The Railway Angel

The Railway Angel

  Julie Day

  Copyright 2011 Julie Day

  Cover Photo courtesy of Indykb and dreamstime.com

  Cover by Joleene Naylor

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the following people:

  Dr Hilary Johnson for her many edits and copyreads of this book.

  Joleene Naylor for the great cover.

  The Railway Angel

  “Come on, you can do it!”

  The shout made me stop, and I toppled forwards, nearly falling through the cloud I was sitting on. Flippin’ ‘eck, why did they say those words? Gave me a fright.

  I looked around, up and down, but no one was around. So where had the voice come from?

  “Come on, Craig!” There it was again. It sounded like someone about my age. But I hadn’t seen anyone else since I’d arrived here.

  Then came laughing and I felt the floor beneath me ripple like someone moving a carpet under my body. I gazed down and gasped. The whiteness evaporated and blue sky took its place. Then the scene took focus and I gasped again. Down below a young boy wearing a light blue denim jacket and jeans with trainers stared at the tracks in front of him. Oh no, he wasn’t going to kill himself, was he?

  Horrified, I closed my eyes briefly. On opening them, I heard another voice, nearer. “You’ve just seen what I can see down there, haven’t you?”

  I shook my head. Slowly I turned round, not sure what or who I’d see. There behind me was a young woman, about thirty, I reckoned, smiling at me. She wore a pale pink blouse, which flowed into a long, swishing brown skirt, and a thin scarf round her neck. It was all set off by her long, blonde hair and her blue eyes that were sparkling with that smile. I was struck dumb at the sight of her. Where had she come from?

  I didn’t realise I’d asked this aloud until she said, “Sorry I startled you. I didn’t mean to. You’re probably wondering why you’re here, where this is and who I am. We can’t talk here, so why don’t we find a room to chat.” She glanced to the left then.

  Oh my, I thought, as through the whiteness I realised I was no longer on a cloud but in a building, and what I saw to the left was the shape of a door.

  As she stepped forward, the cloudy whiteness parted and the door opened. Huh? Did I just see it open on its own?

  I followed her, or was it glided as I felt I was walking on air, in to the room that appeared.

  As I entered the room, my eyes widened. I saw chairs and desks in rows. What kind of place was it that had doors opening themselves? I gulped.

  “Have a seat,” she said.

  I sat on one of the chairs near the front, and she sat on a chair facing me.

  “First thing’s first, I’m Miranda Robson, one of the staff here.”

  Staff, I mused. What was this place? A school?

  “Yes, I’m a teacher here at this new school for lost angels,” she carried on.

  “Angels?” I couldn’t help blurting out. Angels? Didn’t that mean? And then it hit me. If I was an angel then I was...

  I felt a hand on my arm and looked up to see Miranda regarding me with kind eyes.

  She said, “You’ve arrived here at the school because you were lost. I know you’re Lizzie, and I have been watching you, waiting until you got here. My role is to help and guide you to find your way to being a proper angel. To become a fully-fledged angel, you need to pass a test. And this is where I come in. I’m here to teach you as a trainee angel. You can call me your mentor, if you like. You took the first step when you saw that scene down below.”

  I nodded and said the first thing that came to mind. “Stupid kids.” I clenched my fist.

  “Let’s talk about it.”

  “About what?”

  “What we’ve just seen. As I mentioned before, to become a proper angel, you have to have a test,” Miranda said. “I know you haven’t been here that long, but after hearing what you thought about that scene I felt that you could help the people down below a lot.”

  “Really? How?”

  “OK, take a look down there and tell me what you see,” she said.

  I leaned forward and peered down.

  What I saw brought back memories, and not good ones either.

  “Lizzie?”

  “It’s a train station. Why?”

  “Because of how you got here.”

  I took a deep breath and looked down again, slowly as I felt my body tense in expectation. “Oh my God, what are they doing? Playing with their lives like that on the tracks. Don’t they realise they could get themselves killed?”

  Miranda looked at me.

  Then it hit me, like that train did. “Oh that’s what I did, didn’t I?” I said, appalled.

  “Yes, you did. Now you see why I think you can help them?”

  I nodded.

  “You want me to go down there to stop them from ending up here like me.”

  “Exactly. Do you think you can do it?”

  I nodded again. “How do I get down there?” I asked, feeling an unexpected thrill of excitement.

  “If you’re ready then sit over there with your back to the wall and relax as though you’re going to sleep.”

  I walked to where Miranda had pointed, sat down and tried to relax, letting my arms hang by my side. “You’ve got to relax,” I told myself.

  “Now, close your eyes and imagine yourself there. Good luck, Lizzie. Show me what you can do. This is your test.”

  I closed my eyes and recalled the scene I’d witnessed. Slowly I drifted away from my new world as my body loosened and I felt myself melt into the floor.

  *****

  A tannoy announcing a train shook me awake, as though it had vibrated right through my body.

  I woke up with a start, eyes dazzled, blinking to adjust to the bright light and loud noises.

  Where was I?

  Slowly the ticket booths across the way came into focus.The train station.

