PARTY THIS SATURDAY! TRY THE BEST, FORGET THE REST! Underneath the word REST it had an arrow pointing at Adam’s house and a picture of a face with its tongue out.
That weekend Adam waited in his pool for all the kids to arrive. He had sunscreen, jellybeans and soft drink arranged on the tables, and he had a mad new swimming game planned in which you swam through underwater silver rings. He heard the sounds of laughter and the scrape of bikes and scooters skidding and he leapt out excited.
He raced to his pool gate but no one was there. Then he heard Nessa scream ‘Hi everyone!’ and then a splash as someone hit the water, and his heart sank. He did his best not to look, but eventually he popped his head over the fence and saw twenty or so of them having a wonderful time. They were jumping into the deep end in pairs, holding hands; they were painting funny faces on their stomachs in zinc cream; they were rolling and swimming and diving and screaming, and in the midst of it all, with the biggest smile on her face, was Nessa. She spotted him and he ducked down but not before she had given him a wave.
The next couple of weeks were torture for him. Whenever he went for a swim in his pool Nessa would take her phone out into the backyard, talking really loudly about how much fun her pool party was, about how much better her pool was than some people’s, and about how much she loved all of her friends.
Adam had to retaliate. He put out the word that he was holding a pool party, only it was going to be different. There was going to be a flying fox from the roof of the house into the deep end of the pool. There was going to be a crazy competition where you rode your scooters on the bottom of the pool. There were going to be coloured lights, mystery prizes (bags of chocolate coins) and he might even let some of his goldfish loose in the water, just to see what they would do.
The kids of the suburb couldn’t believe it. They returned in hordes. They flew down the wire into the deep end. One kid nearly broke his wrist, it was mad! They scootered up and down in the pool, leaving the crowd laughing and watching in hysterics. He had red, yellow and green cellophane over the lights, it was like a disco! The goldfish only swam up and down a little before they were sucked into the filter, but even that made everyone cheer. Kids shook his hand and slapped him on the back, telling him they were coming back for sure, that this was definitely the best pool party ever. All through it he could see Nessa spying from her window. Once or twice she even seemed to be writing something down on a notepad.
He soon found out what she had planned. Nessa put out the word that for her next party she was hiring a pop band to play in the backyard while everyone swam – a real pop band! She would have butterfly cakes, swimming costumes with wings, capes, and superhero emblems. There was going to be a kissing competition – underwater! She had persuaded her father to put their rowboat into the pool. When kids told Adam about it their hands trembled with anticipation and their mouths fell open.
When she held her party Adam begged his parents to take him away somewhere, but they had work around the house to do, so Adam was stuck in his backyard listening to the screams of pleasure from next door. Once or twice it actually sounded like someone had fainted from too much fun. He would hear kids come into her backyard and stand there crying for a full minute or two because they thought they had died and gone to heaven. At the end of the day he couldn’t stand to hear all the kissing and hugging, the kids struggling for words to describe how awesome it all was.
Adam was beginning to feel demoralised, but somehow he knew he could come up with something even better to get the kids back. Still not sure what to do, he consulted Billy, a blonde ten-year-old who had been to every pool party so far, and asked him what he liked doing the most.
‘Well,’ said Billy, scratching his ears and giving it some serious thought, ‘lately I’ve been swimming a lot.’
‘Uh-huhh,’ said Adam.
‘But that’s getting a bit old,’ said Billy. ‘Anyway, have you heard about what Hugh is organising? Apparently his dad just put a go-kart track in his backyard – you know how big it is? He has these mad go-karts with real engines. He has helmets and everything.’
Adam looked at his feet. He didn’t know what to say.
Billy went on. ‘I heard he’s hiring a jumping castle so that you have something else to do when you’re waiting for a go. There’s going to be a fairy floss machine. I even heard there’s going to be a clown.’
Adam walked away. He didn’t want to hear any more.
