They were too late. Phoebe’s hand had no sooner touched the flowers than there was a hissing sound and the group of flowers nearest her hand latched onto her forearm.
‘Ow! It hurts! They’re pinching me,’ squealed Phoebe. Kate ran to help but was stopped by Celeste’s outstretched arm.
‘Don’t go near or you’ll be caught as well. Let Angelica get her out.’
Angelica approached the plant and grasped the clump of leaves at the base. There was a sucking sound as the plant immediately shrivelled away from Phoebe. As the girls watched, the plant shrank down smaller and smaller until there was nothing left on the ground but a small black seed.
‘Thanks Angelica,’ said Phoebe gratefully, rubbing at her arm. ‘Who would have thought that anything so pretty would be so nasty.’
‘That’s how they attract their prey,’ Celeste said sympathetically. ‘We all learn about them when we are little. They wouldn’t actually kill you but they can give a nasty sting.’
‘They sure do,’ said Phoebe feelingly.
‘These ones are safe to touch,’ Angelica said, pointing to a dull gold trumpet shaped flower growing on twisting vines.
‘They are not as attractive though,’ Kate pointed out. ‘What’s that?’
She pointed into the air where a winged creature as big as her little finger was hovering. ‘Is it a bird or an insect?’ she wondered aloud.
‘It’s a troclid. They pollinate the flowers. It’s no big deal, there are thousands of them around here. Come on. Phoebe ought to wash her arm or she could get a rash.’
The girls walked across to the other end of the recreation area where they flopped onto the moss. There was a cluster of spurls here, trickling down a series of rocky basins before running into a cavity in the ground. Phoebe rinsed her arm under the saltiest one, which Celeste assured her was the right thing to do for it.
‘So what have you come up with to get us home?’ demanded Kate, folding her arms and staring Angelica in the face. Angelica had avoided her queries in the past few days and had escaped to her room each night on the pretext of study. She refused to look at Kate.
‘I haven’t,’ she said bluntly.
‘You mean you haven’t tried or you haven’t found anything?’ Phoebe cried.
‘I haven’t tried because I know I can’t find anything,’ said Angelica tossing her hair back.
Kate was speechless.
‘That’s awful. That’s worse than awful. That’s downright rude,’ said Phoebe with a sob. ‘We don’t want to stay here forever. In fact, I for one don’t intend to stay here any longer. I’m going to tell your father.’
‘You can’t do that,’ howled Angelica. ‘He’ll kill me!’
‘No he won’t,’ said Celeste reasonably. ‘He will almost certainly be very angry and the Master will punish us both.’
‘And there’s another reason,’ added Angelica. ‘The Glory Walk is in another four tri-moons and I’m still trying to discover my talent. Harmonizing was a complete waste of time. I have discovered I am tone deaf as well as incompetent with machines. There are still another five talents I haven’t tried yet. One of them must be right for me. You’ll have to wait until after that. Then I promise we’ll tell my father or anyone else you want to. It won’t matter then. They don’t punish people the first revolution after their Glory Walk.’
Kate and Phoebe were not pleased with this but had no choice in the matter.
‘I think Angelica has a talent for arrogance,’ Kate whispered to Phoebe. ‘She doesn’t consider a person’s feelings at all.’
‘Well you should know,’ Phoebe pointed out. ‘She acts the same way you do.’
‘I’m not like that!’ Kate was horrified.
‘Yes you are. You’ve been horrible to me. I didn’t ask to be landed with you as a sister. I didn’t ask to share your stupid room and go to your stupid school and meet your stupid friends. And now I’m stuck here forever in a strange place with you.’ Phoebe burst into tears. ‘Go away,’ she wailed as Kate put a tentative hand on her shoulder. She turned her face down into the moss and howled.
Kate sat there stunned. Living with Angelica was no picnic and suddenly she could see what it must have been like for Phoebe. ‘I guess I have been horrible to her,’ she thought. She began to cry as well. ‘I’m sorry,’ she wept.
‘I didn’t mean it. I just want to go home,’ gasped Phoebe.
‘Yes, you did mean it. It’s okay. I really am sorry and I want to go home too. I was so angry because you already had a father and I didn’t see why you had to have mine as well.’
‘My father doesn’t even want me and that’s even worse,’ Phoebe choked. ‘He put up with me while Mum was working away but he has a new girlfriend and they’re having a baby so they couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.’
‘But I thought you were going to go and stay with him in the holidays?’ asked Kate.
‘That’s not my idea,’ said Phoebe bitterly. ‘Mum thought it was only fair for you to have some time with your Dad without me around so she arranged it. Dad is only taking me from a sense of duty. He doesn’t even like me very much. I’ve hardly seen him much since I was little. Now he treats me like some sort of unpaid housemaid. I hate it.’
Kate was appalled. ‘Have you told your Mum?’
‘What’s the use,’ said Phoebe. ‘She probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.’
‘You should tell her. If we get back, no, when we get back I’m going to tell her I want you to stay with us for the holidays so we can do stuff together, that way she can’t force you to go to your father.’
‘Thanks, Kate. I’m sorry I haven’t been friendly to you either but I was sure you hated me.’
‘Well, not hated exactly.’ Kate felt uncomfortable. ‘But I don’t now and that’s what’s important. Oh I do wish we were home!’
Kate and Phoebe clutched each other and cried. Finally their sobs turned to sniffs and they turned two rather tear-stained faces to a concerned Celeste.
‘I’ve sent Angelica home in the hoverpad to get the whirble,’ she said.
‘What for?’ Kate’s mouth dropped open in astonishment.
‘She’s going to use it for an experiment and try to send it back to your planet then retrieve it here again. That way we’ll know if she can do it safely.’
Kate blinked at the thought of the monstrous orange whirble turning up at the top of the hill in front of her astonished parents.
‘But what about the Glory Walk?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Angelica’s not that bad, you know. She is just too used to getting her own way in everything. She knows it is more important to send you back. She can have another turn at the Glory Walk next year if she really has to. We have to find another hoverpad and meet her at the transducer site.’
Kate and Phoebe still felt shaky after their bout of tears but obediently followed Celeste to the nearest hoverpad area.
‘Transducer site,’ Celeste said hesitantly.
‘Destination accepted,’ replied the metallic voice.
The girls gripped the rails and skimmed higher until they approached the hilltop above the city. The hoverpad descended and stopped to let them out, as another hoverpad carrying Angelica and the whirble arrived.
‘It’s just as well you pre-programmed this thing,’ said Angelica crossly. ‘Even so, it still hiccuped and jumped about all over the place.’
The whirble was wearing a collar studded with silver buttons. Angelica pointed the metal cylinder from her belt at it. ‘Onto the plate,’ she said firmly.
‘Whir, whir,’ went the discs and six eyes spun madly on their stalks. It’s orange hair stood on end in spikes but the creature obediently shuffled onto the centre of the receptor plate. Angelica stepped to the column at the side and began pushing buttons and turning dials.
‘We’ll have to be quick,’ she said uneasily, looking back over her shoulder at the dome behind her. It’s a real
risk doing this today. I set up a call for Jupiter to go to Apollo Base to get him out of the way and if anyone else comes out I’ll tell him or her he gave us permission. He won’t stay there long when he realises there’s no emergency, and he’s bound to be furious about being tricked. Now. I’ve put the settings into reverse and I’ll see what happens when I push the main power switch.’
‘Stop!’ thundered a voice. Phoebe and Kate clutched each other and Celeste tried to hide behind them as Jupiter strode out from an archway behind Angelica.