  It was time for my test. I was a trainee angel!

  Pushing myself up from the ground, I saw dust on my jeans but took no notice of it. There used to be a time when as soon as my clothes got dirty, they had to be washed immediately, but not now, not in my new world. More important things mattered there.

  I took a good look at myself then. Where had all the dirt gone? I was sure that when I’d met Miranda I was covered in it and my hair was a mess, all matted. Now, apart from the dust I’d just sat on, I was clean. It was as if I’d gone through a washing machine and been ironed on the way from up there to down here, my clothes now being so clean and neat.

  I made my way out of the foyer and towards the light.

  Striding out into the open, I passed rows of people on the platform, waiting for the next train to arrive.

  So many people getting on with their lives, intent on just catching their train and going to work. All interested in themselves. They weren’t important.

  I felt the vibration of an oncoming train and looking up, saw it in the distance.

  I had to find the boy, Craig, before he did anything stupid, so I kept an eye out for the blue denim.

  Then I heard a shout of, “Craig!”

  I glanced up and saw two boys on the platform opposite, waving.

  I followed the direction of their waving, then I saw him. He was at the end of the platform, so I walked to the seat shelter and watched him from a distance.

  It was almost time for the test. You can do it, I told myself. See it as a challenge.

  I saw him look down at the tracks. Oh no, he was going to do something stupid, but what?

  Then I heard, “Craig, you can do it. Come and join us.”

  The other boys
were jumping up and down, and...beckoning him across to them.

  “Come on, you can do it,” I heard one shout.

  I froze. There were those words again. Surely they were there to haunt me for ever.

  Then he stepped down on to the tracks and started to run across the other side to his mates. Oh no, I’d failed to stop him. How could I make him see what he’d done was idiotic and could have ended my way?

  But then I heard a whisper, “Oh no, he’s stopped in the middle of the tracks.”

  Glancing up, I saw that he had indeed stopped in the middle. Why?

  Then I felt myself go stiff as a plank, and somehow knew that this was what Craig was feeling. Oh my. He was struck with fear in between the tracks, with a train coming. I had to get him away from there.

  I went to move forward but my feet stayed firm, as though they were stuck to the ground. Come on, feet, I have a test to complete. One to earn some wings and a halo, hopefully.

  I felt a vibration go through me then and looked sideways. Oh heck, the train was coming. I didn’t think he’d make it to the other side in time. How could I reach him to move him?Especially as my feet wouldn’t work. I had to be facing him to do it.

  All at once I felt my body, as it was, turn floppy, like unset jelly, and I became taller as first I saw above the train, then the step bridge. Eh?

  As my head reached the bottom of the bridge, I went dizzy. Oh no, the height was affecting me. No, no, no. Then suddenly the bridge disappeared, then the platform was getting closer and closer, and...boing, ow, my body sprang back to its normal height on the platform. Great, that power wasn’t helping me. You don’t think the test would be that easy, do you? I told myself. Use your imagination.

  The train was getting nearer, so I had to do it fast.

  Maybe I could stretch across not up, I thought.

  Whoever was in charge of my powers, must’ve heard me, because I felt my body stretching again, and this time my eyes were level with the gate on the other side.

  When my head reached the middle of the tracks, next to Craig, I felt my body spring back to normal, causing me to do a roly poly on the hard ground.

  As I dusted myself off and stood up, I was facing Craig. He was staring at me, his blue eye, sparking with...fear? At me? Or at his situation? Or both?

  “Sorry about that. I’m new to this angel lark. Wasn’t meant to be greeting you like that,” I said.

  “That was some roly poly,” he said.

  “Maybe, but not a good idea on hard ground. Right, down to business. What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What’s it look like?” he retorted, his eyes darkening into a deep sea colour.

  “What it looks like to me is that you’re about to risk your life. But something must’ve stopped you cos you didn’t reach the other side.”

  “So, what’s it to you?” He put his hand on his hips. I saw his lip quiver and knew he was scared, despite his bravado.

  I bet he thinks a girl wearing jeans, T-shirt and strappy sandals, all spanking clean, must be posh or something. How wrong he was.

  “My best friend fell and died here three months ago. I was with her. She was only fifteen,” I lied.

  Had I seen him hesitate and go pale? I hoped so. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “That’s too young.” Especially for a good-looking boy like him. He probably had girls lining up to be with him. Why would he want to do something as crazy as he had just attempted to do?

  Thinking about my own family, I asked, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  He nodded. “A little brother.”

  “I bet he looks up to you.”

  Craig nodded again, making his dark floppy fringe swing from side to side. “He can be a pain at times.”

  “And you’re thinking of risking your life. What would happen if you fell like my friend? How do you think they would react?”

  He dropped his head, and his fringe fell over his eyes, so I couldn’t see them to know what he was feeling.

  “What happened to your friend? How’d she die?” he asked.

  It had to come. I blinked back the tears I felt waiting to burst out.

  Gazing up at the sky, I sensed Miranda was probably watching. Did I carry on with the lie or tell the truth? Which was more painful? Still, it was my test and I knew what I must do.