Life became very, very quiet at Adam’s house. The only thing you could hear was the sound of the pool filter gurgling, and occasionally Adam diving in and out by himself.
Over at Nessa’s house there was also a deathly silence. She wandered in and out of rooms, and two or three times she was sure she heard the phone ring, but when she went to check it there were no messages from her friends.
Things continued this way. Adam would try to play Marco Polo but discovered very quickly it was impossible to play by himself. Nessa would slide down the slippery dip into the pool, but without anyone to catch her at the end it just didn’t seem the same.
One Sunday Adam was so bored that before he knew what he was doing he was knocking at Nessa’s door. After a minute or so she arrived, wearing her Ipod. Somehow she didn’t seem surprised to see him. She took off her headphones and invited him in. They made milkshakes, put on a movie and sat on the couch not even looking at each other. It was really strange.
Things got even stranger. Adam’s arm brushed against Nessa’s, and without even thinking they began to hold hands. Then Nessa said something, Adam couldn’t hear her, and when he turned to ask her to repeat herself somehow their faces met and they were kissing. When the movie finished they were still kissing.
At school they heard from other kids about how amazing Hugh’s go-kart party was - about the mad games and races and all the sweets – and they just shrugged their shoulders and smiled at each other. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter so much any more.
The Astronomical Refractor
Lisa’s hands were trembling. Watched eagerly by her family, she took a deep breath and opened her final birthday present. As the paper came off the corners, bit by bit, she knew it was okay, they had gotten her what she wanted. There it stood before her in its cardboard box, ready to be assembled.
Lisa looked at the picture on the outside of the box. There was a girl with a wide smile pointing a telescope at the sky, and up above her was a multitude of stars. The label below the picture grandly announced the telescope had a “Permanently mounted StarPointer.” Lisa didn’t know what that meant, but she liked the sound of it. Perhaps the best thing about it was the telescope was its name - the Astronomical Refractor.
Peter, her brother, helped her put it together, at least, he started to, until they got to a hard bit, the two of them started bickering and her father had to step in and take over. Lisa stood looking over her father’s shoulder, gripping his neck tightly as he read the instructions. He fiddled with the silver and black parts in their separate little plastic bags and muttered to himself. She was almost shaking with anticipation and her stomach was beginning to feel sore from waiting, but finally her father made a delicate twist on the last part, grunted, and there it stood before her fully assembled - the Astronomical Refractor.
It was, quite simply, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Its base was a tripod made up of silver, tubular legs that extended elegantly up and down. Its fulcrum was operated by a convenient black handle and swung smoothly and easily. The shaft of the telescope itself, however, was what caught your eye. Long, sleek and gun metal-grey in colour, it looked positively space-age.
Peter looked at it for a moment and then pulled out his game-boy and began playing. ‘Let me know if you spot any aliens,’ he sniggered. He made a strange beeping sound, imitating what he thought was the sound of an Martian spaceship landing, and wandered off clutching his game.
Lisa picked it up – it wasn’t as heavy as you?
??d expect – and carried it to her bedroom. She had cleared some room next to the window earlier that day, just in case her family happened to get her the telescope. She put it down, pointed it straight out the window and turned off the lights in her room. She knew the one thing you did not want when you were using a telescope at night was light pollution. The darker it was, the more clearly you could see stars and the moon.
How strange, she thought, that there was such a thing as light pollution. Of course most people didn’t notice it. They were bothered by other types of pollution – when the smog over the city grew grey and thick, or when the local river was discoloured by industrial waste – but the fact that there were loads of lights on everywhere, that it never grew absolutely pitch black at night, just didn’t register with them.
Astronomers noticed it, of course. That’s what she was, or was about to become - an astronomer. She sighed contentedly. This was the best birthday present she had ever received.
Sitting comfortably on a cushion, she put her eye to the Astronomical Refractor. The first thing she saw was a star, right at the top edge of her scope. It seemed to be pulsing with a glow of fiery energy in the blackness of the sky. She blinked and slowly swung the scope this way