heart sink.

‘Perhaps it would help if you saw her face to face.’

His head snaps up.

‘I could take you part of the way to Atlanta,’ I suggest. ‘I’m heading in that direction. Sort of.’

Leda jumps up and starts thumping her tail on the tarmac, like she’s totally up for taking Christopher with us.

He bites the side of his lip and looks back at the door to the arrivals lounge.

‘As soon as there’s any news, it will be all over the TV and the internet,’ I say. ‘It’s not like you’ll find out more by staying here. And you’ll go crazy waiting. Come with me – you can charge your phone in my car and I’ll drive you to Knoxville. There’ll be a bus to Atlanta from there.’

He doesn’t say anything.

‘I could do with the company,’ I say.

Leda starts licking Christopher’s arm.

‘And it looks like she wants you to come too.’

Then, very slowly, he nods. ‘If you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure.’

I shove the dresses and the suit to one side on the back seat to make room for his backpack and lift the binder from my summer internship at the Air & Space Museum off the passenger seat.

Leda jumps into the back.

And then Christopher gets in beside me.

Chapter Ten (#ulink_cc142d6f-3569-56dc-8ba1-65e675a62633)

20.45 EST 1-66

It takes us ages to get out of DC because of the traffic. When we finally do, I relax for a bit and look up at the sky. It’s dark. And now that we’ve left the city, it’s clearer; there are billions of stars. The moon. A pale, round disc in the sky. Tomorrow night, it won’t be there at all, not the night before the eclipse. Well, it will be there – it’s always there, like the stars – we just won’t see it.

I wonder what it would be like to see the eclipse from the moon; to watch a long, dark shadow slicing the earth while the rest of the world stays bright. Now that would be even more amazing than being in Oregon.

One day I’ll live somewhere where it’s so clear it’ll be like living in the sky itself. When Mom was a kid she spent her summer holidays way up in the north of Scotland, and she says that there are islands there where you can see more stars than you ever thought existed.

The warm, night air brushes against my arms and my face, cool against my eyes.

It feels good to let my body go numb, not to have to think.

The only sound comes from the engine, a low hum, the tyres clicking over ridges in the road and Leda, who keeps letting out her random yelps in her sleep.

I still don’t know where Blake is, and the news of what happened to the plane and Christopher’s dad is hanging over us like this horrible black cloud. But it feels good to have left the airport behind and to just be driving.

I look over at Christopher. After he plugged his cell into the lighter socket, he sat back and stared out of the windscreen. And he hasn’t stopped staring. Like he’s hoping that the night sky will give him an answer.

As the wind rushes past us, the smell of his skin and his clothes drifts over to me: pines needles and rainwet earth, like he lives deep in a forest somewhere.

Besides Dad and Blake and a couple of boys in my Physics class at school, I don’t really hang around guys much. Which means that, if he were here now, Blake would totally be giving me a hard time about this.

And then it comes back to me: the reason I’m in this weird situation – driving my brother’s Buick through the night with a strange guy from England – is because Blake’s missing.

Christopher hasn’t said anything since we left Dulles, which is kind of a relief; my brain’s been on overdrive ever since I got to the airport and I don’t have the energy to talk or process any more information.

So, I keep my eyes on the road, let the warm air wash over me and push the CD player into its slot.

The sound system’s the only concession Blake made to updating the car. He wants the Buick to be true to its 1970s spirit. Yeah, the car has a spirit. For Blake, everything’s got a spirit.

The CD spins and then music starts coming out, and it takes a second to sink in. The singer’s voice.

Suddenly, I can’t breathe.

My hands go numb on the steering wheel and the car starts swerving to the middle of the road.

‘Hey! Watch out!’ a voice yells beside me.

I hear Leda barking from the back seat – loud, strong barks, way louder than her usual whining.

Then I hear her scramble down into the footwell, like she does when she’s scared.

The next thing I see are headlights, huge, beaming in through the windscreen: a truck is coming towards us, head on.