  I took a deep breath. “Actually, I lied, it wasn’t a friend...it was me.”

  Craig looked at me. “You’re...a ghost?” He ran his fingers through his floppy brown hair, his face suddenly pale.

  I was getting to him now.

  “No, I’m an angel, your guardian angel for today.”

  “You’re an angel? Where are your wings? I don’t see any.” Craig smirked.

  “That’s cos I’m only a trainee angel and I have to earn them. I have to pass a test to get them and this is where you come in.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you’re the test. I have to stop you risking your life and ending up like me.”

  “How?”

  “By telling you why I’m an angel.”

  At least I’d got him thinking. “Well, you don’t think I looked like this all the time, do you?

  One morning I had a huge row with my mum.” A shiver like an ice cube going down my back went through me at the memory. I scrunched my eyes up and brought to mind that fateful day.

  It was Craig exclaiming, “Oh, my God,” that made me open my eyes and I blinked at the image in the air. Eh? How did my memory come alive like that? No, concentrate on the boy, I told myself.

  “That was me that day. I loved my clothes and that was the problem.”

  “You were pretty, especially your eyes. A shame you had to end like you are, and make those green eyes of yours sad.”

  I wiped at the tears I felt slipping down my face.

  *****

  “I stormed out of the house, slamming the front door. I went to find my mates who were always good for a laugh.”

  I put my hand to my head to block the memory. “I took this personally, thinking everyone was against me.

  I knocked at my mates’ houses and we went for a walk and ended up at the train station, laughing and joking all the way. By the time I’d got there the row with Mum was nearly forgotten until...”

  “Until what?” Craig asked.

  “Until the girls started a dare.”

  He raised his eyes. Ah, so that was what he’d been playing at.

  “What was the dare?” he asked, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he spoke.

  “The dare was to walk along the edge of the platform and whoever managed the furthest won. I was the first to go.”

  “What happened?”

  I needed to show him again what could happen, so scrunched up my eyes and called up that memory, making me shudder as though the train was coming.

  “There you are,” Craig said, so I knew it had worked again.

  I slowly opened my eyes, afraid to see the image of myself risking my life.

  *****

  “Where do you wanna go?” Kate asked.

  “Anywhere from here,” I said.

  “Oh no, you’ve not had another row with your mum, have you?” Kate asked.

  I stayed silent.

  “I take it that’s a yes then.”

  “What was it about this time?” Marianne asked.

  “What do you think?” I replied.

  “Not clothes again? What was it this time?”

  “She wouldn’t give me money for them.”

  “Come on, let’s get you away from here and have some fun,” Kate suggested. “Ah, here’s the station. Let’s get on a train and see where we end up.”

  But as they went through the ticket barriers, collecting their tickets, Kate stopped, causing Marianne and me to bump into her.

  “On the other hand, I’ve come up with a be
tter idea. How about a game of dare?”

  “That’s for kiddies, not us,” I moaned.

  “This one isn’t.”

  I saw a gleam of mischief in Kate’s eyes. “What’s the dare then?” I said.

  “Right, you have to walk along the edge of the platform and the one who walks the furthest without swaying wins. Who wants to go first?”

  OK, so you’re not brave enough to be, I thought, but said, “I will.” Anything to take my mind off Mum’s anger. No, you’ve got to get her out of your mind when you do this.

  “OK, Lizzie, along you go.” Kate pushed me forward. “Come on, you can do it.”

  “Be a devil,” said Marianne, and she giggled.

  *****

  The scene playing out like I was watching a TV programme, I realised that Marianne by her giggling had been nervous. I hadn’t heard it then. If I had then I probably wouldn’t have gone ahead. I thought both my friends were brave enough to do it.

  I watched myself step on to the edge of the platform, then put one foot in front of the other. I tensed, knowing what was to come next.

  One minute I’d put a foot down, the next I saw myself sway.

  “What happened then?” Craig asked.

  My eyes shot open again and I breathed a sigh of relief at not having to go through the rest of that memory.

  “I had one too many distractions on my mind, teetered and fell sideways, towards the tracks, just as a train came in. The poor driver didn’t have a chance and...”

  “You were killed?” he finished for me.

  “Yes,” I croaked, tears sliding down my face.

  “What about your family?”

  “They were devastated. Mum was beside herself, even blaming herself for not giving me that money, saying if she had then it wouldn’t have happened. The family went to pieces. The funeral was the worst thing. Seeing that coffin being lowered into the ground and the family collapse in tears. Oh that coffin, it gave me the shivers when I saw it.” In more ways than one, I thought now.

  I let out a groan as I recalled what I’d seen that day.

  I knew I had to show him how his family could be affected, so scrunched my eyes up and shuddered as I brought the day of my funeral to life.

  “I’d been in limbo, floating from cloud to cloud, not sure what to do, when I heard a familiar voice moan, “Oh God, if only I’d given her the money that day, we wouldn’t have to go through this.

  “I looked down and saw my mum wearing black. It was my funeral and my mum was blaming herself for my death.”

  The image came into focus when a small voice called, “Mum, is this suitable?”